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What are the pros and cons of using carbon dioxide in tyres? (continued)

Tom Lawrence
Athens, Georgia, US

The use of carbon dioxide in tyres is an interesting question on the potential to sequester carbon in a product that will stay out of the global vapour environment.

For any rubber produced using natural trees as the source, we must consider the production process and its impact on the environment. Assuming the rubber trees are left in place, the overall impact won’t be that large, but still somewhat negative in terms of carbon emissions due to harvesting, etc. But the carbon sequestered into producing that rubber will be taken out of the atmosphere and introduced in solid form for many years.

We must also really consider the chemical process that produces synthetic rubber for tyres. The one I am most familiar with starts with the production of acetylene gas from limestone and then a chemical change to produce synthetic butyl rubber. In that process, there is (I believe) a kilogram-per-kilogram based release of CO₂ emissions per mass of rubber product produced.

Does the question focus on the overall life-cycle carbon impact of producing tyres? That would include the carbon sequestration of the trees that produce the rubber, as well as the carbon released in the production of synthetic rubber. CO₂ that is introduced in either of these processes will probably get eventually released into the atmosphere as fugitive emissions.

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