Question 1: How recent does a source references need to be ? At what date does a source (data or scientific report) become outdated and not valid to use as a reliable reference of energy calculation or assumptions? Would you consider resources published in the last 2 years, 5 years, 10 – in the case where we could not find anything more recent.
Question 2: With regards to the format and layout of the report how should we best present and structure our calculations and thoughts, chronologically from the first month to the last or organise our calculations and findings by category living, transport, …?
Question 3: for the formulation of “We do not expect you to include or comment on CO2 emissions related to any hobbies that you may follow,” I am not sure to understand this sentence well. Does it mean we can include hobbies, or that it is strictly forbidden ? I understand it is easy to get lost in this matter, but some of my hobbies might have a big impact in my carbon footprint, in addition to elementary categories like equipment, food and housing.
Question 4: I am currently listing all the categories and carbon dioxide expenditure I had during this year, and it appeared my family built a house I designed. It is a wooden structured house with local hemp and flax insulation and the foundations were taken from a previous existing house. I have not done precise calculations yet, but it appears the house is actually storing carbon dioxide thanks to locally grown wood and local vegetal insulation. I believe it could be interesting to see how this building balances my carbon footprint over a 50 years time, divided by all its users. But are you more interested in personal carbon expenditure only, or personal carbon footprint with inputs and outputs ?
Question 5: I understand this coursework is about personal carbon footprint, but in a related matter about energy as well. In my home place where I lived since February 2020 to last Monday, we use wood as a main source of heating. This wood is really sustainable as it comes from trees in the near wood which felt during winter storms (1.5m3/year). As a result, there is a net 0kg of CO2 expenditure, but still, energy has been used to heat my family members and me. I have the same concern for ⅓ (winter) to 3/4 (summer) of my food, as my retired grand parents have farms and cultivate with their hands, so no carbon emissions related to agricultural production. Can you confirm I should include this energy interactions in the paper and state it is equal to 0kg of CO2 rather than just skipping it because it is equal to 0 ?
Question 6: For Coursework 1, is that possible to simply refer to the energy consumption data from the Internet to calculate the CO2 emissions generated by personal home / work / transport / diet?
Question 7: Just to clarify on this question – would it be wrong to find a value for carbon emissions of a house similar to the one we live in and use that value for our carbon footprint? Or do we need to calculate a value for carbon emissions ourselves?
Also, would you recommend calculating energy use first then converting this into carbon emissions or just finding a value for carbon emissions directly?
Question 8: Good afternoon! could I use the formula which is” Carbon emissions = activity data × emission factor ” to calculate the carbon footprint?
Question 9: I’m a little bit uncertain as to how much detail we need to go into for our primary sources of energy. My issue is that Malta has changed their primary source of energy in the last 5 years. Due to the fact that we are such a small nation, we have several energy sources that have allowed us to close down our previous less efficient power plants and rely on alternative sources of energy. From what I’ve understood, we moved from relying solely on burning imported oil, to using LNG tanks, solar energy and an interconnector that allows us to buy electricity from Sicily. While trying to discern what kind of conversion factor to use, I’ve come across a factor that is used as an approximation for ‘mixed sources’ which is sometimes used for Malta. However this carbon conversion factor is quite high (0.76) especially considering the fact that the Maltese government has a scheme to help households install solar panels which would generate enough electricity to supply the house and allow the household to sell extra units to the national grid. Despite this high carbon conversion factor, it is only a small part of our total carbon footprint, and I have more reliable sources for the rest of my categories (travelling, general diet etc so it won’t mess up my entire coursework) Would this info be enough for the coursework or do I need to differentiate between the primary energy sources? My main concern is using the wrong carbon conversion factor.
Question 10: For Coursework 1, is that possible to simply refer to the energy consumption data from the Internet to calculate the CO2 emissions generated by personal home / work / transport / diet?