Abstract: | Carbon dioxide builds up in the eartht's atmosphere principally from increased use of fossil fuels. Estimates of the escalating uses of fossil fuels in the United States, especially for the generation of electric power and in the internal combustion engine, show that by the year 2000 emissions will have increased approximately eighteenfold from 1890. In the period 1965 to 1985 an emission-rate increase of around 4.0 percent per year compounded is expected. The expected intrusion and expansion of nuclear power will tend to lower the rates of increase of emission after 1985. Increases in emission rates in the rest of the world will probably equal or exceed the values projected for the United States. |