How much does it cost to breathe?

How much does it cost to breathe?

Turns out, it's not too expensive. Oxygen can be made entirely artificially by electrolyzing water. So most of the cost is the electricity to do so. Factoring in additional costs of water and maintenance, it costs approximately 45-50 cents per day to breathe.

[rofljohn]

Ssshhh, don’t give Nestle any ideas! 🤫

[henryisnotafraid]

Up is down, Black is white, cats living with dogs, It's total pandemonium and nurdrage is making shorts!!! I'm here for it!

[Lft]

Please don’t give them any ideas. We can barely afford to eat and drink. Once they monetize breathing it’s over…

[Kineth]

Don't forget to factor in that oxygen will no longer be available for fossil-fuel reactions to make electricity, so that price will go up!

[boelwerkr]

That calculation is incomplete. The removal of CO2 out of the atmosphere is really important. Our bodies can't get rid of CO2 in our Cells if the concentration in the atmosphere is to high.
We have to combine the Hydrogen with CO2 to create water and carbon to create a complete cycle. And we then have to create food from the carbon...

[CalaGemLily]

A permanent magnet in water by itself can dissociate deoxidise water. Adding positive charge to the magnet and negative ground to the water increases dramatically.

[aidencurrah]

2.8KWh is 10.08MJ, given that a kilocalorie is only 0.004184MJ we get a substantial amount of our energy from just breathing.

[clintpmk]

I got so excited when I saw the was like holy is showing his face. Smh. I should've known better. Lol

[frankmagyar]

Doesn’t take into account storage, distribution, and PPE costs which would be massive

[jkazos]

Except the cost of all this would become astronomical almost immediately because of everyone needing it all at once, with having to build out factories, staff them and power them, and the total water supply for that many people, in addition to the costs for producing that much electricity on top of our existing usage. You can't just multiply these numbers by the population count of the planet to get the entire cost of the system.

[OzkAltBldgCo-bvtt]

Does using electric to tarnish Platinum Palladium and rhodium differ from the tarnish of silver? I guess what I'm asking is do they produce their own colors differently than silver?

[ispamalot]

I asked a physicist for a quote on this a while back but he wanted to charge multiple trillions.

[noelomaolchraoibhe]

Love me some NR (and I get this is lighthearted) but the model is poorly parameterized: basing the electrolysis cost on current electricity rates underestimates the cost by orders-of magnitude! Oh, and while we're at it, I'm gonna be charging those pesky plants for my "CO2 production services' ro offset my O2 budget.

[ThePeterDislikeShow]

Don't forget the electricity and your labware probably took oxygen to produce in the first place!

[joeylawn]

There's a theory that while we need oxygen to live minute to minute, it eventually leads us to our ultimate demise. After all, (I think) Oxygen is the 2nd most reactive element after Fluorine....

[megodzillaudeadable]

What about all the Nitrogen, Argon, Carbon Dioxide, etc?

[ronishbarakoti]

It is possible to mix chemicals to create a white glowing chemical that lasts for a month ?

[Lunch_box]

What about the nitrogen, an all oxygen environment isnt what we breath, that nitrogen must cost something as well right?

[James-twvy]

I can see a future where nature is charging us for every breath of air we breathe 😂

[AnonymousAnarchist]

So I had to look it up. with average consumer home solar panels it would take two panels to reliably generate the oxygen at home from water based on your numbers.

But am I missing something?
the absolute minimum energy ti seperate out 1 kg of oxygen should be approx 4.9, assuming absolutly zero losses.
4.9×.084 should be 4.1 kwh then divide by our current effeciency at 70% to get 6 kwh. (the only cited source I found having 70% for a process called PEM? sounds intresting. and no I didnt look at the citation this is round cow mathmatics)

Now I know that 70% is actually pretty darn good for energy storage and transportation and some (un-cited) sources came up with 80-95% efficiencies, and maybe we shouldnt complain so much about swotching over. and thats a diffrent discussion entierly.

But back on track this really all feels like a me issue, like I have misplaced an unit somewhere.