And those damn infernal combustion engines, they put out CO through the exahust pipe...if that leaks, it might put you to sleep and you'd wake up dead.



I've never heard of any one having that bad of a leak in their CO2 systems.

CO2 is takes up space normally needed for 02, but isn't really poisonous like CO is...so you suffocate, which takes some time.

Normal air is about 21% O2, and you can stay awake above 16% for most people.

To add 5% CO2 to the total air in the truck interior, you'd need to add a total of about 5 cf of CO2, about one big tire's worth...and to maintain it there against the flushing effect of the normal ventilation present...which is approximately 5-20 cfm.

A leak would therefore need to be in the order of 5-20 cfm to reach that threshold.

I think most CO2 tanks take about 30 seconds to fill about half the volume of that size tire, so a flow rate of about 5-10 cfm might be about right. (Probably published rates somewhere...but for this example, as long as that's a minimum flow rate, we'll use it...)

So, if the windows were closed and the HVAC set to recirculate, the CO2 tank should theoretically be able to flow enough CO2 into the cabin to be a problem.

Of course, when the tank is leaking at that rate, its the same rate that you fill a tire with or more, and will make a proprtional amount of noise (A warning property).

So - a slow leak would be unlikely to cause harm, and a fast enough leak to cause harm would merely weed out those of us who listen to the stereo too loudly.