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First, that 65 MPG number is not in imperial gallons, it's in US gallons (although it's rounded to the nearest 5.) The car is rated for 61.3 miles per Imperial gallon urban (or 51.0 miles per US gallon,) 88.3 miles per Imperial gallon extra-urban (or 73.5 miles per US gallon,) and 76.3 miles per Imperial gallon combined (or 63.5 miles per US gallon.)

And the EPA drivecycle is grossly inaccurate - by 18.3% - for diesels.

The EPA even says so. (page 16)

In that document, current label fuel economy is the 1985-2007 method, MPG-based label is the 2008+ method.

Your point about diesel's higher energy density stands, though.

Hmm... NOx versus CO2.
http://www.epa.gov/air/urbanair/nox/hlth.html

NOx causes smog, acid rain, breathing problems, and may contribute to global warming.

CO2 may contribute to global warming.

It would obviously depend on the quantities, but I can understand why you'd want to limit NOxs.

But California's under the mistaken belief that NOx emissions are the source of their smog problems, except in a VOC rich environment (basically any environment with a heavy percentage of gasoline cars,) smog is [b]reduced[/b] but NOx emissions, especially those from diesels.

But, they don't seem to quite get that, and public perception is that diesels are dirty, so...

Well, the EPA disagrees with you on the point of NOx and VOC. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your post? Also, the public perception of diesels not entirely undeserved. Diesel engines (at least those not equipped with a particulate trap) emit a lot of soot, which is no better for your lungs than NOx+VOC smog.

Without living in Los Angeles, it's pretty hard to appreciate how much the pollution controls on cars and truck matter. In other areas of the country, the various pollutant can disperse downwind, but that doesn't happen in LA because the wind comes from the West and there are mountains to the East. The result is that everything just accumulates until it get dumped over by Riverside, on the east end of the basin. A quick google of the California Air Resources Board with turn up some scary movies from about 50 years ago that show LA looking like Beijing.

While I see a lot of discussion about other types of batteries, there is little here about lead-acid batteries. Something should be said for them.

Lead-Acid car batteries are one of the most magnificent stories in all of recycling.

Engineers working without a lot of credit have created a recycle that is the envy of nearly all recycle operations -- and almost no one knows about it!

Quoting Wikipedia on the rates 7 years ago, "Lead-acid battery recycling is one of the most successful recycling programs in the world. In the United States 97% of all battery lead was recycled between 1997 and 2001."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-acid_batteries#Environmental_concerns

To give you an idea how important this is, the EPA reports that 100 million lead-acid batteries were manufactured last year in the United States. http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/battery.htm

Very little PR, no news articles, just some very solid people doing planning, engineering what had to be done, implementing the equipment, and getting the bugs out of the system that is now running smoothly today.

Well done!

  -- thanks,

      Dave Small

The eastern part of canada receives pollution from the United states. So before you start crying about how others can make your place more horrible, please consider that you too are making a part of the world less habitable. Not everyone likes acid rain you know?

http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/progsregs/usca/index.htm

Take us, for example. 40 years ago, no one would call us idiots for smoking. Non-smokers would get that adjective faster than us... But now, from nowhere the anti-smoke paranoia has taken over the world!

...and around 200 years ago, leeches were considered the "hot" medical necessity. Just ask George Washington about how that worked out. Nowadays, it's considered a pretty good bet that inhaling ANY kind of foreign particle can be harmful. A lot depends on genetic predisposition.

You can't smoke anywhere. And the argument given is not that it is for your own good! It's because others shouldn't breathe your smoke... This is flat hypocrisy...

Agreed there. I can't count how many yuppies have turned up their nose walking by me smoking...right before they get into their H3.... Living in San Antonio, Texas, we've almost lost our federal Clean Air funding because of increasing particulate matter. Looking at their plan to combat such, you might notice that cigarettes/cigars aren't mentioned at all. Of course, anti-smokers don't want to hear that.

When I leave home every day, why do I have to breathe an air polluted by all those anti-smokers?

That one's easy.... 'cause the government makes a lot of money from vehicle registration, taxes, and gas tax. That, and were the government to try to ban gas-based cars outright, QUITE a few industries would collapse almost instantly.

I think common sense is what should be cultivated. Because when you make laws to replace it, then it disappears.

Been to America recently, have you? ;)

MANY people here have NO desire to think, and have even said as much in as many words. They don't WANT personal responsibility. They'd rather lose all their various rights for the illusion of protection. Fraggin' tragic.

Thanks for your reply, and if I may say so, your English is a LOT better than my Portuguese.

This clearly establishes that he co-founded GIM. This includes a list of just some of the "environmentally friendly" members of CCX, which GIM owns about 10% of. This highlights just one area of concern, Amtrak, who had to settle with the government over violations of the Clean Water Act. This highlights the fact that Gore makes monthly royalty profits from the Zinc mine on his property, which has come under attack because of the environmental damage that occurs when mining Zinc. Need I go on? If you dig deep enough, you'll find that Al Gore isn't as green as you might think.

You should be asking where do we see it in 2050. I see penguins. Lots of them. And they are hot. But not in a good way.

They have many links to local and national outlets to recycle computers and electronics, and many of them are free or low cost:

http://www.epa.gov/e-cycling/donate.htm

Have you considered recycling it?

Similar programs exist elsewhere in the civilized world. STFW and you'll probably find somewhere nearby that will be happy to take your junk off of your hands.

What they will do with it is anybody's guess, but at least it won't be sitting around your house any more.

Of
  course
  nitrates
  are
  harmless!

Of
  course
  nitrates
  are
  harmless!

Fish, and more accurately, fish eggs need a fairly steady Ph to live. If the Ph drops below about 6 then fish eggs won't hatch and if it goes too high the adults start to die off as well. 6-8 is the best range and we propose to change the Ph is what is already natures delicate balance!! Will we never learn?

http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/effects/surface_water.html

Here's the announcement:
(Washington, D.C. - July 11, 2008) Today EPA released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) soliciting public input on the effects of climate change and the potential ramifications of the Clean Air Act in relation to greenhouse gas emissions.

And here is the transcript of Johnson's conference call on the release.

Finally, here is the (588 page PDF) document itself.

Here's the announcement:
(Washington, D.C. - July 11, 2008) Today EPA released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) soliciting public input on the effects of climate change and the potential ramifications of the Clean Air Act in relation to greenhouse gas emissions.

And here is the transcript of Johnson's conference call on the release.

Finally, here is the (588 page PDF) document itself.

Here's the announcement:
(Washington, D.C. - July 11, 2008) Today EPA released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) soliciting public input on the effects of climate change and the potential ramifications of the Clean Air Act in relation to greenhouse gas emissions.

And here is the transcript of Johnson's conference call on the release.

Finally, here is the (588 page PDF) document itself.

Detection of dioxins by laser:

Real-Time Monitoring of Dioxins and Other Ambient Air Trace Organics

Dioxins in ambient air, bonfire night 1994

Rechem in Scotland was extremely popular with their incinerator, which they were reputed to run at a lower temperature at night, which didn't completely destroy the dioxins. By using a laser/gas chromatography, the environmentalists were able to prove that the furnace was being underpowered.

Not exactly. A carcinogen like benzene works differently than a nanofiber like asbestos or carbon tubes. Benzene's affect is purely chemical. Asbestos (and nanotubes) cause damage through physical damage. One mechanism is when the fibers are longer than about 17 microns and are too long for white blood cells to envelop (frustrated phagocytosis). Because the fibers can work their way into lung tissue these fibers form a constant source of inflammation and scarring. Another is the fibers can spear individual cells and cause them to leak and physically interfere with chromosome function. It is worth being careful.

Believe it or not there are poor people who might like to have your old computer. There are third world countries that could use them in their schools. http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/recycle/ecycling/donate.htm
http://salvationarmy.ca/?gclid=CIyxi7-pq5MCFQGnQQodzRlNnw
http://www.microsoft.com/Education/TenTips.mspx

You're looking for the EPA study ... http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/glwqa/usreport/part5.html

Zebra mussels continue to profoundly affect the Great Lakes ecosystem. This prolific mollusk filters microscopic algae from the water column, diverting nutrients from open water to lake bottom systems, thus favoring bottom-feeding fish (and their predators) over those such as alewife and smelt (and their predators) which feed in the open water. Aquatic rooted plants (macrophytes) and their communities (e.g. large mouth bass) thrive in water cleared by zebra mussel, while habitat is reduced for species adapted for turbid waters (e.g. walleye).

In other words, some fish benefited, others didn't.

In general, community abundances tended to increase at zebra mussel sites, but the diversity within those communities decreased.

In other words, more zebra mussels == more fish. The lessened diversity could easily be explained by the fact that it takes time for these things to shake themselves out.

Studies on the population dynamics of burrowing mayflies conducted by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP), the Biological Resources Division of the USGS, Heidelberg College, the Ohio State University, and Penn State University have indicated that the mayfly populations in western Lake Erie and the Presque Isle Bay AoC are presently experiencing exponential growth. Based on population models, the mayfly population is predicted to attain full recovery by the year 2002. Mayflies were virtually eliminated from the western basin of Lake Erie by 1960, but recolonization began during the 1990s and spread throughout most of the lake by 1996. The recovery of the mayfly augers well for the yellow perch population which is expected to grow as the density of mayfly nymphs continues to rise in western Lake Erie. The re-emergence of the mayfly is seen as a prime indicator of improved water and sediment quality in Lake Erie.

Maybe those nasty zebra mussels can be given some credit for making the water clean ... it's not like people were going to pay to set up a massive filtering system ...

Those CFLs are *mercury free*, right? And that electric car isn't going to be charged from a coal plan, is it?

If you trashed the CFLs, the amount of mercury released would be less than the mercury released by coal-fired plants to power the equivalent in incandescent lights.

And CFLs can - and should be - recycled, so no mercury is released except for the occasional broken bulb. If you break one, you just take some simple precautions to clean up. They have about 1/100th of the mercury in a old thermometer, the type everyone had in their house not very long ago.

Environmentally, mercury in CFLs is a very very small issue.

And an electric car powered by a coal-fired generating plant still emits much less pollution than a gasoline car.

So what's your point?

Secondly DDT isn't like mercury, it doesn't just accumulate in a predator's body and work its way up the food chain, it leaves the body.

You'd better let the EPA you know more than they do because they have DDT as a Persistent Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBT) Chemical.

Ecosystems are complex things and killing all the insects is such a huge thing that it's going to have some complex repercussions.

Because of that complexity, to disrupt an ecosystem a chemical doesn't mean needing to kill everything, all it takes is to remove one crucial element to do so, just as removing a Keystone from an arch or dome will bring the whole thing down.

There are many reasons, IMO

• We use most of it. As of 2007 data, we use 134.400billion gallons/year, almost as much as the next 25 nations combined
• Transportation - costs of shipping, storing, the risks associated (it is both a volatile liquid and a volatile market!)
• Added perks (42gallons of oil/barrel, only ~20 becomes gas, the other is kerosene, heating oil, with the ability, if I understand the process correctly to adjust these ratios to meet demand. Example more heating oil in winter, more gas (relatively) in the summer.
• US standards for gas are likely different than other countries (see next point)
• Weird Foreign Refinery Rules
• Like someone else mentioned, volatility in other refinery countries.

There are likely more, but this is not my area of expertise.

Sources:

Yeah, and they produce a lot of O3-- a good thing in the stratosphere, but not a good thing to be breathing a lot of down here. See here.

"One, the second hand smoke studies that everybody loves to cite are, at best, inconclusive. "

That's a patent lie. Studies to show a clear link. That aside, it show a complete lack of logic to expect otherwise.

"..top being a pussy and move upwind." next to the next smoker.

Second hand smoke is a Group A carcinogen.
Other Group A carcinogen: asbestos, radon, benzene none of which I want people spewing the air.

Second hand smoke is a risk at normal environmental levels.

http://www.epa.gov/smokefree/pubs/strsfs.html

Before you get your EPA/Government conspiracy tin foil hat on, I would like to remind you the Second Hand Smoke not being a poison is in the governments best interests.

bad air quality thanks to wood burning

It seems rather sensationalist anyway. According to the article (thought other comments here has challanged the calculations), Google's datacenter will require 103MW. Meanwhile, a steel mill seems to require around 150MW. I'd still say that traditional heavy industries are a bigger power user than the information ones.

Looked it up again: http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&safe=off&q=Oklahoma+Mercury+Fish+Warning&btnG=Search

I was wrong, It is not more than one serving per week... (but that was 1995)... http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/advisories/news/newsmar05.htm
"The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) plans to lower the acceptable level of mercury in fish from one part per million (ppm) to 0.3 ppm so that the state's standard matches federal guidelines. In advance of the change, the department issued an advisory that women who are pregnant and young children should not eat more than one serving of predatory fish per week (including bass, flathead catfish, walleye, gar and crappie) from Oklahoma waterways.
Source: Oklahoma DEQ issues statewide advisory for mercury levels in fish, Associated Press, Feb 16, 2005."

As 'large' as some of my fishing friends and neighbors are, I feel confident in saying that they often surpass the vague "one serving" quantity in a single dining session. There are very few 'Natural Sources' of Mercury in Oklahoma. NOTE: Oklahoma only has one or two 'natural' lakes/reservoirs out of the 3 dozen or so lakes/reservoirs in the state. I'd expect similar results in adjoining states.

Hmmm. That's interesting. You don't know what your talking about. Silent Spring, like its science or not, is the reason that FIFRA was revised to include provisions for the labeling and safe use of pesticides. Many pesticides, especially those that were available in 1947, when FIFRA was originally enacted, were very dangerous to use. Pesticide labeling is a good thing not just for fuzzy bunnies but for people too. Another handy thing about pesticide labels is that companies now do research on effective rates so that you apply only the amount of pesticide needed instead of wasting a lot of money. Ironically, the publication of this book is part of the reason that these genetically modified mosquitoes have been developed -- to reduced the use of pesticides! So, how does safety lead to the "death of millions [of people]"?

Let me remind you why we have a demand for ethanol in the first place: a replacement for MTBE, a gasoline anti-knock additive (letting the engine run at higher compression ratios, and thus more efficiently)

Not quite. On the basis of studies done in the 1970s, the US EPA decided that certain high-smog areas (e.g. Los Angeles) must use gasoline blended with an oxygenate. IOW, if you blend oxygen into the gas, the engine burns leaner, at least if you are using a carburetor.

But nobody in the US uses carburetors anymore. Every modern car has fuel injection with an oxygen sensor; the sensor notices the leanness created by the oxygenate, and enriches the mixture. Bottom line: slightly reduced gas mileage, CA drivers pay more for oxygenated gasoline, MTBE or Big Corn make profits. There is no smog benefit.

CA pleaded with the US EPA for years for an exemption to the oxygenate mandate; EPA presumably ignored CA due to pressure from MTBE and ethanol producers.

which was found to be leeching into groundwater and concentrating. MTBE is being phased out, and ethanol is a replacement chemical.

Mostly correct. MTBE is difficult to separate from water, and probably carcinogenic (unproven; nobody did the study). Besides, MTBE at 5-15ppb makes water taste like paint thinner.

Example MTBE Contamination: http://www.epa.gov/region09/mtbe/charnock/index.html

Ethanol is no longer touted as oxygenate; instead, Big Corn touts it for carbon neutrality. Whether ethanol is really carbon-neutral depends upon who you believe. I'm personally very doubtful that corn-based ethanol is beneficial to carbon emissions; dunno about sawgrass.

Actually, geothermal, is often rather dirty. Getting rid of mineral laden waste water is a substantial problem for many (not all) geothermal plants. Here's a link http://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm/geothermal.html

Intrinsically safe circuits can ignite gasoline when they are hit by lightning. The concern in aircraft applications isn't that the fuel ignites in normal operation. Rather, it is suspected that some airplanes have exploded after being hit by lightning.

If enough power hits just the right wire, and the tanks are near empty (with lots of explosive fuel vapors), and enough planes get hit by lightning in flight in a sensitive location, then potentially disaster can happen. The accident data says fuel tank explosions occur, and this might be a possible cause. Safety problems demand a precautionary approach. Hence the desire to eliminate the wire going to the fuel tank.

Further resources:
http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-GENERAL/1997/April/Day-03/g8495.htm
http://easa.europa.eu/doc/Events/fueltanksafety_24062005/easa_fueltanksafety_24062005_large_transport_ppt.pdf [pdf]

Note: a widespread consensus exists that many possible ways for fuel tanks to ignite exist. As such, most of the focus is on minimizing the likelihood of ignition, rather than one specific cause, like the fuel tank wires themselves.

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/420f05001.htm

However I have found that there is at least one other reactor in the world that produces the at least one of the isotopes (molybdenum-99) as the Chalk River reactor, and it's in The Netherlands (Europe) (see http://www.nrg-nl.com/public/medical/valley/node6.html). I gather that some of the other isotopes needed (technetium-99) are decays products of mo-99. I really wonder if all possibilities have been exhausted. After all ... Europe produces that particular isotope as well, and Russia and China must be doing the same; if not Japan as well.

Apparently the DOE proposed to build a domestic source for mo-99 in 1995 (see http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-IMPACT/1995/December/Day-22/pr-377.html) but apparently this hasn't been implemented yet. The note identifies a number of existing reactors which could be modified:

"Annular Core Research Reactor and associated hot cell facility at Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico and the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory to produce Mo-99 and related medical isotopes. The Draft EIS also analyzes the environmental impacts of producing Mo-99 using the Omega West reactor at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Power Burst Facility at Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, and the Oak Ridge Research Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as well as the impacts of not establishing a Mo-99 production source (the No Action alternative)".

Apparently the DOE noticed the problem in time (1995), but it appears that a solution wasn't implemented quick enough.

This article just has a bad smell.

Example: lung cancer. A mere 150bq/m^3 of radon gas increases your odds of lung cancer by 50%[1] [2] The Sept. 29th release alone was about 740 petabecquerels. That would be contaminating to that level a cube of air *170 kilometers per side*. The numbers just don't add up.

They do do that, the limitation presently the size of the landfill. But that is changing the size of the landfill required to make it worthwhile has been shrinking, allowing for the methane to be used to power electric plants and heat homes.

http://www.epa.gov/lmop/ is probably a good place to start looking.

I was pretty much thinking that TFA was pretty dumb since most of the sources of methane which can't be captured for fuel, aren't going to deal well with this sort of technology. The ones that are, can and often are used to produce useful energy.

Up in Canada where the Kyoto wealth transfer plan (that's what it is, make no mistake)

Any facts to back up that statement, or is an urging to "make no mistake" evidence enough to get +5 these days?

we had a quite simple statement told to us: if we stopped every train, plane, and automobile in the entire country tomorrow, we STILL wouldn't meet the Kyoto targets (which is something like 30-40% below where we are now).

Who said that, and did THEY have any facts to back that up?

Besides, this article is about the US, not about Canada. As others have already pointed out, you drive more energy efficient cars than the US population do on average, and more energy goes to heating.

In the US, transports are a major contributing factor, and, I believe, the one sector where emissions are growing fastest.

Gore did not invent MTBE. He even did not initiate using MTBE in US. But surely he helped to introduce legislations supporting the MTBE. The list of his contributions is long. So let me just remind the year 1997. Around that time Gore had nominated Carol Browner to be a head of EPA (the Environmental Protection Agency). And EPA continues its governmental role issuing a series of rules related to the Clean Air Act.

There were many reports about increasing presence of MTBE in drinking water (famous at the time the Santa Monica affair), but EPA and the presidential "National Science and Technology Council" (NSTC) did everything to hash the problem ... interpreting the data as "below level of danger", "anecdotal evidence", etc.

Maybe someone would like to read one of the documents, available at
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/regs/fuels/ostpfin.pdf (the "Interagency Assessment of Oxygenated Fuels").

As is the rule, the NSTC is chaired by president (Clinton, at the time) and the v-president (as a member of this council) plays the executive prime role.
So, this way Al Gore had played a very important role into popularizing use of the MTBE.
Clearly, everybody can may mistakes.
But use of MTBE by 1997 was much more than just a mistake. There were already many signals from the academia about the dangers coming from MTBE. What a responsible leader should do in such a case? Should issue an executive order to stop using the chemical (at least temporarily) and request more studies on the subject.
Gore did not do it!
But now he is getting the Noble price for his role in the environment protection ...

The world is strange, indeed.

roll-back the industrial age because of it just yet

Is that what I was advocating? News to me. I thought I was advocating reducing exposure to risk, and possibly hastening the move to a post-fossil fuel industrial age.

By the way, the biggest natural emitters of methane on earth are wetlands, and termites aren't even close to being the #1 emitters if you include human-related activities (see same link).

Christ, if you are going to lob irrelevant factoids (I presume termite production hasn't increased by orders of magnitude recently), at least don't be so grossly wrong.

Makes you look bad.

Good call AC, I stand corrected, scrubbers, in fact aren't particularly effective at removing mercury. Your post prompted me to look it up. This source indicates that the combination of bag houses, electrostatic precipitators, scrubbers, and catalitic reducers remove ~36% of the mercury contained in coal. That IMHO is an abysmally low number.

Meh. It's a beta emitter; beta radiation is completely harmless to humans as long as you have a nice layer of skin between you and it.

Before blasting nuclear energy as *potential* radioactive hazard READ THIS FIRST: coal-fired power plants dump tons of mercury polluting water and fish and turning good source of omega3 into a poison:

http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fishadvice/advice.html
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/3370_MercuryPowerPlants.pdf

thank you for your time

> It may cause pain now, but increase your chance for cancer, much like sunburn.
Sunburn causes cancer because the frequency of UV light is extremely high, approximately 10^17Hz. The energy available in a photon is directly related to frequency by Planck's constant, so the higher the frequency the more energy one photon has. Right around the frequency of UV light, electromagnetic radiation becomes ionizing radiation, which means that there is enough energy to knock electrons off important things (like your DNA), and cause mutations, which lead to cancer, as Dr. Tyrell explained to us in Bladerunner.

My vote is hydrazine. If you can smell that stuff, it'll make you sick. Sick from toxic effects of the chemical, not just sick to your stomach.

http://www.epa.gov/ttnatw01/hlthef/hydrazin.html describes the effects, which seem similar to what these South Americans are experiencing.

From my searching with Google I found a special "waiver" that California obtained from the Federal EPA. Apparently it falls under the legal concept of "Preemption."

Peace!