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25 Percent of Cars Cause 90 Percent of Air Pollution
HughPickens.com writes: Sara Novak reports that according to a recent study, "badly tuned" cars and trucks make up one quarter of the vehicles on the road, but cause 95 percent of black carbon, also known as soot, 93 percent of carbon monoxide, and 76 percent of volatile organic chemicals like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes. "The most surprising thing we found was how broad the range of emissions was," says Greg Evans. "As we looked at the exhaust coming out of individual vehicles, we saw so many variations. How you drive, hard acceleration, age of the vehicle, how the car is maintained – these are things we can influence that can all have an effect on pollution." Researchers at the University of Toronto looked at 100,000 cars as they drove past air sampling probes on one of Toronto's major roads. An automated identification and integration method was applied to high time resolution air pollutant measurements of in-use vehicle emissions performed under real-world conditions at a near-road monitoring station in Toronto, Canada during four seasons, through month-long campaigns in 2013–2014. Based on carbon dioxide measurements, over 100 000 vehicle-related plumes were automatically identified and fuel-based emission factors for nitrogen oxides; carbon monoxide; particle number, black carbon; benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX); and methanol were determined for each plume. Evans and his team found that policy changes need to better target cars that are causing the majority of the air pollution. "The ultrafine particles are particularly troubling," says Evans. "Because they are over 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, they have a greater ability to penetrate deeper within the lung and travel in the body."
... when the most populated countries have probably the highest percentage of badly tuned cars?
We share the same atmosphere.
"The ultrafine particles are particularly troubling" .... well, now we know why small cars are bad
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Cue the next massive-fail version of a government program.
Hell, many of them probably wish they could afford to repair or replace the jalopies...sigh, fucking poor people are killing us again.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
If the car was too much of a POS, you couldn't get the credit.
So all they did was take a bunch of relatively clean cars off the road, but left the dirty ones.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Every year or two we undergo emissions inspections - they use a sensor to measure what is in the exhaust gas, and if things are outside of the required limits, you have to fix it. In addition, they use the OBDII port to see if there are any codes being thrown by the engine, and if there are you have to fix those as well.
Older cars were grandfathered in, and only need to pass whatever the standards were at the time they were manufactured.
Yes.
0.25x=0.9
1(x) = ?
But since you are a dev you should realize that its actually
0.25x = 0.9y
Maybe go back to high school..
New cars sold in America are amazingly clean. In some cities the air coming out of the tail pipe is cleaner than the air going in.
OLD cars, especially those owned by poor old men, can be terrible. When I come upon a blue cloud on the highway, it is invariably an ancient truck driven by an ancient man. (frequently Mexican farm worker)
Do we have the political WILL to take that vehicle off the road? or do we pass legislation to make the really clean cars even cleaner? (middle class tax)
Or do we make the Tax PAYERS repair the vehicles of the Poor? There are more of them, and that means more votes.
If you are reading this, you likely have a job. So whip out your wallet and get ready to pay.
Tuning is indeed important - as is balancing wheels; two fairly inexpensive steps you can take to get better efficiency out of your car.
But when I tried to look in the first-linked article for tuning.. I couldn't. It was stuck. I tried to click on the link for the study - I couldn't. It was stuck. I figured I'd wait it out.. that was a long wait.
By the time I could finally click the link for 'the study' (which is the 3rd link in TFS, for what it's worth, so just skip to that one), this is what the console showed:
http://i.imgur.com/n3wHVSC.png
That's 1,114 requests, 10.4MB transferred, taking 1.2 minutes. That's with ad blocking, without script blocking.
'ecosalon' should look in the mirror and consider how much energy is being wasted just by people loading that page - the useful content of which ultimately comes down to 10 small paragraphs of text.
CO2 emissions are proportional to fuel consumption, so I guess there's no point measuring that figure; the fuel efficiency of vehicles is a known quantity. I guess it would have been interesting to have CO2 figures included for comparison with the other numbers though.
CO2 level was actually used to automatically identify the exhast gasses in the study, so maybe they actually had those figures, without reading the full paper it's hard to say. From the abstract;
"Based on carbon dioxide measurements, over 100 000 vehicle-related plumes were automatically identified and fuel-based emission factors for nitrogen oxides; carbon monoxide; particle number, black carbon; benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX); and methanol were determined for each plume."
Oh no... it's the future.
It's always been like this. The focus on making new cars cleaner has always had small returns since you are simply making the cars that produce 10% of the pollution better and if you convert them all to "magic pixie dust fuel", you will still be left with the 90% from the broken cars. Previous studies have also shown that the pattern of which 25% isn't obvious. It isn't a simple rule like "old cars produce more NOx". Even a nearly new car can become a polluter without the owner noticing. Fortunately, the solution is both obvious and simple; do a tailpipe emissions test at they yearly inspection.
Nukular powered cars!
As an RX8 owner, I'm probably responsible for at least half that total.
With the catalyst gone out the tailpipe it smells like a refinery fire going up the road. A very fast refinery fire.
So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
It seems CO2 was left out of the study, or at least the summary, which is interesting because that seems to be the biggest global concern.
So, that brings up the question of priorities. Is CO2 pollution a bigger concern than these other pollutants, which to we spend our money on and get the most benefit? I know its not an either or situation, but there are choices to be made.
It should also be noted that the study was in Canada, and may not be indicative of the US, where each state has its own inspection requirements.
Start cleaning up with them
It's the old pieces of junk falling to pieces that lower class insist on driving when they could simply use public transportation.
Newer cars must adhere to stricter emission standards.
Mod me down if you must, but you know it's true.
There is no public transportation in the small county I live in. We simply can not afford it with our tax base.
Do you support a nationwide mass transit system paid for by the federal government? Or perhaps government subsidies for new cars based on income? The less you make the more money the government kicks in?
Or I guess we could just have the government buy the cars and issue them to poor people.
Yeah, poor people shouldn't have the right to drive vehicles. They also shouldn't be allow to constantly convert oxygen into co2, but those lazy fuckers do every day anyway! Enough is enough.
CAPTCHA is dispose. Wildly appropriate.
Around here, almost all the soot can be attributed to folks who enjoy "rolling coal." -- particularly in close proximity to fuel-efficeint autos and bicycles.
Effectively you'll be targeting the poorest people in your country, since they're the ones most likely to own older, less well-maintained cars.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
and does not let you back on the road if the values are bad.
Trucks, buses and coaches produce about a quarter of CO2 emissions from road transport in the EU and some 5% of the EU's total greenhouse gas emission.
Badly tuned cars produce about 5% more CO2 per km than well tuned cars.
It's hard to give definite figures, given that we're comparing apples to oranges, but based on these figures and some other stuff I also found online, I'd wager that the 25% mentioned in the article produces a few percent more CO2 than they would have been if they're well-tuned.
As CO2 per passenger km for coaches versus cars, it depends. If you're travelling in a straight line the coach usually wins, but often you cannot get form A to B without changing at a bus station that isn't directly between the two and then the car often wins.
CO2 emissions are proportional to fuel consumption, so I guess there's no point measuring that figure; the fuel efficiency of vehicles is a known quantity.
But are these vehicule really causing 90% of the pollution? Maybe it's only 35% when you count CO2 who knows?
Nope, it means the 75% of the public who are driving vehicles that are functioning properly are only producing 10% of the emissions.
And the 1% of electric vehicle drivers are showing the populace how it should be done.
Newer cars must adhere to stricter emission standards.
And older cars should be held to SOME standard.
I didn't realize how bad it was until I lived for a while in a state without mandatory annual inspection/emissions tests. I bought a car soon after moving, and I discovered that I couldn't really use the normal "vent" to blow air into my car from the outside because it smelled like awful exhaust a large portion of the time. I was stuck almost always using recirculating air, even when it was nice outside and I just wanted some fresh air to move around a bit inside the car.
Anyhow, at first I thought there was something wrong with the car that I just bought -- maybe it was leaking exhaust somewhere? Nope. Then I started looking around at the other cars on the road and realized how many old beat-up cars were driving around with billowing smoke coming out of them. Basically, whenever I was driving around a group of more than a few cars, chances are that one of them is outputting insane amounts of crap.
Never experienced this when I lived in four other states that had inspections and emissions standards. Just my own anecdotal observation, of course.
Maybe if someone paid them a decent living wage, they could afford a newer, more well-maintained car.
No, no. that's COMMIE talk!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Your government should allow the private sector to create the infrastucture to enable mass transit to happen, and then profit from it.
Governments make terrible business owners, we see this over and over again in different sectors of our economy.
Leave governmet out of this and let free market forces figure it out.
What is the pollution generated by producing a new car from scratch? One that is full of electronics, Aluminum, Plastics, ect... We may be netting less pollution by keeping older cars on the road, vs creating new ones.
Not all of them are old pieces of junk.
In this state Diesels have very low emission requirements while Gas vehicles have tight ones. The rednecks buy diesel trucks and install smoke stacks so they can lay down screens of black smoke on demand and thumb their noses at the EPA.
In this age if your daily driver/personal vehicle leaves smoke behind it it is either broken or your are an ass.
Pretty soon you people will start putting Yellow emblems on all cars and other products you find to be transgressors of your CO2 pogrom.
And let people buy SUVs and dirty low mpg trucks.
Yes, the program should have been for 100% electric cars or plug-in hybrids that could go 20-30 miles on EV mode.
It's the new-fangled luxury hype that high class insists on owning when they could simply use public transportation.
New cars are simply a waste of resources.
Because every state pretty much requires and emissions test annually or bi-annually. It involves plugging a reader into the OBD-II port and downloading any condition codes, and then the standard tailpipe sniff.
What makes it so gross polluters are still out there is because after failing said emissions check, a waiver can be obtained.
If the car was too much of a POS, you couldn't get the credit.
So all they did was take a bunch of relatively clean cars off the road, but left the dirty ones.
Cash for clunkers wasn't about pollution. It was about bailing out auto companies. Both initially by the government subsidizing the purchase and later by removing late model vehicles from the used car market causing used cars to increase in price to a point where new cars were seen as an attractive option.
Ironically, the upper middle class would have purchased new vehicles anyway, but the lower middle class and the poor were priced out of the "good" used car market and had to stick with what they had or replace it with somebody else's clunker.
Cash for clunkers is a prime example of unintended consequences of a government program when quick fixes are implemented without looking at the long term effect.
The focus of this study seems to be pollutants directly harmful to human health not global warming.
So they discovered the Pareto Principle? Brilliant.
90% is as long as you don't count CO2 I guess?
Why count CO2 as "air pollution"? This C02 deserves some love, stop the hate! SERIOUSLY.
Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO2) is a colorless, odorless gas vital to plant life on earth
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
I half agree; this is something that gets discussed in bicycle forums quite a bit. The trouble is that the public transportation seldom meets the needs of the working poor. The working poor frequently get off of one job and need to immediately be at another job.
Employers frequently require poor employees to have an auto, as evidence that they are reliable. Further, employers frequently, intentionally, create scheduling conflicts between the various jobs of their poor employees in order to force them to "make a decision." The common response is that a superstar employee can simply make demands of the employer to have these problems resolved.
What gets forgotten is that most jobs do not have "superstars." A superstar convince store clerk is not that much different than a average. Further, general solutions need to fit the majority of cases, not just the superstars.
This study was only done in Toronto, Canada so take it with a heap of salt.
A 1/4" layer of black soot covering the back bumper.
I see a lot of chipped up Diesels pukeing blackness.
A lot of Eco friendly BIO-Diesel fueled are difficult to drive behind and show significant amounts of blue smoke.
Lets sniff a TriMet short bus, the big ones must have cats on them. The small ones are really bad.
Rick B.
If the car was too much of a POS, you couldn't get the credit.
So all they did was take a bunch of relatively clean cars off the road, but left the dirty ones.
And raised the price of used cars in general by absurd amounts after taking so many out of circulation.
CO2 is in a different category than "air pollution" in the sense that "air pollution" causes health problems (directly), while CO2 only causes climate change.
It's also in a different category because the solution to reducing it is different. In theory, it would be possible to eliminate all "air pollution" other than CO2 from an internal-combustion engine exhaust, if you had the right kind of catalytic converter/filter/etc. on it. In contrast, the only way to eliminate CO2 from an internal-combustion engine is to turn it off.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And then you have the small subset of people that believe it makes sense to protest emissions regulations by having a switch that makes their diesel run super-rich and throw plumes of thick smoke out the tailpipe.
CO2 is not a pollutant but a greenhouse gas.
Otherwise you're making an argument that every time you exhale, you're polluting the air.
But then the cops are waiting for you to do that so they can ticket you for speeding. Heaven forbid using that build-up of speed to go over the next hill while saving gas and reducing emissions.
The problem of carbon emissions is caused by "the death by a thousand cuts".
still works
A very important word was left out of the summary and the article title. Air pollution from transportation still only makes up 25-50% of total anthropogenic air pollution (and that's total transportation, including planes, trucks, and boats). Big chunks come from electricity generation, other industrial processes, and agriculture. So, no, it's not the poor people that are killing us.
Up next on the news US Congress votes that pollution from cars is not a man made phenomenon, but part of a natural cycle..
When I was just out of college and broke I had a car that was clean and was reliable.
When our state began emissions inspections my car failed and I was required to fix it. The repair estimate was $400 (in 1992) and I didn't have $400 to fix my car, so I had to stop driving it.
I was lucky that of the two part-time jobs I had to make ends meet, one agreed to change the store I worked at to a location within reasonable walking distance AND the hours I worked to accommodate the bus trip I now I had to make every day to my other job (I rode the bus on days I only worked that job anyway).
For a lot of people, though, they just don't make enough money to afford these kinds of repairs and they NEED a car to get to work or school or childcare or whatever their responsibilities are.
Mandating this kind of fine-tuning sounds like a great idea, but it ultimately becomes another punitive burden on low-income people. If I wasn't lucky enough to have the alternatives I had, I would have been out of a job or forced to drive illegally.
That this would be a new idea surprises me. In 2009, the US had the Car Allowance Rebate System (aka Cash for Clunkers) program which likely helped reduce emissions even it was more of an economic program. Further back, twenty years ago Ventura County offered money to get old clunkers off the road strictly for emissions reasons. In 1995 per the article I link below, "More than 50% of the smog comes from vehicle emissions and a large percentage of that comes from older, pre-1974 clunkers." If you look at the distribution of cars, many are late model, well-maintained, and operating at or very near their peak. But as cars age and lose value, newer cars are built to higher emissions (and safety) standards, the parts get worn, routine maintenance gets done but many repairs aren't done because it isn't worth it based on the value of the vehicle. In areas without emissions testing, there is absolutely zero incentive to worry about it with an older vehicle. I realize this every time I get behind a vehicle that is smoking or burns my eyes because it is in such bad shape. This is not even about zero or low emissions, it is simply about getting extreme polluters off the road.
Bottom line: Encourage people to replace clunkers and keep their vehicle well-maintained.
As an odd aside, there are articles that show a similar distribution of costs in emergency room. A small number of patients dominate ER costs in the US because they have no insurance and chronic conditions. Google that one for yourself.
Ventura County Reference: http://articles.latimes.com/19...
Oh you mean the Co2 that we expel from our bodies every day? Yes sound the alarm on that one. More Co2 can mean more and greener vegetation and we can't have that! (moderately speaking of course)
And the only way to eliminate other pollutants is to turn it off as well. But, you can reduce the pollution, as you can reduce CO2 production, through various means and/or efficiency improvements.
At least in Ontario (where this study was conducted), every car is required to be clean tested every 2 years. Which is a stupid cash grab really, as my 2002 tests just as good now as it ever did. It is the *really* old cars that are likely a problem. However I bet there are exemptions out there for classic cars etc...
What I would like to see measured, is how much of this is not personal transportation, but rather commercial trucks... Everything is delivered by truck now. I bet they are by far the worst offenders. They also probably have exemptions. Perhaps it is time to start thinking a little less about how some soccer mom gets her kids to school VS what is the best way to deliver goods in our society.
US is worse than many developing nations when it comes to public transportation.
There is no way most people can depend on public transportation in US for regular commute. The frequency, and reach of buses/trains are incredibly poor in most of US. The exceptions are the few big cities - NYC, Chicago, Portland etc., that too if you live in an area close to a station.
Not even Bay Area - a high populated urban area - you can depend on public transportation for daily commute unless you have an option for point to point travel on BART / bus. Try going from Hayward to San Mateo - 25 minutes if you drive, more than an hour if you take a bus. You only have to cross a bridge!!!
The same with many East coast neighborhoods - try Phoenixville PA to Philadelphia on a SEPTA bus.
It sucks to be poor. But in 2015, its better to be poor in a country like India compared to US as poor as a voting block is better represented and their needs better taken care of...and that includes public transportation.
To get a better perspective on what it means to be poor in United States this book is a good beginning - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed
Tat Tvam Asi
A lot was left out of the study. I find their methodology fishy. For example, here's their test area:
Downtown... stop and go for large portions of the day... various driving states... in short, even if two people are driving the exact same car in the exact same condition in the exact same driving style on average, if one at the particular moment of passing the sensor happens to be letting off the gas, while the other just happens to be accelerating when it passes the sensor, the two cars are going to give wildly different pollution readings.
I'll also note that the paper says that it's still in review, aka it hasn't passed peer-review yet.
I'm sure the general premise is right, that small numbers of vehicles cause most pollution. But I think their experimental setup is pretty bad. The stupid thing is they're collecting the data they'd need to control for it - they're taking pictures, which would let them tie vehicle plumes to particular license plate numbers, and then only study vehicles that pass by the sensor a number of times times to that they can get a running average. Another way to control for it would be to have a dozen or so sensors spaced out down the road spaced well apart so that they can average a particular vehicle's emissions on a single drive down the road. But a single sensor, single pass way to rate a vehicle's emissions as good or bad? That's a terrible approach. And they stretch very far on their conclusions based on this approach.
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
"CO2 is not a pollutant but a greenhouse gas."
Nut an increase in greenhouse gas is a problem
which you msy hsve noticed if you live in the west (drought)
"every time you exhale, you're polluting the air."
The amount is way less howevere.
Also cars mostly run on fossil fuel that has been in the ground for millions of years.
Humans are fueled by plants or animal protein that has recently been carbon in the atmosphere. Its not an addition to the amount of carbon that is around.
I would gladly trade my "dirty low mpg truck" for the first awd $30k electric vehicle that can seat 4 ppl and still tow my trailer + bobcat (~8000 lbs)
Continuing in the same article: "It is an important greenhouse gas and burning of carbon-based fuels since the industrial revolution has rapidly increased its concentration in the atmosphere, leading to global warming. It is also a major source of ocean acidification since it dissolves in water to form carbonic acid."
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
Unfortunately, Dihydrogen Monoxide is known to be Earth’s most abundant greenhouse gas. It's also a major byproduct of burning fossil fuels.
Trees also like Carbon Dioxide.
So, I have come to the conclusion that the Trees are out to get us!
And the several percent of non-vegans who travel by bicycle instead of cars are acting all smug thinking they're saving the planet, when their consumption of meat for the calories they burn gives them the per-kilometer carbon footprint of an SUV. Plus an order-of-magnitude higher per-kilometer risk of death or serious injury than a person in a car.
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
Living wage? They should be giving a wage comparable to the value they bring. Whether that works to do the former is irrelevant. Most people produce negative value.
Except where they clarify in the article's lede, the title, summary, and article makes it sound like these 25% of vehicles cause 90% of the air pollution on the entire planet. Let's not forget that the millions of cars on the road are nothing compared to large factories or even a small fleet of cargo ships.
Certainly let's do something about those old cars, but that's not the real problem.
Popisms.com - Connecting pop culture
That seems to clash with the stat that 11 cargo shipping container super ships cause more air pollution than all the cars in the entire US.
My state has emissions testing up to 25 years for a car. But when I open my vents and smell fumes, it's because of all the trucks and vans that are exempt because they are commercial vehicles. And they all have big engines that guzzle gas or diesel resulting in emissions that would make my old car a joke even if it didn't have any working emissions.
That's pro-business government for you. Businesses lobby for special treatment because they have entitlement issues.
CO2 emissions are proportional to fuel consumption, so I guess there's no point measuring that figure; the fuel efficiency of vehicles is a known quantity.
But are these vehicule really causing 90% of the pollution? Maybe it's only 35% when you count CO2 who knows?
Some of the listed pollutants are the results of incomplete combustion. It's worthwhile to include CO2, since there's a very good chance that the offending vehicles may therefore be releasing less waste in CO2 form.
Yep if you were going to do it there should have been some kind of mpg update required. Maybe if your new car is 15mpg better you could get the full book value of your used in the swap and then go down from there..
I'll also note that the paper says that it's still in review, aka it hasn't passed peer-review yet.
Interesting. Hey, no sense waiting for that to push out to the public, right?
25% that accounts for all the idiots in the big lifted pickup trucks belching black smoke.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Continuing in the same article: "It is an important greenhouse gas and burning of carbon-based fuels since the industrial revolution has rapidly increased its concentration in the atmosphere, leading to global warming. It is also a major source of ocean acidification since it dissolves in water to form carbonic acid."
Well, i am glad that you read the C02 article i linked to - since the article begins as "Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO2) is a colorless, odorless gas vital to plant life on earth.", and considering what you post, we can conclude that CO2 IS NOT "AIR POLLUTION"! We can use some term for it (e.g., "greenhouse gas"?) if we want to define it negatively, but CO2 deserves some love, stop the hate...
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
So all they did was take a bunch of relatively clean cars off the road, but left the dirty ones.
I strongly disagree. Look at a summary of the stats to see that the most-traded vehicles were light trucks. We're talking about a bunch of sloppy old pickup trucks with little or no emissions controls, usually literally nothing but one O2 sensor, an EGR, a PCV, and a catalyst. But modern light trucks have the same kinds of emissions controls as cars, even though the standards aren't as strict, so they do have much lower emissions.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Emissions standards is a federal standard and it is still a federal offense to modify any emission equipment on your car. The problem like you stated comes from the enforcement. Checking emissions was delegated to the individual states and within general guidelines, they check cars. A lot of states have various exceptions like
Some less dense populated counties do not check any cars at all
Some cars not driven more than a certain mileage per year
After the car hits a certain age, usually 20-25+ years
Vehicles used primarily for farm use but still used on public roads if being driven for work related to the farming (like going to town to get feed or supplies)
Just because your area does not check your car on a routine basis does not mean you can rip all of the emissions crap off but many people do. Who enforces the federal emissions laws and standards on your car at that point? No one really.
I understand your dilemma though. I live in an area that does have periodic checks but I do get stuck behind some Harleys and old motorcycles that have no emissions equipment and an occasional car that I know that took off their catalytic convertors because I can smell them immediately.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
the fuel efficiency of vehicles is a known quantity.
Fuel efficiency is not "known" it is Estimated by a govt agency (in the us) and it changes DRASTICALLY as you drive, it depends on the how clean your fuel is, road conditions, tire conditions, Fuel efficiency changes throughout the day as the temperature swings.
It's easy to meet EPA standards on test bench. Out in the real world it becomes a lot harder. Heavy acceleration is bound to dump all kinds of particulates, NOx, and CO, despite pollution controls like catalytic converters. Things like catalytic converters and other pollution controls run best under constant conditions, with the proper amount of fuel to air, temperature, etc. All of which probably works well while cruising at constant speed down the open road. The moment you start doing stop and go, all bets are off. Hit the gas pedal hard and the fuel mixture goes fairly rich as the engine tries to keep up. I'm not a hypermiler freak, but I do tend to accelerate and brake conservatively (I have a CDL and drive big trucks occasionally as well, which influences my habits) which seems to anger people in city driving, unfortunately. I also try to take curves in a manner that makes things as smooth as possible.
Most people on the road seem to not care one bit about fuel consumption and race from light to light, without actually getting ahead of anyone doing that, nor actually getting anywhere faster. I'm sure emissions could be curtailed quite a bit if everyone just slowed down and cars limited their acceleration to something realistic.
I imagine these horribly-bad 25% of cars emitting the most pollution would do a lot better if people would drive them properly.
Got to hell, you self-indulgent, privileged dick.
In contrast, the only way to eliminate CO2 from an internal-combustion engine is to turn it off.
That's not entirely true. It would probably be cost prohibitive but it should be possible to create a system that routes the exhaust to a compression chamber and stores the co2 as compressed gas creating a system that has zero emissions. You would still have to dispose of that compressed gas but there are several ways you could dispose of it without releasing it into the atmosphere.
Explain to me again why the addition of something that is " leading to global warming" and "is also a major source of ocean acidification" is not pollution?
Cobalt is a vital element to the human body, critical to health in the sort of quantities naturally consumed. That doesn't mean that it'd be good for us if someone started dumping huge amounts of cobalt in our water supply.
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
The main cause of premature engine wear is oil not being changed as scheduled. I'm not talking about every 3 to 5k miles, I'm talking about people not changing until every 15 to 20! The maintenance light really helped in this regard. It forced drivers to see a nagging light on the dash. The cheapest way to "clear it" is to have the oil changed. Yes, it's trivial to clear it yourself, but for 99.9% of drivers out there, this method need not apply.
Life is not for the lazy.
Of course global warning is a major problem. But it's not a problem of pollution, it's a problem of global warming.
This study focuses on pollution rather than CO2 emissions, for quite obvious reasons. CO2 emission is directly correlated to amount of fuel burned, whereas pollutant emission is related to other things like how optimal of a burn it is, how good is the catalytic filter on the exhaust is and so on.
4 x 25% = 100%
so if 25% of cars are producing 90%, then to get what all the cars are producing, multiply by 4. 90x4= 360
The answer is FUCK YOU, that's what.
Like all those hicks that purposely tune their diesels wrong, so they belch back smoke out of the exhaust?
Downtown... stop and go for large portions of the day... various driving states... in short, even if two people are driving the exact same car in the exact same condition in the exact same driving style on average, if one at the particular moment of passing the sensor happens to be letting off the gas, while the other just happens to be accelerating when it passes the sensor, the two cars are going to give wildly different pollution readings.
Oh no, it's way worse than that. See, engine management via O2 sensor is done by continually yawing between rich and lean conditions. When everything is working great this is between 1 Hz (for carbs) up to 7 or 8 Hz (for SFI) but as the O2 sensor ages, it becomes slower to change. As well, how the driver behaved on their way to the particular stretch in road in question will not only change the temperature of various internal components which will obviously influence the experiment, but may also convince the transmission and on newer vehicles even the engine to switch to a completely different map, and behave very differently in anticipation of differing driving behavior.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Imagine what would happen if the nanny state spent this kind of effort and money getting the same quality of diagnostics tools into auto tuner's hands, instead of badgering people as they drive down the highway or catching them late, at a test date or what not.
That's before we consider that most pollutants are sourced from powerplants, not cars.
Cars are just not an issue -- EVs are getting popular and older cars fade away fast. Auto emissions were cut massively in the US with the advent of mandatory fuel injection in 1988, 27 years ago. A thirty year old car on the road is getting to be a rarity.
It's also worth considering that while the Democratic Party considers the closing down of a nuclear powerplant in California a huge victory, it also increased Cal's output of CO2 by about 12%. That's huge.
That's why I dislike green people and modern democrats -- they always have some shoddy agenda, and if it's implemented, a slew of negative consequences.
Look at Chernobyl -- to this day, the green hysteria industry claims that hundreds of thousands died because of Chernobyl, but they refuse to disclose the data or methodology. Contrast that with the scientific method -- two fully open studies show about 80 people dead from Chernobyl, mostly from improper treatment.
80 people dead is bad and tragic, but it's also about the same count as black-on-black thug crime over a four week period in the US.
A pollutant is a substance emitted into an environment that has an undesired effect. If you have no problem seeing a connection between CO2 emission and greenhouse problems, then CO2 is a pollutant. That we breath it out doesn't change that. In part, both location and quantity factor into whether something is a pollutant. There are places human waste is a pollutant. Hell, there are places where water is a pollutant, because it is being discharged or accumulated in a way that is causing problems.
Actually, in Ontario is has worked the other way. Many government services and corporations were privatized in the last 30 years, and many of these have led to worse quality of service, degrading infrastructure, and higher rates for consumers. Profits are up, but the government has lost a good chunk of it's revenue stream, and has to rely more on taxes. Worse, any efficiency the government gets by contracting out is erased by the fact that contractors universally bill the government 200% of their regular fees, and many of the privatization and contract deals were done awarding a long-term monopoly, erasing any competitive benefit.
Most people produce negative value.
Well then, perhaps they should die and decrease the surplus population,
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
CO2 is in a different category than "air pollution" in the sense that "air pollution" causes health problems (directly), while CO2 only causes climate change.
There is no such distinction between a pollutant causing health problems and things that don't cause health problems not being a pollutant. It is a pollutant if it is damaging or causing problems when released at a specific place (or near anywhere in case of CO2). Doesn't matter if the damage is to human health, wildlife health, landscapes, or to constructions (e.g. a big issue with acid rain).
The parent is talking about average fuel efficiency over time for fleets. It is a known quantity.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Why count CO2 as "air pollution"?
Because there's too much of it right now. If we were on Mars, we'd be fining people for not emitting enough CO2, but we aren't. At least, not most of us. Maybe that explains your comment?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
>Otherwise you're making an argument that every time you exhale, you're polluting the air.
You are. The difference is that CO2 has been around for millions of years and we and our ecosystem has changed to adapt and even rely on it. If you think CO2 isn't a pollutant, I'd suggest putting a plastic bag over your head and breathing that "clean" air you're producing for about 5-10 minutes. If you survive, we can then continue the discussion.
While smug vegans are an occasional annoyance, the microfine pollutants thrown off by poorly maintained trucks seem like a much more clear and present danger to you or me. It's always intruigued me why my car's air filter didn't do a better job at masking trucks that smell like they can't pass the state pollution inspection. Just add that to the long list of carcinogens.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Selenium is a necessary mineral for humans, yet is poisonous if you get too much. Some plants and crops grown in areas where high selenium concentrations exist can become poisonous. Iron and copper are also necessary minerals, but can also become poisonous in certain forms from simple reactions to other common things in the environment.
Part of what makes something pollution or not is quantity. Dumping a small amount of table salt or selenium on the ground won't hurt anything, but dumping a large amount can devastate plants and animals in the area. There are places where warm water discharge is killing off life due to temperature changes in a river or lake, and that damage exists despite water being vital to plant life...
That makes Ford (of Ford Motors) must have been a closet PINKO COMMIE! In 20 years, will Ayn Rand be labelled a socialist? Where will the madness stop?
are exempt from CAFE standards because of their supposed utility.
This has made a huge loophole that the auto makers abuse by promoting their trucks & SUV's above all else.
We can solve this problem by mandating that everything thats exempt from CAFE require a CDL.
I doubt the soccer moms will bother getting a CDL just so they can get a jeep over a minivan. And if they do... good for them at least they'll get some training on how to handle large vehicles. Everybodys safer.
The risk of death or serious injury comes from the cars. If you really need training wheels the possible injuries would be minor.
Do you drive your SUV without eating anything? Ah you are one of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inedia
We can use some term for it (e.g., "greenhouse gas"?) if we want to define it negatively,
There is already a word for substances emitted to the point of negative effects: pollutant.
Those fine particles spewed out from truck exhausts in those bullies crawling uphill going in your lungs - not an issue at all - that would go against the contractually granted right in the TPP for Chinese truck manufacturers to make profit.
The poorer you are, the less likely you are to be able to afford to live close to work.
Not every place is like San Francisco where there is a strong correlation between longer commute length and affordable housing. It varies quite a lot by municipality regarding how far your commute might be.
Nut an increase in greenhouse gas is a problem
which you msy hsve noticed if you live in the west (drought)
The amount is way less howevere.
Humans are fueled by plants or animal protein that has recently been carbon in the atmosphere. Its not an addition to the amount of carbon that is around.
No need to call people a 'nut', especially when you are not informed.
The EPA recognized CO2 as a pollutant, but there are no limits on discharge, that is a key difference.
The west has had much more severe droughts in the last 1000 years than this one. It may be anthropogenic, but there is plenty of history to say it doesn't.
Also, the natural cycle of CO2 far exceeds the CO2 generated by anthropogenic sources, by more than a factor of 15. Look up carbon balance.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
Explain to me again why the addition of something that is " leading to global warming" and "is also a major source of ocean acidification" is not pollution?
Because "global warming" (that i recognize - as even our pre-human ancestors did...) is NOT "pollution" - and deserves some love, stop the hate, there are people dying from cold dude, show some sympathy, SERIOUSLY.
Cobalt is a vital element to the human body, critical to health in the sort of quantities naturally consumed. That doesn't mean that it'd be good for us if someone started dumping huge amounts of cobalt in our water supply.
This is a good point but: cobalt is bad for you and Russians - "global warming" may be bad for you but good for Russians! My point is that we should stop calling CO2 "pollution", and start calling it "greenhouse gas" (by the way, did you know that greenhouses help us Greeks produce tomatos in winter time, so we can always enjoy our famous Greek salad?)
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
Don't worry. They won't need a well-maintained car or these "decent wages" you speak of once their jobs get automated.
Got to hell, you self-indulgent, privileged dick.
FYI: Truck+trailer+bobcat sounds like he does construction work.
It should also be noted that the study was in Canada, and may not be indicative of the US, where each state has its own inspection requirements
Actually it should be noted that the study was done in Ontario and not indicative of the rest of N. America where each of 60+ jurisdictions have their own inspection requirements.
Here in BC (actually only the lower mainland, as in Greater Vancouver) we had smog testing for a couple of decades. At the beginning the results were similar to the study with a small percentage causing the most pollution. After getting those cars fixed or off the roads, the air is much cleaner. The smog test printout also included an estimate on how much CO2 a car spat out.
The point is still that in N. America the base fleet is similar across jurisdictions and absent smog testing to get rid of the biggest polluters the numbers probably stand up over the continent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
When I was just out of college and broke I had a car that was clean and was reliable. When our state began emissions inspections my car failed and I was required to fix it.
Then while it may have been reliable it was by definition not a clean (emissions) car.
For a lot of people, though, they just don't make enough money to afford these kinds of repairs and they NEED a car to get to work or school or childcare or whatever their responsibilities are.
This is true and it is a real problem. The appropriate solution would be for the government to incorporate some form of need based financial assistance for those individuals unduly burdened by the program. Shamefully some state governments appear to not do this.
New cars sold in America are amazingly clean. In some cities the air coming out of the tail pipe is cleaner than the air going in.
Even if that were true (and it isn't really - more on that below) that speaks more to how dirty the incoming air is than to how clean the cars are. Would you breath the air from any car tailpipe? Of course you wouldn't, no matter how clean they claim it to be.
You are not accounting for carbon dioxide emissions because I assure you that more CO2 comes out than goes in and no gasoline or diesel engine cleans that up. Even if the car cleans up the particulate matter nearly perfectly it still emits huge amounts of CO2 and other gases which is still a problem. Cars are a lot cleaner than they used to be but lets not pretend internal combustion engines are anything remotely resembling pollutant free.
Why count CO2 as "air pollution"?
Because there's too much of it right now.
Too much for who? Some Northern countries (e.g., Russia) may consider a blessing this "global warming" (that is cause by CO2, because it is not "air pollution" but just a "greenhouse gas")
If we were on Mars, we'd be fining people for not emitting enough CO2, but we aren't. At least, not most of us. Maybe that explains your comment?
No, but it explains yours: you don't live in Siberia...
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
Is that you mitch 'happy lucky for freedom'?
I'm glad this is being modded up. If we have any hopes of saving the planet, we need to seriously consider this. It's not genocide when you're protecting the earth, and it's most valued inhabitants.
Start with low income/uneducated/disabled people -- they're the ones sponging up most of our money. We can't do anything about 3rd world countries without starting a world war, but we can certainly neutralize the problem within our own borders. Perhaps that will be enough encouragement for other countries to follow suit.
Which is why O2 sensors need to be replaced on vehicles regularly. The usual recommendation is about 100,000 miles or at the same time you replace spark plugs. Granted O2 a single O2 sensor is about an order of magnitude more than a set of spark plugs and you will typically need 2 or 4 of them (not sure if there is a quad cat system) but they are still cheaper than getting a new cat or 2.
Time to offend someone
CO2 is not a pollutant but a greenhouse gas.
CO2 is a pollutant AND a greenhouse gas. It is both. The source of the CO2 is from an artificial source and the quantity is FAR beyond what the evidence shows us can be absorbed in a reasonable time by the natural means.
Otherwise you're making an argument that every time you exhale, you're polluting the air.
We are evolved part of a natural ecosystem. The emissions from a car are not. Every bit of CO2 emitted from cars into the atmosphere is a pollutant because it would not be there otherwise. Anything can be a pollutant if it is put somewhere it would not otherwise be to the detriment of the environment. Water can be a pollutant under the right circumstances.
This car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
CO2 is not a pollutant but a greenhouse gas.
Otherwise you're making an argument that every time you exhale, you're polluting the air.
You are. However, all the CO2 you exhale comes either from the air itself (you inhale a lot of CO2) or from food. The food comes from the plants (either directly or indirectly if you eat meat), which captured CO2 from the air. So the total net emission is 0. The same apply for burning wood.
When a car emit CO2, it comes from petroleum. If we were burning petroleum at the same rate as it was forming (thousands or millions of years) it wouldn't be an issue. But we burn it much faster, therefore it is adding CO2 to the atmosphere. And that is pollution.
Actually, their mpg drops so more fuel required to go same distance.
However, the side reactions, such as increased CO, would be from incomplete burning, therefore for the same amount of fuel, you would have less CO2.
BTW, to get that, the car would not have a working catalytic converter.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Why bother reading half of a factoid? Oh right, the other half doesn't support your argument.
Of course global warning is a major problem. But it's not a problem of pollution, it's a problem of global warming.
That's a tautology if I've ever heard one. Global warming isn't the only problem caused by pollution but global warming IS caused by pollution. This is true even if you ignore whether the source is human or natural. And yes CO2 can be (and is) a form of pollution. It's not particulate matter like soot but it's still pollution.
I don't see anywhere on your linked page indicating the age of the vehicles. Trading in a 10 year old truck for a new truck doesn't help significantly. Trading a 30 year old truck would help (and there are plenty of those on the road still spewing fumes).
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Management may produce negative value, but they're paid far more than those producing the value.
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it let you trade in your car for a huge tax break. Often more than the vehicle was worth. But to do that you had to be able to afford to buy a new car from a dealer. What ended up happening was poor people kept their high pollution clunkers while the upper middle class traded in their 4-5 year old cars for new ones. The law specified that cars & trucks traded in had to be destroyed (since the point was to get polluters off the road). So what you had was a bunch of modern, zero emission cars & trucks being trashed while the poor were busy hacking their stuff from the late 80s early 90s together to keep it running. Meanwhile it had the added benefit of massively raising the price of used cars (since several million left the supply chain as junk) further encouraging the poor to keep their clunkers. It was an unmitigated disaster that we're only just now recovering from.
I've got a 17 year old kid I'm buying a car for and this damn program is gonna add $2k to the cost of it, so I'm more than a little bitter. Gotta have a car though, the bus trip from our apartment to the college is 90 minutes one way. Good luck making it through a rigorous course load with 3 hours out of your day every day. I suppose if she wanted to be a philosophy major...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
it works great for that tire inflation light too.
and how does that fit in to this study about how container ships are contributing 260 times the amount of the worlds vehicle fleet I wonder...
http://www.gizmag.com/shipping...
While I can't dispute the smug factor, is it your hypothesis that bicyclists eat more meat than car drivers?
That's only true when you vote in "free enterprise" types who are motivated to make government bad managers to privatize services and pocket the profits. Here in BC it has gone much as the AC says it has gone in Ontario, privatization always leads to crappy service with higher fees as private industry is naturally inefficient due to having maximize profit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
you got to be trolling ... 25% = 90 of the 100
leaving 75% with the last 10
i might have trouble reading, but even I got this one correct
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Why would the idea of polluting the air with exhalation be silly? Certainly I'm polluting a well if I take a dump in it.
"in short, even if two people are driving the exact same car in the exact same condition in the exact same driving style on average, if one at the particular moment of passing the sensor happens to be letting off the gas, while the other just happens to be accelerating when it passes the sensor, the two cars are going to give wildly different pollution readings."
Well that's how sampling ought to work as far as the overall average goes. If they were only getting readings from cars all cruising down the highway at more or less the same speed under the same conditions that would be a much bigger problem i think. However you're right that it would make it difficult to tell whether Toyota Camry #243 was polluting more than the Toyota Camry average because it was poorly maintained or because it was just accelerating.
I'm guessing they must be recording video as well to identify the make and model of the cars as well. (Are they going through and doing that by hand, or do they have some kind of algorithm that can scan the images and identify make and model?) It's possible they they're also using that video to identify if the car in question is accelerating, cruising, slowing, or braking.
But if that's the case then if they can identify that 25% of Toyota Camrys are polluting significantly more than the other 75% are they then just assuming that those cars are poorly maintained? Or are they also scanning license plates and checking a Toyota database to see when those cars were last reported as being serviced? One of those methods seems like it might be making more of an assumption than may be warranted, and the other is a bit too Orwellian for my taste.
(This question may be answered in TFA, but i can't access that while at work.)
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I drive two trucks that were both brand new in 2013. One of them is a Freightliner Cascadia, the other a Ford F150 with the 5.0 "coyote" engine.
The Freightliner has almost 400,000 miles on the clock now, while the Ford has a mere 25,000. The inside of the stack on the Freightliner is still as silver and shiny as the day it was new. The inside of the tailpipes on the Ford have been black since about day two of operation.
With all the advances in gasoline engines, and all the technology in this 5.0 I'm driving, I was really surprised by how comparatively dirty it is. Considering the days when my trailers used to have a black streak running their whole length, I never expected a diesel to be radically cleaner than a gasoline engine. The key to the whole thing is the diesel particulate filter, and it obviously works very well.
We're talking about a bunch of sloppy old pickup trucks with little or no emissions controls, usually literally nothing but one O2 sensor, an EGR, a PCV, and a catalyst.
I develop vehicle emissions system for a living. An O2 sensor and a catalyst will get rid of the vast majority of emissions from a spark ignited vehicle. Little or no emissions controls would mean 1970s era cars. Think carburetor and no catalytic convertor.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Except you have to remember that this "average" over fleets is not a measured average.
The EPA has a formula to calculate MPG. It is old, and largely wrong. But it is the ONLY way you can describe fuel economy by law.
It isn't average fuel efficiency over time" ... it's "average estimated fuel efficiency appiled over a fleet as of when they pulled the estimation out of their asses using a faulty formula with very constrained assumptions".
It's definitely NOT a known quantity.
So when the GP says "Fuel efficiency is not "known" it is Estimated by a govt agency" ... they are 100% correct.
It is not a real, representative number ... it is a number derived from a specific test, and the extrapolated and treated as factual.
But don't for a minute think this is measured over time or a known quantity. It's anything but.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This isn't new, I've read articles on it (in California) over 20 years ago. Inspections work when a large percentage of your cars are emitting an excessive amount of pollutants. But as that percentage decreases, you end up wasting huge amounts of money.
Say an inspection costs $25 and 1 in 10 cars is not in compliance. You're basically paying $250 to detect each polluting car and require it be fixed. That's probably a worthwhile tradeoff.
Now fast-forward. After decades of inspections have successfully weeded out the worst-polluting cars, only 1 in say 1,000 cars is not in compliance. You're now siphoning $25,000 out of the economy to detect each polluting car. There's no way that's worth it.
California is pretty much already in that second state. 20 years ago the companies that make the emissions testing equipment suggested a much more financially sensible solution. Stop the inspections or reduce them to random lottery inspections which would hit each car on average every 10 years - the vast majority of cars are already clean enough and there's little to be gained from annual or bi-annual inspections. Instead, place detection equipment like used in TFA on places where cars pass by single-file, like freeway on-ramps. This equipment would automatically measure the emissions of each passing car (or truck), and if a particular car was dirty it would snap a photo of the license plate. If a car was flagged repeatedly at multiple stations, the State could then issue the owner a notice requiring him to fix it.
But the idea never got anywhere because the auto repair shops lobbied heavily against it. See, these inspections have become a billion dollar business, and they didn't want to lose that money. One person wasting money is another person making easy money.
You are an idiot the free market forces figure it out. It's called invisible hand and it works a bit like the holy spirit.
The problem is not the comparative amount of CO2 that humans are producing, it's that the ecological carbon cycle is not well equipped to deal with changes in the the total amount of carbon present - that normally only varies on geological timescales, as carbon normally only flows into/out of geological stockpiles *very* slowly (and usually in a fairly balanced manner, so that there is only a tiny net change). Burning fossil fuel is the exception - we're releasing geological carbon into the atmosphere much faster than all other geological processes combined (I can't clearly remember the numbers, but I think we exceed global volcanic activity by 10-20x)
Basically, on a human timescale there are three major "pools" that carbon gets cycled between - the ocean, the atmosphere, and biomass. When we burn fossil fuels we introduce new carbon that hasn't been part of the cycle since before anything resembling humanity existed, and that carbon has to go somewhere. Now if we could get biomass levels to increase in line with fossil fuel emissions we'd be set - but planetary biomass levels seem to actually be falling, which leaves the ocean and atmosphere. CO2 levels in the oceans are climbing - aka ocean acidification, and it's beginning to have devastating effects. Meanwhile the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been climbing at roughly 60-70% of the rate we're emitting the stuff for as long as we've been measuring it - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to make the connection that we're probably dumping CO2 into the atmosphere faster than the ecosystem can deal with it.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
What? No. Seriously.
Huh? Biking is the most energy efficient way to get around (more efficient than walking). And exercise is good for you.
One thing to keep in mind is the carbon cycle. Burning gas / oil / coal unlocks carbon that has been locked away for a loooooooooooooooooooong time. The biggest non-short-term impact on environmental carbon in meat production will be the gas / oil / coal / etc. used in making and transporting it.
The order-of-magnitude higher per-kilometer risk of death or serious injury is, generally speaking, due to the motorists it wouldn't occur if they weren't driving about where people are living / walking / biking / etc.
Exactly. CO2 emissions are not themselves the problem. That they're coming from fossil fuels is the problem. If cars all burned ethanol or bio-diesel it would be a non-issue. Well, I suppose they'd still contribute tot he heat-island effect around cities, but that's a much smaller and not always unwelcome side effect. It's only because we're pumping geologically sequestered carbon into the atmosphere, completely unbalancing the geological carbon cycle, that we have a problem.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
You think all those wheat and vegetable-harvesting farm vehicles are all electric or something?
Never mind, just peeked at your comment history. Common sense doesn't come easy, eh?
Automation could make for a wonderful society.
However, in the meantime, $500 a day entry level jobs in the Colorado fracking industry.
They measure the CO2 and use that as the baseline for the rest of the pollution measurements.
love is just extroverted narcissism
I think you're responding to a typo.
"Nut", should probably be "But"
Calling CO2 a pollutant is unhelpful. In sufficient quantities it will disturb the environment, but so would too much molecular oxygen, ozone, and even water.
There are specific air pollutants that are created and released only by certain processes like hydrocarbon combustion which there is no natural balance for, and which have specific and sometimes immediate health effects. CO2 is harmless by itself as a component of air, and actually necessary for plant life. It's just that we're dumping too much of it into the atmosphere as a result of industry and the excess is causing problems.
My mistake - just looked it up again and apparently human CO2 emissios are 100x greater than the most generous estimates of volcanic emissions. I knew that number felt wrong.
Also, here's a nice image showing the carbon cycle in a bit more detail.
http://essayweb.net/geology/qu...
Notice that it shows carbon flow in both directions - so for example every year vegetation sucks 121.3Gt of carbon out of the atmosphere while releasing 60 Gt back directly, and a further 60GT back from the soil (decomposition, presumably) - for a net flow of 1.3Gt out of the atmosphere.
The ocean similarly cycles 92Gt out of the atmosphere while returning 90Gt back, for a net flow of 2Gt
(And there, at the very bottom, there's sediment - the long-term geological sequestration of carbon at 0.2Gt per year.)
Meanwhile human emissions release 5.5Gt of carbon per year - two thirds more than is removed by vegetation and oceans, to say nothing of the 0.2Gt rate at which it gets geologically sequestered again.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Annual vehicle emissions tests. Cars and other vehicles that pollute are either fixed or removed from the road. Many countries have safety tests already and some include emissions testing as part of that. In a country like the US this should be a federal mandate to stop one state shirking its responsibilities.
CO2 for us isn't a pollutant, we just can't breathe it. If you put too much of anything but oxygen in a room, we wouldn't be able to breathe that either. Nitrogen is something that no one considers a "pollutant", but we can't respire in a room with 100% nitrogen in it either, even though we do pretty well with 70 percent or more Nitrogen every day.
Pollutants disturb processes, CO2 is *part* of a very important process, it's just out of balance right now.
The 25% of old cars don't use catalytic converters. That's common in most 3rd world and EU countries....
Retrofit and call it a day.
First off, cyclists suffer higher rates of death and injury even in areas where there is no traffic, per kilometer. Secondly, are you planning to take all goods by bicycle? No? Then there will still be vehicles on the roads no matter how aggressive you are at switching people over to bikes. My city, for example, is trying to increase cycling from about 4% of trips to about 20% of trips. That's a 5-fold increase in the number of cyclists but only about a 20% reduction in the number of cars. Aka, you're looking at a massive net increase in serious injuries.
Do you drive your SUV without eating anything?
Are we now pretending that moving by human power comes without an additional caloric cost over resting metabolism? That bicycles work by magic free energy?
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
They burn more calories (that's where the energy for propulsion comes from). Calories come from food. If meat is part of their diet, then yes, they eat more meat. Which has a huge CO2 footprint associated with it. Vegetables too have often very high CO2 footprints per calorie (because they have so few calories). As does anything shipped in from long distances away.
A cyclist can maintain a low CO2 footprint, but only by eating a diet that has low CO2 emissions per calorie - for example, locally grown grains, potatoes, etc.
Now, an electric bicycle is a different story; they have incredibly low CO2 footprints.
(It's not just a stereotype that athletes eat big meals after a big game or hard workout. They have to to not lose weight to the point that they lose energy and their body starts to eat itself. While a disturbing number of people seem to have this notion that exercise is "free energy", it's simply not the reality. Yes, a person being fit and thin by exercising regularly will have a somewhat lower baseline metabolism. But it's not even close to the number of calories they burn to get there.)
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
Take your time. It's not a very long post.
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
WHOOSH as the point goes right over your head, not that I am surprised.
Which is why electric bicycles are a very efficient way to get around. But we're not talking about electric bikes; we're talking about human powered bikes. And unfortunately, the CO2 footprint per unit energy out of growing food, harvesting it, shipping it, cooking it, digesting it, and turning it back to kinetic energy via the muscles, is often ridiculously high compared to far more efficient ways of harvesting chemical energy (such as directly burning it in an ICE or gas turbine)
If a cyclist's energy comes overwhelmingly from efficient, locally grown starchy / fatty plant sources, the efficiency of a bicycle can overwhelm the inefficiency of using food as an energy source, and they can get a better CO2 footprint per kilometer than a Prius. On the other hand, that's not a typical diet. If half their calories are from beef, for example, they might as well be driving alone in an SUV.
Are you under the impression that the CO2 footprints from food production don't?
And note that right now I'm only talking about CO2 footprints. Should we also go into the vast amounts of habitat destruction and water consumption used to produce food? Take a look at a satellite image of how much of our planet we've turned into a food-producing machine, and all of the rivers that no longer reach the ocean, or are so full of fertilizers that they make dead zones. Let's not pretend that the act of voluntarily consuming more calories (aka, exercise) is unrelated.
Note that my post wasn't about health. :) This is absolutely true, most people would benefit from more exercise, health-wise (although too much is also bad for you). Although cycling does put you at much greater risk of injury than driving.
Also, see this post.
It's perfectly reasonable to look at all aspects - health, injury, CO2, etc. But I find that all too many people are not only willing to ignore the negative effects of cycling or walking as a mode of transportation, but even get shocked and indignant when someone points them out (see the responses to my post for examples, including the speechless "What? No. Seriously." response).
There are good health effects for people who need more exercise. But there also are negative effects (injury, CO2, land and water use, etc), and let's not pretend that they don't exist.
Sigur RÃs: I didn't know that Heaven had a rock band.
You fail to account that majority of metabolic costs is simply to run your body. It takes about 1500 cal to sit on your ass all day, more if you move off your couch. If it takes 2500 calories to bike to work, vs 1800 calories to drive + gas, then the math is not that clear. Plus, you are over-simplifying by assuming that non-vegetarian diet is all-meat.
Not necessarily. As I recall from my motorhead friends, completely stripping out the emission control system will generally boost both power and mpg. And there's lots of cheap "fixes" to expensive problems that involve doing just that (or at least a specific subsystem).
I would bet that the majority of these "out of tune" cars are owned by impoverished people whose priority is to both eat this month AND maintain a functional vehicle so that they can get to work (so that they can eat this month) - which means either DIY repairs or shade tree mechanics that don't have the diagnostic equipment necessary to tune things properly from an emissions perspective, nor any particular incentive to want to. I mean if a $5 burger for lunch is a luxury expense, and the mechanic says "Well, I can fix your car properly for $2000, or get it running fine again for $50, but the emissions will be all out of spec", which are you going to choose?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
their consumption of meat for the calories they burn gives them the per-kilometer carbon footprint of an SUV
Pure bullshit. Since I think "carbon footprint" nonsense is also bullshit, I'll just use the first available source, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint, for numbers.
You get 200 g/km in a typical new passenger car. (280 for "trucks", but whether that equates to your SUV is unclear.)
You get 7190 g/day for the highest meat diet category. (I'd prefer a more useful g/cal, but it just means a few more calculations.)
So, if you understand unit conversions and don't mind doing some math, you'll end up with at most 40% of the g/km when biking compared to car. (Depends on what percentage of your "daily meat" is burned in the commute vs. just being alive.) They think vegans have the lowest "carbon footprint", so best case you're looking at just under half again g/km. Either way, your equivalency is off by a factor between 0.5 to 0.75. I'm not only going by my personal cal/km, but the generally accepted 500-600cal/hr for moderate cycling and the expected distance covered.
As for "acting all smug", well, pretty much anybody who thinks they are "saving the planet" fits that bill. But your assertion that they are mistaken is, well, mistaken. It does make a difference, possibly without a distinction. If it makes them happy, and they leave me alone, then I don't really care what they think.
I commute to work by bicycle because it only takes a few minutes longer compared to sitting in the car, it is enjoyable to be outdoors and active, and less stressful than dealing with the local road raging drivers. My commuting calories are covered by grabbing a mango off my tree. How that "magically" becomes a nearly 1.5kg "carbon footprint" is not going to be easy to convince me of... The damn thing will just litter the ground with rotting fruit if I don't eat it.
Plus an order-of-magnitude higher per-kilometer risk of death or serious injury than a person in a car.
Also nonsense. Unless you choose to ride your bike in traffic. But that's just silly. Bike paths away from streets cover 80% of my commute, and it isn't that hard to avoid busy roads. I agree bike lanes right next to 40-50mph traffic is stupid. So don't use them. Riding next to 30mph traffic in a good bike lane doesn't bother me. Use back streets, sidewalks, cut through parking lots, etc. But I'm also a motorcyclist, so I've got no illusions about the dangers of not being in a rolling cage.
Mr. AC
I don't eat more when I ride my bike, I just gain less weight.
Vegan or not, those calories have to come from somewhere. And unless you're solely eating out of your own farm (using your own farm-produced manure as fertilizer), your food's probably going to have a sizeable carbon footprint.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
You're overlooking a few key facts. Most people have a caloric surplus which results in weight gain unless they go to some effort to expend energy. Many people join a gym or find some leisure activity that they typically drive to.
Biking to work eliminates the caloric surplus in many cases, and reduces the need for gym or other leisure activity. The math isn't as clear as you think. Bikers aren't always turning new calories into travel, they are often turning calories otherwise destined to turn into fat or be spent at a gym into travel.
In many cases replacing a car commute with a bike commute eliminates several energy uses for a much lower carbon footprint.
Man, you really need that seminar!
I'm not so sure. Probably you couldn't do it with any sort of efficiency. Perhaps more importantly though, I haven't heard of many *effective* long-term CO2 sequestration strategies - we're going to need to store this stuff for at least a few centuries after all, to buy ourselves some time to come up with more permanent solutions. Trying to pump it into abandoned oil or gas wells hasn't been very successful - after a few years it just starts leaking out again over many square miles, and fracking makes it much worse. Storing it undersea is a non-starter - it creates giant dead zones in one our planet's most important ecosystems, and dissolves into the surrounding water, increasing ocean acidification and probably decreasing the ocean's normal uptake of atmospheric CO2 by a similar amount. The only one I've heard of that make any sense is creating biochar and burying it as a soil enrichment additive. But at that point, why not just make biofuel instead and pay the costs up front, instead of loading our cars with giant compressed-gas bombs and inviting various exploits of the CO2 recycling system?
Out of curiosity, let's run some numbers on efficiency of CO2 compression:
First off you run into the issue that a gallon of gas produces about 20 pounds of CO2 (or about 3.17lb CO2 per lb gasoline), so if you burn through a 15 gallon tank of gas you'll be increasing the mass you're carrying by 2.17* (15G*6.3lb/G) = 205lbs. Not a *lot*, but enough to have a measurable impact on efficiency.
Then there's the question of how much energy it takes to compress the CO2. To make it simple lets assume we first produce all the CO2 at atmospheric pressure, and then compress it. I think that should work out the same (or better) than the continuous-flow model. The relevant equation is W=nRT ln(V2/V1).
R=1.986Btu / lb-mol / *R (seems the most applicable availble on the wikipedia page, since for some damned reason I decided to do this in American units)
CO2 is 10.3 moles/pound, and there's 453.59237lb-mol per mol, so n = 305lb*10.3/454 = 7lb-moles of CO2
And it's ~0.12lb/ft^3 at NTP (normal temperature and pressure), so V1 = 305/0.12 = 2,542 ft^3
Finally the temperature at NTP = 70*F, or 530R
That leaves only the size of the storage tank, V2, to decide on. Lets say we make it the same size as the gas tank at 15gal=2ft^3
So the total (ideal case) energy to compress it will be
W=7lb-mol *(1.986Btu/lbmol/R) * 530R * ln( 2,542ft^3 / 2ft^3)
= 52,663 Btu
Huh, a lot less than I expected. And a gallon of gas typically contains ~114,100 Btu, though assuming compression is powered by engine with it's horrible ~25% efficiency, we're talking about burning 1.85 of those 15 gallons of gas just to compress the CO2. A 12% efficiency loss off the top - unfortunate, but surmountable. So I guess the only real problem is sequestration.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Nitrogen is something that no one considers a "pollutant"
Only because no one emits enough of it into the air to cause any damage outside of confined spaces. It is the lack of damage that precludes it from being a pollutant, not that it already exists in some quantity in the environment.
CO2 is *part* of a very important process
So are things like hormones, trace minerals, ozone, and plant nutrients, all of which have been extensively labeled pollutants when released in concentrations high enough to damage something.
Pollutants disturb processes,... it's just out of balance right now.
"Out of balance" sounds like another way of saying a process that has been disturbed...
Exactly. CO2 emissions are not themselves the problem. That they're coming from fossil fuels is the problem.
Mercury emissions from industrial plants are not themselves the problem, the problem is the lack of processes to remove mercury from the environment as fast as emissions...
It won't be the CO2 killing you, but will be the lack of O2 that kills you.
Learn to love Alaska
O2 is a pollutant. If you fill a room with 100% O2 (and don't reduce pressure to under 1/3 ATM), you'll be dead pretty quick.
Learn to love Alaska
MPG is "known" based on real world averages and uses. Nobody uses the EPA numbers, other than to compare two cars in the buying process. That's all it's it's good for, and that's all everyone other than you uses it for.
Learn to love Alaska
Too much for who? Some Northern countries (e.g., Russia) may consider a blessing this "global warming"
Only if they are very stupid. Chaos is a-comin'. Noticed the increase in Russian sinkholes?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Granted O2 a single O2 sensor is about an order of magnitude more than a set of spark plugs and you will typically need 2 or 4 of them
...which is why they are usually only replaced when the vehicle throws a code. If they are meant to be replaced that often, the car is going to have to start setting an O2 sensor fault when the cross-counts drop significantly.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No, the mercury itself is the problem - it's a nasty toxin no matter where it's coming from.
CO2 on the other hand is harmless in normal concentrations, and in fact is absolutely vital to the healthy functioning of our ecology. The only problem with it is that we're producing it from sources where the carbon would normally remain sequestered for many, many more millions of years, and in the process disrupting the thermal equilibrium of the planet, threatening to push it past the tipping point to the other bistable extreme of a radically warmer world.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Trading a 30 year old truck would help (and there are plenty of those on the road still spewing fumes).
OMFGWTFBBQ even Wikipedia knows the program reduced emissions. You weren't even allowed to trade in a car older than 25 years, because the wrecking yards didn't want them. They had to destroy the engines, but nothing else. And they destroyed them by replacing the oil with something horrible, I forget what it was, so anything else was still fine including the complete fuel system of the vehicle, so they were worth more than their scrap value. Also, those vehicles are a tiny minority of what's on the road. The average age of a car in the US is a little over 11 years right now, which is an all-time record high but still a whole lot less than 25.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Look you could reduce the pollution from cars to 0 tomorrow and the CO2 emmissions to nothing and you would not put a dent in the CO2 and pollution we produce as humans. Look we can all SEE cars , and diesel trucks and think look at all that stuff it just put in the air. The fact of the matter is one large tanker ship is equal in pollution output as 1 million cars. 1 ship : 1 million cars
the 80's got us looking at the wrong thing and our heads are still stuck looking at the things we can see.
http://www.gizmag.com/shipping...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...
I've been trying to push this exact point to deniers for a long time. It's a damn simple concept. Inserting ourselves into the carbon cycle and getting work from it isn't the problem, it's the injection of carbon into the cycle from outside of it without an equal amount of sequestration that's causing the problem.
Either offset the injected carbon with biomass (or sequester in some other way) or quit fucking pulling it out of the dirt and throwing it into the cycle and denying that we're the cause of the statistical change.
CO2 on the other hand is harmless in normal concentrations,
As is true for a lot of pollutants, including mercury.
n fact is absolutely vital to the healthy functioning of our ecology.
Not true for mercury, however this is also true for a long list of pollutants.
The rest of what you say is just rewording the same: we're dumping it faster than it disappears and changing the cumulative concentration. That applies to pollution in general, as pretty much any pollutant has a process by which is removed from the environment, even if slowly.
If we docked seven or eight cruise ships or super tankers that would stop more pollution that all the autos in the US cause. How much pollution does burning coal amount to? Yes, beat up cars pollute more than newer, better cars. But even the elimination of all cars will not get us to where we need to be in regard to pollution.
You need some new motorhead friends. They are referring to 80s cars.
It's different now. You just can't remove the emission control, they aren't just add-ons anymore.
Pulling out the fuel injection and bolting on a carb will cost you power.
Also OBD2 scanners are $12 today.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
it's that the ecological carbon cycle is not well equipped to deal with changes in the the total amount of carbon present
I disagree entirely. Our current arable land distribution may not be well equipped, but equilibrium has and will be attained again for every level of carbon in the cycle. Whether we, or most of the extant species today survive to see the new equilibrium is an entirely different discussion. ;)
A million years from today, the fossil record we leave right now will appear as an extinction event, no doubt about it, but the biosphere's overall ecological system isn't going to be hurt by us. If we want to cause a new extinction event to clear some room for evolution, so be it. The last major one was a landmark event for evolution. Maybe the next will be even more incredible
You basically never have to replace the back O2 sensor. My last CA legal cat was $100, granting it was weld in, so not easy for Joe Shadetree.
There are cars with 8 cats and 16 O2 sensors. V8 Volvo's (Fords) IIRC. Parts are stealership only. Serves them right for buying such a POS.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Notice that it shows carbon flow in both directions - so for example every year vegetation sucks 121.3Gt of carbon out of the atmosphere while releasing 60 Gt back directly, and a further 60GT back from the soil (decomposition, presumably) - for a net flow of 1.3Gt out of the atmosphere.
I don't see how that can possibly be accurate unless the Earth's vegetation mass is increasing. I'd be very surprised to learn that is the case, though I could be wrong.
Pollutants disturb processes, CO2 is *part* of a very important process, it's just out of balance right now.
LOL. I get what you're trying to say, really I do...
But too much water in your gasoline very much disturbs the process of combustion. Your logic is circular, through and through.
CO2 is part of the carbon cycle, an integral part of it. However, it's very capable of disturbing the process in certain cases of rate change faster than the other major part of the cycle (biomass) being able to handle it.
A small fraction of Earth's biomass ends up sequester underground one way or another, for example by sedimentation that is buried at the bottom of the ocean. It is the same process that got fossil precursors into the ground in the first place. In addition to biomass, there are a lot of minerals that will form carbonates when exposed to the atmosphere and a small fraction of them will get buried or subducted back into the Earth.
It's very true. If you pipe O2 from outside of the room's oxygen cycle into that room, you are in fact polluting it.
Fortunately, We're not creating a hell of a lot of O2 out of non-O2 cycle O. Are you actually in the fossil CO2 emissions are a pollutant camp? I had thought I had your name associated with the other side of that argument.
You think all those wheat and vegetable-harvesting farm vehicles are all electric or something?
For every pound of meat, you need more than a pound of food to feed that meat, which is grains in one form or another for a lot of common meats. Regardless of whatever method is use to produce the vegetables, the meat will be inherently less efficient.
CO2 emissions are proportional to fuel consumption, so I guess there's no point measuring that figure; the fuel efficiency of vehicles is a known quantity.
But are these vehicule really causing 90% of the pollution? Maybe it's only 35% when you count CO2 who knows?
Ontario Policy is what is causing the pollution. I have heard (but to be fair, have not checked) that you can continue using your vehicle there for decades after it fails emissions tests so long as you don't sell it to someone new. This results in a lot of polluting cars on the road, particularly among people who can't really afford to replace them. A combination of a cash-for-clunkers type program and opening their markets to make it easy to import cars from the states would go a long way toward reducing the air pollution.
There is a box truck that delivers mail to the postal facility on Westgate rd/Floretta Place in Raleigh, NC everyday around 4pm. No license plate, and the entire truck is black from soot and thick plumes of smoke follow it wherever it goes. How do I get this asshole shutdown? Same thing everyday for at least 8 months, probably years.
There is no such thing. Mercury is a highly potent bioaccumulating neurotoxin.
Would you mind explaining the logic behind your absurd attempt at analogy?
Nice that Explorer 4WD was the most traded in but mine was too much of a clunker (or simply too old, WTF?)...so they didn't want me to upgrade apparently. Good thing logic is not required of Congresscritters. And they eliminated most of the used ones I could have replaced it with in the process. A few years later I replaced with another SUV that actually gets WORSE mileage because I can't justify the several thousand dollar differnce for a more economical one.
CO2 isn't a toxic. CO2 causes no health issues for realistic concentrations. CO2 is linked to global warming. I'm on the side of the truth, which makes me on the "other side" to most people.
Learn to love Alaska
Many fertilizers are not toxic at realistic concentrations in the environment, but are still called pollutants everywhere due to the damage they cause via algae blooms.
Sorry, but mercury is present in trace amounts in plenty of water bodies and minerals even without the effects of industry. A typical human will have ~0.1-0.2 ppm mercury in their body. There is a "normal concentration."
And of course you've disregarded the less of the post that made an even stronger post. Take an element like selenium which is necessary for life, has a "normal concentration," yet are toxic at higher concentrations, and there are problems for wildlife and livestock in areas that have above normal concentration of selenium in plants.
It's more difficult yes. You probably want to keep the fuel injection - just replace the control system with one that doesn't care about emissions and it'll run at a very different sweet-spot. Especially after you rip out all the wasteful hardware that is now pointless.
And sure, but OBD2 scanners only tell you the *very* limited data both collected by the cars own sensors and made available over the interface. Often enough to get started, but not even remotely comparable to proper external diagnostics, especially for something like emissions testing.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
>equilibrium has and will be attained again for every level of carbon in the cycle
Not really, the Earth is a bistable system, there are only two broad equilibrium points (well, there are at least two more as well, but those are unable to support complex life) Of course a new equilibrium will be reached, in a strictly literal sense. But it may take many millenia for that new equilibrium to be reached, and it won't necessarily bear any resemblance to what exists now.
I suppose I should have said "the ecological carbon cycle is not well equipped to maintain stability in the face of changes in the the total amount of carbon present". Better?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It takes explaining that there are places with pollution problems due to dumping human crap, and hence just because it is a product of bodily function doesn't preclude it from being pollution?
That bothered me as well, I'm pretty sure vegetation is decreasing. but all the detailed diagrams I looked at had that discrepancy. I imagine some small percentage of biomass gets sequestered - biochar from wildfires and the like. And thriving ecosystems grow soil - a good permaculturist can grow several inches of fresh topsoil a year, so that even if the vegetation level is holding steady, the amount of soil could be increasing.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
In contrast, the only way to eliminate CO2 from an internal-combustion engine is to turn it off.
Just have to use fuel with no carbon such as straight hydrogen, burns good and exhaust should be H2O (though have to be careful about NOx from burning hot).
There's also fuels such as natural gas that have less carbon then gasoline/diesel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
even better is to buy a much faster electric car. You do not worry about pollution (directly, anyways), and the new ones are going to be blowing the doors off production ICE vehicles. Yeah, they will not do 200 MPH, but OTOH, they will get to 60, 100, and 120 much faster than nearly all ICE vehicles. And that is what matters on the roads.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yep, all you need is $50,000 to buy a new vehicle instead of scraping together $500 for something that will hopefully last until you can afford something better, or $50 for a kludgey fix to your current clunker. 25th percentile annual income is almost $18,000, so that shouldn't take long, right?
Though granted, a custom control module is probably not an option at the low end. My friend made custom-modded street-racers, I remember one that had four different modules that could be switched between depending on your current priorities - from (relatively) fuel-efficient cruise-mobile to "punch you into the chair so hard you have to climb out of the trunk".
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Too much for who? Some Northern countries (e.g., Russia) may consider a blessing this "global warming"
Only if they are very stupid. Chaos is a-comin'. Noticed the increase in Russian sinkholes?
Yes, Russia's sinkholes are impressive, and with some more of this "global warming" they will become even more, but once it sinks for good, and things settle down...
But in a more serious tone (not that i am joking so far), i just oppose calling CO2 "pollution" - "greenhouse gas" is more appropriate i think. About sinkholes: i have some Greek and Russian friends living in Russia that tell me you never know where and when they will happen - Russians use it as an excuse for their (usually) non-existant (paved) roads!
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
More fit people burn fewer calories. Their metabolisms become more efficient. So your claim is unfounded.
Learn to love Alaska
Sorry, but even in those amounts, mercury is still a bioaccumulating neurotoxin. Just because our bodies can handle a certain amounts of it through natural repairs before they get overloaded does not make it any less of a bioaccumulating neurotoxin.
"Dumping human crap in highly concentrated amounts into spots we are naturally extremely reluctant to do for reasons of survival" = natural part of just living daily lives?
Are you aware of what "analogy" even means?
Approximately 5-10% of world's total oil consumption goes towards making fertilizers, specifically because we need to enrich soil at a rapid pace to keep up with population numbers.
You also appear to ignore that carbon cycle itself takes decades, and that CO2 pool in atmosphere is shared and not segregated, meaning it's utterly irrelevant where CO2 is produced. It's the totality of the pool that matters.
I ripped all the emissions off my car, then tested it. Passed the test. Most of the measured emissions were so low that they read as zero, and none were anywhere near the limits.
Learn to love Alaska
An O2 sensor and a catalyst will get rid of the vast majority of emissions from a spark ignited vehicle.
They don't even have catalyst monitoring on those old vehicles, and most of them don't have heated sensors so their cold start emissions are abysmal. Virtually none of them have variable intakes or any other even basic trickery. As you ought to know, there's a whole lot of room for improvement beyond the pickups of the 90s. A lot of them didn't even get SFI until this millenium.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Given the subject, he might be confusing it with an anal log.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
No, don't. The clue is in the name. They aren't called siderides.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Stop using oil power and Switch to sail
We can address the rising water problem by building canals all through the US and using the dug up dirt to raise the elevation of the existing land.
Sell your car to the oil lovers and get a sailboat or build your own.
http://free-boat.com
Just because our bodies can handle a certain amounts of it through natural repairs
So in other words, you agree there is a "normal concentration" at which our bodies can deal with it before it is a problem...
That doesn't mean it's "harmless", it means the harm is probably not long term.
" just replace the control system with one that doesn't care about emissions"
Carmakers have been taking proactive steps for a while to counter that kind of thing (such as detecting fake oxygen sensor emulators, etc)
In places like London and Paris which are struggling with very high pollution levels I can see the authoriities using automated identification systems to track down and deal with this kind of problem. A badly tuned car (or one with emissions controls removed) may not be a problem in rural or suburban settings but in a conurbation there are enough of them to make for major issues.
"That's not entirely true. It would probably be cost prohibitive but it should be possible to create a system that routes the exhaust to a compression chamber and stores the co2 as compressed gas creating a system that has zero emissions"
Not just cost prohibitive, but you'll use _at least_ 50% more fuel.
This is exactly what "carbon sequestration" schemes on power stations are about and exactly why they'll fail.
This is the definition of pollutant from the Encyclopedia.
"the addition of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or any form of energy (such as heat, sound, or radioactivity) to the environment at a rate faster than it can be dispersed, diluted, decomposed, recycled, or stored in some harmless form."
Thats a pretty good definition, and it includes c02.
"But at that point, why not just make biofuel instead"
Because we don't have enough arable land to make biofuels and eat at the same time.
The long-term way forward is almost certain to be nuclear for electricity _and_ fuel synthesis (providing both heat and electrolysed hydrogen for synthesis processes) and whilst light water reactors have an exemplary safety record (I'm not kidding, they really do, despite the doom and gloom over TMI/Fukushima/Chernoybl(*)) there are safer designs which have been proven in the past but dropped because they didn't easily produce bomb-grade plutonium(**) I'm talking about LFTRs which are currently the "great white hope" - with any luck they'll be commercialised by the 2020s
(*) Coal stations release more radioactivity from radium alone each year than several chernobyl events.
(**) The plutonium produced is almost entirely the "wrong" isotope which happens to be highly radioactive and kills bombs ("normal" plutonium isn't particularly radioactive). It's extremely hard to separate the 2 isotopes enough to make bomb-grade material and virtually impossible to do so without diverting so much of the reprocessing stream that electricity production would be crippled.
2 words which make pure hydrogen difficult: "Hydrogen embrittlement"
Additionally its hard (dangerous, expensive) to transport. There are a lot more hydrogen atoms in a litre of diesel than a litre of Liquid Hydrogen.
For transport fuels it's best to tack on carbon atoms because despite the efficiency losses it's still a better deal overall. VW/Audi have just demonstrated a fuel they claim was made that way using atmospheric CO2
I thought I saw a program that they did this in Colorado, or some other state. The point was it was easier and cheaper to monitor passing traffic and have the state pay to fix the cars that were the major poluters than have everyone go through an emissions check every year - or something like that. And I remember is was more like 10% of the cars caused 90% of the polution.
While hydrogen is impractical for the reasons you mention, the point is that it is possible to have an internal combustion engine with close to zero carbon emissions whereas the post I responded to basically said it was not possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Read that line again in context. I was dismissing the creation of biochar from stored automotive exhaust as needlessly complicated. Not advocating biofuels.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Which is of course completely ridiculous. I actually remember this "study", where they assumed that the bicyclist ate nothing but steak, and then carefully accounted for every bit of energy that would go into producing the bicyclist's 100% steak diet. Then they compared that to an SUV where the gasoline magically appears in the tank (extraction, refining, transport apparently uses exactly zero energy) then came to their absurd conclusion. I can't believe people still take it seriously.
Oil consumption to produce energy to produce fertilizer is pollution too. I agree it's the totality of the CO2 pool that matters, it's exactly what I was saying. But there is a distinction between releasing CO2 by burning wood that took 20 years to grow (relatively short term) and burning oil that took million of years to form. We can easily plant new trees to capture CO2 but making oil from the air CO2 is currently not feasible.
Except that it doesn't meet your criteria because it can be recycled. It's the greenhouse effect that it causes that is dangerous, and that occurs on planetary level and is caused by a sum of all greenhouse gasses rather than only CO2.
If you ask our plants for example, they would love to have even higher concentration of CO2. They can certainly recycle it even further. That is why we have high concentrations of CO2 in greenhouses and why we call this phenomenon "greenhouse effect". The problem here is the fact that it causes changes on global scale we as species may not be able to adapt to.
This is why California has had some fairly onerous smog check laws to get older cars off the roads...
You also forget that CO2 is just one of the greenhouse gasses. Methane for example is far more potent greenhouse gas, approximately 20 times more than CO2. And that is what cattle releases as part of the production cycle in large amounts and it's estimated that cattle production produces a large slice of human caused portion of greenhouse effect.
This is why it's very important to understand that CO2 is NOT pollution. It's a greenhouse gas and greenhouse effect is not like what pollution does - localized, generally repairable damage with time. It's the exact opposite, it's an accelerating effect on global level that is only going to get worse.
Except that it doesn't meet your criteria because it can be recycled.
You misread it, the criteria is not that it can't be recycled, but that it is being released faster than it is being recycled. If just excluding stuff as pollution because it can be recycled, pretty much all pollution can be reclaimed, sometimes practically, sometimes not.
That is patently incorrect. Things like mercury and so on have no natural "recycling" mechanism. Instead they bioaccumulate.
this seems to concentrate on exhaust emissions. But a 60s car emits more pollution just sitting there than a modern does running; modern cars trap evaporation from the gas tank, and are built with plastics that emit less in the way of hydrocarbons as well.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
An increase in the CO2 emission would be great. That means that the car is processing the fuel efficiently. What you don't want is all the other nasty chemicals. I remember acid rain due to sulphur in diesel fuel. It turned all my trees at the cottage brown. Yucky stuff. Ontario has a drive clean program that tests older cars for excess pollution. Nowadays the cars a better built and no longer need fixing after testing. Toluene and Xylenes are very toxic and cause cancer. We use a lot of salt on our roads. In the spring time there is a lot of salt dust in the air and it covers the inside of the car with white powder.
I'm skeptical about the idea that those who bike to work eat substantially more (or even statistically more) than those who drive. Do you have any actual evidence or studies that back this up?
There are many kind of pollutions. It can be local or global. Greenhouse gases are one type of pollution.
Again, greenhouse effect is NOT pollution. It's a part of normal planetary cycle. Our only problem is that we accelerate it too much.
When you argue something this patently false, you do nothing but hamstring the entire movement that is trying to push for wide consensus among populace as to why global warming we have is dangerous and needs to be slowed down at the very least. It does nothing but give ammunition to opposition punditry who use such patently false claims to paint entire movement as alarmist, untrustworthy and downright malicious.
Well... you state "Otherwise you're making an argument that every time you exhale, you're polluting the air." to which I'd say, "yes, you're correct, we do pollute every time we exhale. Why wouldn't you think so? We pollute plenty with other natural processes." When making beer the little yeast pollute that carboy with their excretia and respiratory byproducts until they die or go dormant.
Metal is also a natural element. Therefore throwing a beer can in the wood isn't pollution, by your logic? This is ridiculous.
Because there are too much greenhouse gases is the reason why all greenhouse gases must be considered pollution. If there was no problem with them at all, then I agree it wouldn't be pollution.
Metal is not present in such highly refined form in the woods. Therefore it is in fact polluting it.
I recommend looking at the whole aluminium refining process to see just how much is needed to produce that can of beer of yours, and how many millenia of progress in metallurgy we had to go through to get there.
And one more time. There is no such thing as "too much greenhouse gasses". Our planet has gone through cycles where their amount was FAR higher than it currently is, and FAR higher than the "scariest scenarios" considered feasible in a few centuries. These cycles are completely natural.
The problem is that the speed at which we emit them is so great that natural cycle of adaptation in ecology appears to be unable to keep up with it, causing a massive extinction event which will eventually hit us as species.
The problem is that the speed at which we emit them is so great that natural cycle of adaptation in ecology appears to be unable to keep up with it, causing a massive extinction event which will eventually hit us as species.
Nope. You don't understand the problem at all. The problem isn't that the Earth won't be able to keep up with it. There won't be any massive extinction event. As you said, previous levels of CO2 have been reach in the past. The problem is an economic problem. It will cost more (in future lost productivity) to mankind to do nothing than to lower CO2 emissions.
There is no such thing as "too much greenhouse gasses".
There is. Just like there can be "too much" pollution in a river. Pollution is always a question of quantity.
Wait what? No massive extinction event?
What do you think is ongoing right now as we speak?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And one last time: there is no "too much greenhouse gasses". I have presented the arguments why. Just because you say "I don't agree" isn't going to make it go away any more than its going to make the current ongoing extinction event go away.
Wait what? No massive extinction event?
Many species are disappearing because of human activity (urbanization, deforestation), but no necessarily because of warming. Life on Earth isn't threatened by global warming (it will adapt). The main reason to fight global warming is for ourselves, not for other species.
The massive extinction you are speaking about started millenials before man-made global warming.
And one last time: there is no "too much greenhouse gasses". I have presented the arguments why. Just because you say "I don't agree" isn't going to make it go away any more than its going to make the current ongoing extinction event go away.
Just because you think your arguments are valid doesn't mean they are.
Pollution is a broad term. I guess many different definition exists. The following list CO2 as a pollutant, specifically because of its greenhouse gas effect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... http://www.skepticalscience.co... http://www.scientificamerican....
If we weren't emitting more CO2 than what the system absorbs, we wouldn't list it as a pollutant, of course.
http://sks.to/pollutant
I'm sorry, but that is patently false. In addition to massive habitat change triggered by global warming that is wiping out countless species, we have a very well defined issue with acidification of large water habitats that are killing entire ecosystems, such as reefs.
Acidification that is a direct consequence of CO2 emissions.
And one last time. We are in fact emitting less CO2 than system absorbs. FAR less. The problem is that system itself also emits CO2 and is by design made in a way that adapts to exceptional events that emit large amounts of CO2 by absorbing even more. The problem however is that before CO2 is absorbed, it causes increased amount of thermal reflection back to the planet, which is what we call a greenhouse effect.
Normally CO2 emissions fluctuate with period, as ecosystems themselves work in different ways. Much of our current plant life for example would absolutely LOVE more CO2. Far more. That is why we have far more CO2 in greenhouses. It makes plants more efficient.
I recommend clicking the "advanced" part of the link and read the contents. They are hilarious. It's literally "US legislators have a really broad definition of pollutant, therefore we state that CO2 meets some of that criteria and is *legally* a pollutant".
Example of other equally funny and absurd legal definitions made for reasons of specific punditry:
Corporation = person.
So, CO2 is a pollutant according to: the US EPA, Wikipedia, the EU, and many more. Just like dumping mercury in the water is a pollutant even if it occurs naturally. Ozone is also a pollutant at low altitude, even tought we need it at high altitude. Your definition is full of contradictions.
You just compared mercury, a bioaccumulating neurotoxin to CO2, the gas necessary to sustain life on the planet and one of the major components of biosphere.
Congratulations. You managed to go full hyperbole.
I never said all pollutants were equals. But yes, both are pollutants.
Even a H2 engine emits carbon - almost all the H2 fuel currently produced comes from stripping methane.
Clean burning it is, clean to make it isn't.
There are only a few real ways of reducing net carbon emissions without killing off 90% of the global population and reverting to a sackcloth+ashes existence. Just about everything that's been done so far has been greenwash to try and put off making significant changes.
True that H2 is usually produced in a non-optimal way. The main point that I was making is it is possible to build an internal combustion engine with close to zero carbon emissions (some lube will leak into the combustion chamber). Maybe not currently practical but hydrogen can be produced in a non-carbon producing way, eg electrolysis using hydro, nuclear or even wind..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism