3rd Feb 2011, 08:47
"...it must be acknowledged that 20% is not "10 times" the pollutants, as was being claimed. The FACT remains that not all new cars are more efficient than all old cars."
Exactly! The roughly 10x factor applies to non catalytic cars vs, those with catalytic converters. That means we need to go back to the early 70's to find the real stinkers. After the introduction of catalytic converters, it was matter of optimizing the systems, which resulted in much smaller gains in cleaning the exhaust from pollutants.
3rd Feb 2011, 11:53
That is a nice attempt to turn the tables and accuse me of doing what you have been doing. It's a classic debating trick. I challenged you to provide facts to substantiate any of your rhetoric. You had none, only more rhetoric. Your beliefs are not facts, regardless of the number of times or vehemence with which they are stated.
I provided numerical data, which you were unable or unwilling to do when I challenged you to do so. At least the other guy seems able to have a fact-based discussion using real numbers, and voicing reasonable disagreements on certain interpretive aspects of the data, while all we hear from you is more "I know old cars are bad, and so does everybody!"
20% --- that's like a "Buy 5, Get 1 Free!" sale. Not really enough to get excited about. I say, when your old car wears out, by all means get a newer one that is hopefully more efficient and gas thrifty. After 25 years, I would certainly HOPE that a new car would be at LEAST 20% more efficient than an older one. Sadly, as we have seen from the data, that is not necessarily always the case. What people should be asking is, why not? At least with the government bailouts, it broke the power of the auto industry and their ability to throw up roadblock after roadblock against increased efficiency requirements.
You really want to cut emissions? Then the country needs to invest in reliable mass transit, high speed rail to business centers to eliminate hundreds of thousands of cars idling in rush hour traffic every day. Junking that 1985 Plymouth Reliant that was running fine in order to replace it with a 2011 Focus isn't really helping the environment.
And of course, we have thus far only discussed carbon footprint and gas mileage, not even touched on what it takes to manufacture new vehicles. Clear-cutting a rain forest to expose new bauxite and iron mines, deep sea drilling to obtain more petroleum for plastics and mid-stream manufacturing, strip mining coal and burning coal for power to the factories, or perhaps the electricity comes from nuclear power -- no environmental consequence there! Emissions produced by individual vehicles is only a small part of the equation, overshadowed by the emissions produced by the larger consumer-driven industrialized society.
3rd Feb 2011, 13:22
Whatever dude! I DID provide articles for proof, which you only ignore because you want to believe only what you are talking about. You just can't convince some people that have certain beliefs stuck in their heads, even with proof by competent sources.
Game over... and out. I am done with this tired, useless argument. Cheers! Don't bother responding, as I won't be revisiting this thread...
3rd Feb 2011, 13:43
"Sure - there seems to be a tired old argument about how that they are bad for the environment because of the batteries and coal powered electric plants. But in reality, those batteries are recyclable, and the coal plants in most cases have numerous scrubbers. I grew up near a huge coal plant, and the only time we saw anything come out of the stack was in the winter when it was mostly condensation. The thing is that what do you think is cleaner? Millions of questionably maintained cars of varied ages or a few centrally located, heavily regulated modern coal plants?"
It's not actually a tired old argument. It is very much current, and bringing the realization that there is no easy cure for cutting emissions. Perhaps hybrid batteries are theoretically recyclable, but those cars are not yet old enough to know whether they will be. Will people trading in get a tax credit for recycling a hybrid battery? Or will they end up in junk yards? Also, as the use of hybrids increases, new raw materials will be required for more batteries. Nor is it a tired out old argument as to where the electricity will come from to charge those electric vehicles. It's the same as gasoline made from corn --- it seemed like a great idea to manufacture our own ethanol, until it was discovered that it took more energy to make it out of corn than it does to refine crude, and thus it has become recognized as a dead-end, false solution.
Those heavily regulated coal plants of which you speak are not as heavily regulated as you believe. Although power plants are required to install scrubbers, they have gotten around this for decades by claiming they are in the process of doing maintenance and upgrades, which is a loophole that allows plants built in the '50s to continue operation without scrubbers. Plus, scrubbers catch fly ash and sulfur dioxide, not carbon dioxide, which is the main concern of global warming, and the heart of why we are talking about vehicle emissions in terms of carbon footprint. No, you don't see the dirty smoke pouring out of chimneys, but you have to think in terms of the carbon balance and the CO2 being produced.
So, which do you think are cleaner? Several tens of thousands (if you're referring to cars of the 1980's) of questionably maintained vehicles, or dozens of huge, aging, poorly regulated power plants?
2nd Feb 2011, 16:11
First of all, you don't think actually smelling burning fumes and seeing smoke come from a car doesn't mean that car is polluting more? Hmmmm... okay then, I guess I am missing something!
You know it seems you are such the expert on this subject, however you have yet to prove one thing that you claim. You are very good at commenting on my posts, but that is about it. Not that I need to prove anything to you, but I have provided articles to back up my claims; one with a chart to back up my claim of ten times the pollutants in older cars. So where is your proof that old cars don't pollute as much?
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that old cars are old and mostly worn out, therefore they are not running to their optimum level and are polluting the air at least ten times as much as a brand new car. Also the standards to which cars were produced 25 years ago are not even close to what they are built to today. The emissions standards are much more strict today, so how can you even argue the fact that old cars pollute more? Please prove that this isn't happening, or stop saying how I nor anyone else has proven their claims.
I just love when people accuse others of false claims, but provide nothing to substantiate their own claims. So now you can stop copying my posts and come up with some original material of your own.... in the form of proof that older cars don't pollute any more than new ones do. Oh, and make sure you are comparing apples to apples, and not today's Hummer vs. an old Honda Civic.