permaculture

["John Schinnerer" <john@eco-living.net>]

Aloha,

While we're throwing stats on cars, a fun one is that more pollution is
created in manufacturing a new car than will ever come out its tailpipe
during its useful lifetime.  Thus older, well-maintained fuel-efficient
cars may amortize out as least polluting overall.

The 1980's was about as good as it got for this - emissions controls
weren't so good before that, and mileage has gone downhill since then. 
IMO overall quality of product was better then too.

I'm curious to see if shared vehicle systems (such as flexcar,
www.flexcar.com, which is operating here in Seattle) will reduce either or
both of pollution and traffic.

If I can walk, bike or mass-transit easily to all the basics of daily
life, I only use a car for longer trips, vacations, occasional
hauling/transport needs, etc.  So cluster villages and other more communal
'all-in-one' community designs would seem to support similar behavior.


> The Portable Power Equipment Manufacturers claim that less than 1% of
> California's air pollution comes from 2-cycle engines (mowers, etc).

They are the manufacturer's lobby, of course...grain 'o salt and all
that...but even if they're bending the stats considerably it is still a
very small percentage of total pollution.

On the *other* hand - 2-cycle engines spit out *way* more unburned
petroleum (gas and oil) in their exhaust than 4-cycle.  One sample of
stats:

"The 2-cycle engines used in snow machines emit 20 to 33 percent of their
fuel unburned.  This emission includes lubrication oil, which ismixed in
the fuel at a ratio of 50 parts gasoline toone part lube oil (50:1). Most
of the visible haze in 2-cycle exhaust is from the lube oil."

This is typical for any 2-cycle, from little weedwhackers to jet skis,
dirt bikes and snowmobiles.  20-33% raw fuel!!  :-O

> My bio-diesel buddies claim
> diesels cause less pollution than comparable gas car exhaust; I'll have
> to question them more carefully about that.

I have read, and been told by biodiesel advocates, that the particularly
nasty particulates present in petroleum diesel are simply not present in
biodiesel exhaust, because they're a result of the petroleum chemistry and
don't get created when burning biodiesel.  Biodiesel exhaust certainly
doesn't stink or make me feel nauseous the way petro-diesel exhaust
does...

"Diesel" is after all the name of the guy who invented that particular
form of internal combustion engine and doesn't say anything about the
chemistry and byproducts of whatever fuels will make that kind of engine
run...



John Schinnerer, MA
-------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net