What should we do about car emissions?
Answer:
The problem with diesel is that in cold temperatures, the viscosity of the fuel becomes so thick it is nearly impossible to run the car. The problem with switching to vegetable oil, like said by another person here, there's not enough to do any real dent in this emission problem. Telling everyone to stop driving and flying? Well that's a nice thought, but this is America after all, not some communist country.
A short term solution is getting more people to walk, bicycle and use mass transit to get where they need to go. Mass transit is a distinct advantage, it saves gas and reduces the amount of cars in possible collisions on the roads.
This is a very short term solution, long term solutions lie in new technology coming down the stretch. Hybrid vehicles are gaining in popularity, because they can get 50-60 miles to the gallon, but the current hybrids do not get very far on the electric battery should the gas engine die. GM is on the verge on introducing a new plug-in hybrid, which will charge the electric battery overnight and that battery will be able to 60 miles on the charge. For many people that would mean being able to go round trip to work without burning any gas at all!
Even further down the way, the hydrogen car. Well once they make it less explosive in a crash. Further still (I think), the nanotech powered car. The problem with nanotech is if the battery is ruptured, the stuff inside penetrates the human body as easily if not more easily then gamma radiation. Very Deadly problem, eh?
So the best solution, hybrids for the moment.
We should drive those cars.
I don't want to drive a Volkswagen.
We should stop politicians from flying around in private Lear jets because the carbon footprint from a single one-way trip is about 14,000 times higher than one person emits in a full year.
while that is an excellent solution, there is only enough waste veggie oil in the world to power a small percentage of our dependence on oil.
We need to accept nuclear power as clean and efficient, and look to solar and wind energy, but not let politics get into the mix (wind turbines are being rejected because Ted Kennedy and other elites don't like the noise). Let the free market develop these new technologies, and encourage new things.
Everyone should stop driving, flying and anything else that has emissions. No emissions, no problems.
I don't feel like driving such a car.
Just curious though. Where are you going to get nine million barrels of vegetable oil per day?
Diesel engines are noisy and don't perform as well. People don't want them because they are much less pleasant to drive. The new VW Beatle is very expensive for such a small car, that's why nobody bleeding wants the thing. Beatles are also too small to be suitable as a family car. Who the hell wants to be cramped up into the back all the time? It's also a girls car. A lot of men would be embarassed to own one.
The fact is that mainly only young, unmarried females want to drive a Volkswagon Beatle. If you were 35 and with two kids, would you prefer one over a spacious and comfortable family car, especially considering the price?
If you were speaking of the old Beatle, well that's just a piece of crap that no one wants to be caught dead it.
Non-petrol engines such as ethanol engines also perform worse, and though emission of several polutants is reduced, it doesn't make that much difference to carbon dioxide emission, the major gas of concern to many.
Vegetable oils are more viscous and have a lower oxidative stability than diesel, making them an inferior substitute for something which is already inferior to petrol. And burning them still produces carbon dioxide.
Eliminating the use of oil products would also bring instability and poverty to countries which are largely dependant on oil exports and cause great damage to the economies of other countries who at least owe a reasonable share of their income to oil export.
The point is that there are many factors to consider. You can't just say "let's eliminate pollution by driving around in solar-powered cars" or something like that.
You have stated that diesel-powered cars can last for 1,000,000 miles if taken care of. The reason diesel engines can last longer is because they have to be built more solidly to withstand the extra compression force used to ignite the fuel. It's not like diesel is easier on the engine.
On a side note, I'm not sure whether global warming is or isn't real or is or isn't due to man. The earth naturally goes through periods of climate change and there have been several ice ages come and go in the past. To announce any overall temperature change in the past hundred years as absolute proof of the effects of pollution is a very uneducated statement.
until we find replacement for gas use Hybrid cars
Learn to ride bikes again! (( There That Solves That!))
What would jesus do? Well he didn't drive cars that's for sure.
What did our prehistoric ape like ancestors do? They walked. You know with things called legs that most humans don't really use these days, but to get out of bed and into are earth destroyers everyday.
......^
The puddytat ----^
said it all
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