From: greg@cherokee.b23b.ingr.com (Greg Moritz)
Subject: Re: Ethanol blended gasoline
Reply-To: greg@cherokee.b23b.ingr.com (Greg Moritz)
Organization: Dazix, An Intergraph Company
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 15:27:43 GMT

walkerr@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Robert A Walker) writes:
  
RW>	Taking cars off the road just because they are old, why.
  
smith@ctron.com (Lawrence C Smith) writes:

LS> Because they are responsible for 90% of the automobile pollution, ...

dcg@mogun.UUCP (David Gunsul)  of Hotrods `R' Us writes :

DG> This is complete and total BULL-SHIT cars and I mean all cars
DG> only make up 10% of the worlds pollution.

Perhaps, but they make up a far larger % of the USA's air pollution
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DG> That's a far cry from the eco-nazis BS that's been used to scare
DG> everyone into believing that cars are evil.

If your figures were true, yes.  People who like cars need to be able
to admit to the damage they do, so that they don't end up looking like
eco-nazi fanatics.
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LS> No one has suggested a mechanism, only the result desired.  I expect 
LS> that when an old car fails the emission test and is condemned, the 
LS> owner would be paid some salvage fee - and perhaps be rebated some 
LS> "deposit" amount collected from purchasers of new or used cars - 
LS> resulting in enough to buy a newer car of similar value but less 
LS> proclivity for polluting.

DG> That's a really nice way to say: that's a nice hotrod you've got there
DG> to bad you can't have it anymore but don't worry here's $500.00 for 
DG> your pride and joy.

Hotrodders should fight efforts to remove well-maintained older vehicles 
from the road.  However, even hotrodders should be able to see the benefit
to removing older vehicles that are just barely making it.

If the older vehicles are scrapped, but not crushed and melted, they could
provide a supply of important parts to people looking to keep up an older
vehicle.

Paranoia doesn't help anybody.  These programs to buy up older cars, as
far as I've seen have been strictly voluntary.  As soon as they try to
become mandatory, then you will have a case - and large numbers of 
supporters.   If events lead to mandatory confiscation of older cars, then
                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
we have much larger problems afoot than losing the joys of hotrodding.
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RW> some people can't just go out and buy a newer car.
  
LS> That can no longer be used to justify letting them drive bigtime 
LS> polluters.  If we don't clean up the overall average, the econazi's 
LS> will have us _all_ walking or talking the bus.  If we can't work out 
LS> some sort of way to slip a few bucks to the owners of condemned cars 
LS> to soften the blow, well, better them than all of us.

I'm confident that it would be possible to get the older cars cleaned
up rather than to confiscate them.

For those who can't go out and buy a new car just now, fixing up would
be the best solution.  For those who are looking to sell, but can't afford
to fix up the old polluter, selling to the government would be a nice
solution - but only if the car is decrepit.  

As Larry put it, in order to avoid penalizing *all* drivers, by restricting
our rights to drive, we can all chip in to buy the older cars that people
are *willing* to sell.  Eventually, the cost of buying these old cars can
be recouped thru sales of salvageable part off those old cars.

Again, this has other benefits because it allows drives of older cars who
maintain them to have a better supply of parts (that can be used to reduce
the pollution from those remaining older cars).
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In a previous article, walkerr@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Robert A Walker) says:
  
RW> ....  the government should go after the biggest polluters.  If that 
RW> is cars then go after them.  ... those factories that churn out tons 
RW> ... of smoke do more damage than the cars driving by them ...
  
aas7@po.CWRU.Edu (Andrew A. Spencer) writes:

AS> no. most of the "smoke" that you see coming out of factories is h2o, 
AS> simple water vapor.  The epa started cracking down on them much 
AS> before and much harder than cars.

DG> BZZZZT!!! Did you know that in the states that these "clunker" bills
DG> have been enacted that some of these companies collect (so called)
DG> clunkers and when the companies turn these cars in these same wonderful
DG> companies get some kind of permit that enables them to pollute MORE.

So you would rather let the factories close (or downsize) and lay off all 
(or some) of their workers rather than put any restrictions on older cars?

DG> Now would someone please tell me how this is helping the environment?

Glad to.  The way it works is that if a factory is putting out 100,000 units
of pollutants into the air, but the EPA says that they are only allowed to
put 80,000 units into the air, the factory has two choices:

    (1) Reduce pollution at the smokestack - which may be economically
        prohibitive and cost the loss of jobs when the factory is scaled
        back or shut down.  (ie.  Might cost millions.)

    (2) Reduce pollution from another source.  This source could be old
        cars that put out more pollution than new cars.  The factory
        can buy up cars that put out those 20,000 units annually.  The
        amount of cars would be determined by some formula that takes
        into account the amount of pollution that the old car puts out
        in excess of the standard for the current year and the average
        amount that it is driven, etc.  

From the standpoint of the city at large - the results are the same.
Pollution goes down by 20,000 units.  Eco-nazis are happy.  (*)   Factory
workers still have their jobs.  Hotrodders have a bunch of new automobiles
at the junkyard to scrounge.  The junkyard has a bunch of new inventory.
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sborders@nyx.cs.du.edu (Scott Borders) writes:
  
SB> In my opinion, we should 
SB> concentrate first on fixing/removing those autos that pollute the most.

DG> Well in my opinion, I think we should get rid of every polluting 
DG> big mouth that wants to remove all of the *fun* cars  from the road.

In my opinion, we should try to avoid looking like fanatic eco-nazis.
Scott said fixing/removing - this implies that he is flexible.  You don't
           ^^^^^^
appear to have any flexibility in this matter.
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(*) Keeping in mind that eco-nazis are *never* really happy.  They'll
    just be a little more quite.
Newsgroups: rec.autos