From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: Question about MPG
Organization: I can't see any in the immediate vicinity...
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 07:18:23 GMT

In article <1992Aug7.025234.28942@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>In article <1992Aug3.221908.1860@nuchat.sccsi.com> kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug3.042511.10570@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>>>In article <1992Jul31.044155.1211@nuchat.sccsi.com> kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>>>>
>>>>No, but the pollution produced in the manufacture of a new automobile may
>>>>compensate for the amount of emissions produced by his current car.
>
>>>Not true.  This has been analyzed in the context of suggestions that
>>>companies get emission credits for buying clunkers and junking them.
>>>Remember - you aren't building a car that otherwise wouldn't be built.
>>>You're just building it a few years early.
>
>>Yeah, but in doing so, you increase the number of cars that get built on 
>>a per-unit-time basis, and thus increase the per-unit-time pollution
>>output that results from production.  Then it becomes a question of 
>>whether or not the pollution produced is offset by the savings.  It's
>>not clear to me whether it is or not.
>
>Well, this may not be clear to you, but it's clear to California's
>Department of the Environment or whatever it's called.  How exactly
>would you go about finding out if they are right?

Look at the EPA information (if it exists) on how much pollution is being
produced (grand total) by the automakers annually.  Divide this by the number
of cars they produce annually.  This should give you a rough estimate of
the pollution produced per car in the year the statistics were taken.  Do
the same for the year the car being evaluated was produced.  Use MPG figures
and pollution data for the new car to figure the average pollution produced
by the new car on a per-mile basis.  Do the same thing with the old car.
You also need to do these things for a future new car that you would be
buying if you kept the current car instead of buying a new car now.

Then add up all the calculated pollution values for the time-frames in
question, for each scenario you're considering (one scenario is that you
buy a new car immediately.  The other is that you keep what you've got
for some period of time and then buy, at that time, a new car).

There are complicating factors, of course (there always are :-).  Among
them being that automakers produce not just cars, but trucks and other
things.  You have to account for that.  Another is that they use energy,
which may or may not be produced in a clean way.  It can get quite
complicated.

Anyway, using the information you need for the above, you can figure out
where the breakeven point is for the purchase of a new car in terms of
grand-total pollution production for a given window size (e.g., 10 years).

>>If the average pollution produced by the cars that most people have is less
>>than the pollution produced by his car, then this is true.  I cannot say
>>whether or not this is the case here.
>
>Well, to be certain you would have to test his car individually.
>
>By the way, that's another clear proof that a lot of this
>environmental stuff is political grandstanding.  If smog, etc. was
>really a problem we wouldn't have this bulshit where older cars don't
>need to meet as strict emission standards.

This would definitely be valid if it weren't for the fact that the chassis
of older cars were not designed with catalytic converters in mind.  Cats
produce a lot of heat, and that heat has a nasty tendency to melt and
burn things that aren't protected.

Other than that, I'm inclined to agree.



-- 
				Kevin Brown

			    kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com
			    kevin@taronga.taronga.com
Xref: sparky sci.environment:10678 ba.transportation:1998 rec.railroad:6507