20 ms·

Pollution from fossil fuel combustion deadlier than previously thought

301 points by seesawtron 6y ago

ipnon 6y ago
Some economic gains we will see from adoption of EVs and clean energy: 1. Real estate prices in high traffic metros like Los Angeles and Houston will increase further because the return to clear skies from smoggy days and fresh air will be a bonus. 2. People will suddenly start living much longer lives with more quality years at the tail end "for some strange reason." 3. Cancer rates will stabilize "for some strange reason."
- staplers 6y ago
  Something to consider when discussing EV's is that they outsource energy production to industrial/rural areas. Sometimes to "sustainable" sources (hydro, wind, solar) but often to coal, nat gas, etc. I suspect the added electricity demand from everyone switching to EV's won't be easily supplied by renewables thus creating this problem elsewhere. Hopefully it's possible but the cynic in me disagrees.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Even moving the combustion byproducts from where the people are to where the power plants are is a small win. That the plants can more easily install scrubbers for some pollutants is a further small win. That they are more efficient (even with 15% charging losses) is another small win. That the use of renewables can grow over time without car owners having to upgrade is another small win. Stack up enough small wins and you can get to sizeable gains.
  - stefan_ 6y ago
    You can literally take the oil we use right now to power cars and dump it in a generator to get electricity, and not only would you go farther but do it with less pollution at places where pollution matters less. "Where will the electricity come from" is unadulterated FUD.
    - xnx 6y ago
      I mostly agree, but still laugh a little when people purchase cars to be "green" in a location where most of the electricity comes from coal. Without an EV they never wouldn't have been able to find a car that runs on coal.
      - gambiting 6y ago
        Even in places which are pretty decent about green sources like the UK, most populated areas in the country have very dirty electricity - rated at about 250-300g/CO2 per kWh produced. In terms of emissions per mile driven, that's worse than some modern petrol and diesel cars. Yes, you can purchase green electricity from your supplier, but it doesn't change the fact that the electrons going into your car are not from a clean source at all.
        sjg007 6y ago
        Those power plants could implement stronger emission controls.
        danans 6y ago
        That is flat out incorrect. Even in places that use only coal to generate electricity, EV CO2 emissions per mile are lower than gas vehicle emissions. See for yourself: https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html
        gambiting 6y ago
        So I don't know why you're linking a US study when I specifically said UK where the emissions are 300g/kWh in some areas, but ok, I mean I can do this too. Where I'm from(Poland) the biggest power plant is the Bełchatów power plant, which burns lignite for power - the CO2 emissions per kWh generated from that power plant are about 1kg/kWh produced[1]. At such an insane CO2 emissions rate even the most efficient EV - let's take a Model 3 - is worse than a modern petrol car. According to this site[0] Model 3 is incredibly efficient, using only 11.9kWh for every 100km travelled. So that's about 120Wh per km. If you're getting electricity from the Bełchatów power plant, that also means that Tesla is "emitting" 120g of CO2/km travelled. There are many modern cars that have their CO2/km emissions at less than 120g of CO2/km. But even if they are slightly above that, it doesn't change the fact that the emissions from driving an EV are not zero like some people say they are. Even if we go back to the UK and use that 300g of CO2/kWh figure, the Tesla is still emitting 40g of CO2/km travelled. That's not zero. [0] https://thedriven.io/2020/10/20/model-3-achieves-record-low-energy-consumption-in-driving-efficiency-test/ https://thedriven.io/2020/10/20/model-3-achieves-record-low-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Stat...
  - munk-a 6y ago
    We've always got Nuclear energy and that will scale pretty much to the moon - old generation reactors have all sorts of fatal flaws including requiring a fuel that we have trouble acquiring, but that problems mostly been solved. Nah - I think your gut reaction is mostly just decades of propaganda painting fossil fuels as a necessary evil. On the topic of pure renewables - hydro definitely can't scale, we can get a lot more out of it then we currently are but it's comparatively not clean and most locations don't have unlimited options for power harnessing - wind and solar scale up pretty ridiculously and in most parts of the world one or the other is going to be quite accessible and, we've also got geothermal and some other options that we can look at. Beyond that we can look into demand reduction, the dead simplist of these is insulation/passive cooling requirements on housing and taxing private transportation to encourage ride-sharing especially in the commercial realm. We've got some great options to look at if only the coal barons would STFU and go away.
  - p1necone 6y ago
    Stationary power generation even with fossil fuels is still more efficient than ICEs. This is just FUD.
    - p1necone 6y ago
      Actually to clarify: its not so much stationary as it is constant speed. I'm sure not having to be able to move around is a factor too though.
  - tzs 6y ago
    Even if a given EV uses electricity produced by as much fossil fuel as it would have taken to fuel an equivalent ICE car, it's a win because a fossil fuel burning electric plant on the grid is stationary. An ICE car moves. With the ICE car, any equipment you add to try to capture emissions adds to the weight of the car, in turn making it burn more fuel, and you are also limited in the total weight that the car can have and still drive safely (or at all). You've also got space limitations. With the stationary power plant, by picking a place with sufficient space there are no weight limits on how much emission capturing equipment you can add to the plant.
- mrtksn 6y ago
  EV's may not completely solve the pollution problems because, as I was pointed out, the particles from the asphalt and the tires are actually major pollutants. Apparently, the dark greasy stuff that you can see covering everything close to vehicle roads is not coming from the fumes but from the asphalt, tires and brakes.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Mostly true, but some is fluid leaks, of which there are fewer in a typical EV (fewer fluid systems, more constant pressures in them, and EVs are newer and less frequently in disrepair; that last point is a downside in some ways as almost no one will be driving a 2015 Tesla in 2070 while there are tens of thousands of 1960s era Mustangs still operating).
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    EVs do nearly eliminate brake dust, which is a large component of vehicle particulate emissions.
    - GordonS 6y ago
      I haven't heard this before - how does that work?
      - gambiting 6y ago
        Tha car slows down by using its electric motor to generate electricity instead. So actual brakes are only used for really heavy breaking. I see the same effect in my PHEV which uses its electric motor to regenerate power - after a year of ownership the brake pads are like new, there is no wear on them at all.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - WalterBright 6y ago
        Regenerative braking where the braking charges the battery, rather than just converting the speed into heat.
- scrose 6y ago
  As an asthma sufferer, I went from needing my rescue inhaler several times a day to not touching it for several months during the pandemic. The only thing that changed was I was biking and walking through empty streets compared to navigating through a sea of exhausts for most of my trips. Infrastructure that doesn’t encourage driving everywhere, and a switch to EV’s in cases where you ‘just have to’, can’t come soon enough.
  - marshmallow_12 6y ago
    No such a thing as "have to". To walk everywhere you need to would take hours in a day it's impractical.
    - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
      Only if where you work and purchase necessities is far from where you live. If you live close or work remote, then it would be easy and convenient to walk.
      - marshmallow_12 6y ago
        Neither your comment, or the other 2 have any bearing on the reality in which i live and that i know many others also live. The cities we live in are hundreds, if not thousands of years old. The idea of that a 15 minute city has any bearing on real life is sadly laughable. I'm sorry to have to say so, but it's true.
        alistairSH 6y ago
        Cars didn't exist hundreds or thousands of years ago, so your statement can't possibly be true. Well planned communities can be close to car-free, at least for day-to-day activities. The problem is we haven't prioritized being nearly car free, choosing instead of externalize the costs of car culture (pollution that generations will have to deal with, health impacts on some community members today, depletion of fossil fuels and the impact of digging them up, vast swaths of land dedicated to flat tarmac for car storage).
- marshmallow_12 6y ago
  None of those are "economical benefits. Unquestionably social benefits, but increased longevity is hardly a boon to the economy.
  - roughly 6y ago
    Increased productive years are, though.
  - anonAndOn 6y ago
    I would think healthier populations improves the economy. The people with the most disposable income are usually the ones who either never had kids or whose kids have all grown up.
  - sp332 6y ago
    More people alive spending money helps the economy.
  - dwaltrip 6y ago
    One possible second order effect: when people's parents are alive longer, they feel happier and more connected to society and are more productive. There could be many other potential second-order effects (and third-order, etc).
- mfer 6y ago
  When it comes to economics there are also downsides for many people. For example, there are many people who work on car parts today that don't have a corollary in electric cars. Electric cars have fewer parts. This is going to negatively hit the economics of people who design, build, and service car parts. Some things are a trade-off. I wonder how society will help them transition to other things well
  - ipnon 6y ago
    Just like the automobile displaced all those employed in the horse and buggy businesses, which was apparently massive given pictures of 19th century cities.
  - Tade0 6y ago
    They'll be fine - EVs still have suspensions, brakes, and other serviceable parts. The other day a friend of mine bought his first car - a 2008 Honda Jazz. Stuff that needed to be replaced from the get go: -front stabilizer link rods. -front discs -brake pads -AC pump -12V battery -front lights Regarding combustion-related parts there's the muffler and oxygen sensor, but that's it. His case is fairly typical. Also there's a more immediate danger looming - newer diesels are so sophisticated that quite often repairing them is uneconomical. The same will happen sooner or later to gasoline, because usually it's the costly stuff like injectors and the flywheel that fails.
  - megablast 6y ago
    Those poor buggy whip makers.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  One issue - real estate prices going up is not 'economic gain', its a drain on productive population. Nothing is actually produced in the real economy Imagine we talked about anything else like that: 'bread is getting more expensive by the minute in Germany" - thats not a sign of doing well. We all pay for this real estate not just in rent, every time we get a coffee a good chunk of that price is paying someone else's rent. In wages. Just because you are a homeowner does not mean its in your interest for realestate to go up, any more than if you own a fridge it would be in your interest for fridge prices to go up. Anyone who ever plans to trade up to a bigger home, has kids that will need to buy a house, or needs local economy to function does not benefit net from house prices going up. The only time you profit is if you are a massive landowner or real estate business. Its literally blood-sucking leech The economy is doing well when neccessities of life such as housing, food, etc. Are as cheap as possible and then you do not spend 90% of your effort and income just to keep wolf from the door. This disconnect between how we thing about housing and other goods is like a collective madness of oursociety
  - db48x 6y ago
    This is not quite true. The price of real estate is a function of demand. If more people want to acquire the same property (whether to live there, or to work there, or to grow something there), then the price of the property will go up. This is a good thing because over time it ensures that properties are used for the most desiriable and profitable purposes.
    - freeone3000 6y ago
      This is not a good thing, because people need to live somewhere, and this is likely not the most profitable thing to do with a given piece of land.
      - db48x 6y ago
        On the contrary. Businesses need employees, and if there are fewer people living in an area then the cost of the employees goes up and the profitability of the businesses go down.
- giantg2 6y ago
  I agree with number 1. I don't think number 2 is necessarily true. Lifestyle and diet are much bigger influences. My grandparents lived in a town with coal as a heat source and for the trains moving through town. That's a lot more pollution than cars today. This is also the generation that walked places (for miles) and worked hard because they had nothing. They were a healthy weight and ate fairly healthy diets. They lived into their nineties and never went into a care facility. I don't see how number 2 and 3 could be true together. One of the major theories on the increasing cancer rates is that people are living longer and this increases the chances of having cancer at some point. My grandfather had cancer, but didnt get it until he was 91 - then he beat it. The other theories tend to focus on environmental toxins not from car exhaust. Usually it's based on household chemicals and indoor air quality from items in the home.
- mperham 6y ago
  The ever increasing wildfires will dramatically overwhelm any health improvement. When you are breathing ash for weeks on end every year, you’re taking years off your life.
- anu7df 6y ago
  I agree with point 2 and 3 you are making. As another commenter already pointed out real estate prices going up is not a net gain for the economy. Moreover, the direction of the price movement will (also) be decided by the state of the local economy which inturn drives the demand. Real estate prices in Houston, for example, may plummet because a major driver of the Houston economy is the oil and gas industry. Some companies and businesses may successfully transition to the low carbon economy, but it is unclear at this point how most may be affected.
- nonethewiser 6y ago
  "2. People will suddenly start living much longer lives with more quality years at the tail end "for some strange reason." While this is a good thing, it is an economic drain, not a boon.
- beckman466 6y ago
  > 1. Real estate prices in high traffic metros like Los Angeles and Houston will increase further because the return to clear skies from smoggy days and fresh air will be a bonus. Do you own real estate there or something? Are you aware that many people are homeless? Why is an increase in property values a good thing when it has never been more difficult and more expensive to buy a house than ever before? This increase is in large part due to the disgusting financialization of the housing market. A documentary called ‘Push’ (2019) does a great job at laying out all the facts, while at the same time showing the impacts of these changes on working class people the world over: https://youtube.com/watch?v=qWSVG9nsRa4 https://youtube.com/watch?v=qWSVG9nsRa4 For people in Europe or elsewhere you can use http://yt1s.com http://yt1s.com to download it if it’s region blocked. You can support the filmmakers and rent it too: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/pushthefilm https://vimeo.com/ondemand/pushthefilm
  - itsoktocry 6y ago
    >This increase is in large part due to the disgusting financialization of the housing market. Greed, period. Owning an investment property is seen as easy money. When I was a kid it was essentially unheard of to own a second property for rent. Now a substantial number of people I work around own one (or more) rental properties. I know "just a guy" that owns 5 AirBNB condos he rents for $250-300 per night in the summer season, that sit vacant the rest of the year. I have no idea why we allowed this to happen.
    - Pokepokalypse 6y ago
      > Owning an investment property is seen as easy money. Sure beats working for it.
    - BMorearty 6y ago
      > When I was a kid it was essentially unheard of to own a second property for rent. Sorry but that’s flat-out wrong. Owning a second property for rent has always been a thing. How would you have known, you were a kid! Case in point: my family was middle class. My parents were a college professor (new grad from graduate school, not a big deal) and a stay-at-home mom, living in suburban America. They owned a second property for rent. I didn’t even know until 20 years later that they had owned it! Lest you think I’m some kid who grew up in the 00’s: no, I grew up in the 60s and 70s.
- ArkanExplorer 6y ago
  It appears we have a trifecta of evil materials in our environment: 1. Diesel/Petrol/Thermal Coal - air pollution 2. Plastics and Phthalates - hormone disruption, land and sea pollution 3. Sugar - obesity If anyone has any surplus energy, money, or political power, we would strongly benefit from these ingredients being removed as much as possible from human environments.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  Haven't cancer rates been dropping for a while now?
zetazzed 6y ago
Our grandchildren will look at old films of people blithely walking around next to internal combustion vehicles and laugh in mild horror, much as we look back on images of parents puffing away on cigarettes next to a child.
- annoyingnoob 6y ago
  My dad smoked 2 pack a day, I hated it. He was an early riser and by the time I got out of bed there was a haze hanging in the kitchen/dining room, everyday for most of my childhood. On the bright side, I wanted nothing to do with cigarettes from a young age. I took the family to Europe in 2019, in terms of smokers and smoking it was like going back in time compared to the US.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    That depends very much on which country you visit.
    - samatman 6y ago
      It does, if you count Sweden at 8% of adults. I figure it's because of snus, which is smart on them; I'll always have a soft spot for the stuff, because it got me off cigarettes. Every other country in the EU has a higher adult smoking rate than the 14% in the US; second place is UK at 17%.
      - thatwasunusual 6y ago
        It also depends on where you come from. As an example, US is also 14%-ish smokers.
        vitus 6y ago
        Well, it also depends where in the US you come from. California is 11%, West Virginia is 25%. I'm sure the disparities are even greater when you look at smaller populations (e.g. county, metro, city, etc). https://www.cdc.gov/statesystem/cigaretteuseadult.html https://www.cdc.gov/statesystem/cigaretteuseadult.html
YarickR2 6y ago
This is not primarily about cars, as some would've concluded from the headline
- ummonk 6y ago
  Yup. It isn’t broken down in the abstract but I would almost certainly expect most PM2.5 fossil fuel pollution to be coming from coal power plants. And to the extent it’s about vehicles, it would primarily be from diesel trucks.
ummonk 6y ago
What is with this confidence interval? I’m wondering what kind of uncertainty would result in an interval where potentially 10s of millions of lives are saved by burning fossil fuels. “ We estimate a global total of 10.2 (95% CI: −47.1 to 17.0) million premature deaths annually attributable to the fossil-fuel component of PM2.5.”
- jasonfarnon 6y ago
  The most important thing is that it includes 0.
WalterBright 6y ago
I rarely see any talk about moving from long haul trucks to freight trains. The latter burn far less fuel, and steel wheels don't create synthetic rubber dust.
- ggm 6y ago
  They also don't leave PM10 floating in the city as much, by virtue of not being distributed widely throughout the city ubiquitously close to schools, hospitals, homes. So apart from just emitting less, they emit less, specifically close to where people are, compared to trucks
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  My impression is that there’s a huge integration problem where rail freight is mostly set up to work with the sea-oriented container system, whereas truck LTL works on the pallet. Or, framed another way: trucks are just too cheap. Truck operators and truck-oriented logistics firms don’t pay for their negative externalities, so there’s no cost benefit in going to the trouble of routing your load through a rail freight exchange on both ends. It’s pure complexity and schedule risk with no upside.
- atom058 6y ago
  This is a topic that is talked about in academia quite a bit (I have a master in supply chain management) The main problem with trains is that you - naturally - have low flexibility in terms of where you can deliver goods. You are relying on trucks for the last-mile pick-up & delivery for the majority of trips. You might need to load/onload 4-6 times going from truck > train > truck. Because of the time & costs associated with switching mode of transport, these intermodal alternatives become uncompetitive compared to a single door-to-door delivery via truck, even for fairly long distances. The logistics providers will optimize for lower cost over lower pollution, so intermodal transport via train can be hard to justify unless the customer is willing to pay for it in terms of money or time.
  - clairity 6y ago
    this is an example of how our economic choices are altered for the worse by negative externalities. we need to properly internalize the cost of pollution from fossil fuels, roads, tires, weight, miles, etc. so that economic choices are appropriately rationalized.
aaron695 6y ago
This is bullshit. Open fires and burning wood is extra deadly. "Three Billion People Cook Over Open Fires" Everyone can't be dying from air pollution. Step One is get people burning wood to fossil fuels. It's a no brainer. Or just reduce PM2.5 fairly. Help the worst effected then move up. In the ultra rich countries like the 1% who are mostly HN yes, fossil fuels near people are possibly the next step, but also dust and pollen and wood fires. Whatever is PM2.5
- Qwertious 6y ago
  Those three billion people don't live in too close proximity. One fire's worth may not be too bad, but you can imagine 1000 people doing it will start to add up real quick.
  - Gustomaximus 6y ago
    > Those three billion people don't live in too close proximity. Apologies if I misunderstood your point but I would think many of those people do live in close proximity. My view is from anecdotal evidence not research, but its common to see wood/charcoal/dung fires when you see how people cook in slums all over the world. These people are tightly packed and very much using wood or similar to cook alongside gas/metho type stoves.
k__ 6y ago
I already thought so when they killed led fuel back in the days. People are always hating how electric cars aren't more environment friendly, but outsourcing "the bad parts" from our cities is actually a win.
- bttrfl 6y ago
  Hiding stuff under a carpet is never a win, not in a long term.
- speedgoose 6y ago
  They are more environmentally friendly, but still bad for the environment.
samizdis 6y ago
Not just fossil fuels are problematic. An article in The Guardian last month [1] with the headline and sub-heading, Wood burning at home now biggest cause of UK particle pollution - Fires used by just 8% of population but cause triple the particle pollution of traffic, data shows is an eye-openeer. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/16/home-wood-burning-biggest-cause-particle-pollution-fires https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/16/home-woo...
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  Is the particulate pollution universal for wood burning stoves? I was under the impression that modern designs burned quite efficiently.
  - samizdis 6y ago
    I really don't know about the type of stove; things I've read about this refer to the type of fuel, and in this case specifically problems with burning wet wood rather than seasoned wood. (It's possible that some stoves or chimneys that vent them have some sort of particulate removal systems, but if they exist, they must be an absolute nightmare to unclog/clean etc. Having said that, I did find this site - https://woodstovefilter.co.uk/ https://woodstovefilter.co.uk/ - which seems to offer a solution ... but the product doesn't exist yet; it says "Expected to be ready for commercial sale early 2022". EDIT TO ADD: Actually, there seem to be a few companies selling "strap-on" systems to fit to chimneys that work on electrostatic removal of particles, such as Enervex [2], but again that's not to do with a stove type.) The Guardian article points out that wet wood sales are to be banned from May this year: "The government is not planning a ban on wood burners but a ban on the retail sale of wet wood will come into force on 1 May, as will a ban on bags of house coal, the first such restrictions since the clean air acts of the 1950s. Wet wood has not been seasoned and produces higher levels of pollution." The article also links to the UK Govt announcement [1] from last year, which as far as I can see has nothing to say about stove type, only fuel. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-takes-action-to-cut-pollution-from-household-burning https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-takes-action-t... [2] https://enervex.com/systems/particle-filter-system-for-stoves-and-fireplaces https://enervex.com/systems/particle-filter-system-for-stove...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dfilppi 6y ago
In net terms, burning fossil fuels creates life.
d_burfoot 6y ago
I don't understand how air pollution isn't the absolute number 1 issue for the Chinese government, and I'm not just saying that rhetorically. Maybe the CCP is a corrupt authoritarian kleptocracy, but the elites have to breathe the same air as everyone else, right?
- exporectomy 6y ago
  Most people are motivated by other things besides extending their own lives. What they do with that life is more important than how long it lasts, and rightly so.
- asdff 6y ago
  I'm sure a CCP elite spends very little time actually breathing the air in Beijing. Probably spending most of their time inside, and outdoor time spent outside the city like our elite in cities like NYC. They probably figure no matter what happens with climate change, their children and grandchildren will be rich and comfortable and immune to it all. They would probably be right in the end, too.
- cheschire 6y ago
  How does one write "Perri-Air" in Chinese? Might be a good startup opportunity there.
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  It has become a concern in recent years, they've made some strides in protecting their environment.
tasssko 6y ago
I always had this in mind when i lived in London. In my experience i found the combination of vehicle exhaust pollution and pollen unbearable. Somehow the vehicle exhaust particles combine with the pollen and exacerbated my pollen allergies. I had zero allergies growing up and developed a very bad pollen allergy in south west London, then i moved to rural Dorset and i don’t have any allergies any more. Still get tons of pollen (i.e rural Dorset) but less pollution. I wonder if anyone has analysed the combination of vehicle exhaust pollution plus pollen?
mikewarot 6y ago
Since I wasn't able to read the study in question: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935121000487 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139... I wonder how much of this pollution has already been addressed by the EPA in the USA. Which types of combustion are the worst/lowest hanging fruit? How bad is it, really? Public dollars pay for research that gets locked behind a paywall. 8( [Edit] Also, what about particulates caused by tires and brake pads, etc.? And can we finally get the lead out of AvGas?
- seesawtron 6y ago
  You can find the paper on author's website: http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/publications/2021/vohra_2021_ff_mortality.pdf http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/publications/2021/vohra_2021_ff...
  - mikewarot 6y ago
    Thank you. So it turns out that the study attributes 69 of 672 deaths due to lower respiratory infection in the USA to fossil fuel combustion within larger error bounds. (Table 2) in the PDF.
williesleg 6y ago
Not in China or india though. It's safe there.
gwbas1c 6y ago
> Pollution from fossil fuel combustion deadlier than previously thought But... Remember that the lifestyle improvements from fossil fuels greatly extend life. We (currently) need fossil fuels for our food and medicine supply. Just think of how many people would die if there were no fossil fuel ambulances or electricity to run hospitals. That, IMO, is the real reason why we're in the climate change mess. The lifestyle that fossil fuels enables is irresistible and too lucrative to accelerate the change to clean energy.
sfifs 6y ago
Here's the paper http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/publications/2021/vohra_2021_ff_mortality.pdf http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/publications/2021/vohra_2021_ff... This has models layered on models layered on meta-analyses of transfer functions and there appears to be no validation at all. I wonder if this is anything beyond hypothesis grade work.

301 points by seesawtron 6y ago

Some economic gains we will see from adoption of EVs and clean energy: 1. Real estate prices in high traffic metros like Los Angeles and Houston will increase further because the return to clear skies from smoggy days and fresh air will be a bonus. 2. People will suddenly start living much longer lives with more quality years at the tail end "for some strange reason." 3. Cancer rates will stabilize "for some strange reason."

staplers 6y ago
Something to consider when discussing EV's is that they outsource energy production to industrial/rural areas. Sometimes to "sustainable" sources (hydro, wind, solar) but often to coal, nat gas, etc. I suspect the added electricity demand from everyone switching to EV's won't be easily supplied by renewables thus creating this problem elsewhere. Hopefully it's possible but the cynic in me disagrees.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Even moving the combustion byproducts from where the people are to where the power plants are is a small win. That the plants can more easily install scrubbers for some pollutants is a further small win. That they are more efficient (even with 15% charging losses) is another small win. That the use of renewables can grow over time without car owners having to upgrade is another small win. Stack up enough small wins and you can get to sizeable gains.
- stefan_ 6y ago
  You can literally take the oil we use right now to power cars and dump it in a generator to get electricity, and not only would you go farther but do it with less pollution at places where pollution matters less. "Where will the electricity come from" is unadulterated FUD.
  - xnx 6y ago
    I mostly agree, but still laugh a little when people purchase cars to be "green" in a location where most of the electricity comes from coal. Without an EV they never wouldn't have been able to find a car that runs on coal.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      Even in places which are pretty decent about green sources like the UK, most populated areas in the country have very dirty electricity - rated at about 250-300g/CO2 per kWh produced. In terms of emissions per mile driven, that's worse than some modern petrol and diesel cars. Yes, you can purchase green electricity from your supplier, but it doesn't change the fact that the electrons going into your car are not from a clean source at all.
      - sjg007 6y ago
        Those power plants could implement stronger emission controls.
      - danans 6y ago
        That is flat out incorrect. Even in places that use only coal to generate electricity, EV CO2 emissions per mile are lower than gas vehicle emissions. See for yourself: https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html
        gambiting 6y ago
        So I don't know why you're linking a US study when I specifically said UK where the emissions are 300g/kWh in some areas, but ok, I mean I can do this too. Where I'm from(Poland) the biggest power plant is the Bełchatów power plant, which burns lignite for power - the CO2 emissions per kWh generated from that power plant are about 1kg/kWh produced[1]. At such an insane CO2 emissions rate even the most efficient EV - let's take a Model 3 - is worse than a modern petrol car. According to this site[0] Model 3 is incredibly efficient, using only 11.9kWh for every 100km travelled. So that's about 120Wh per km. If you're getting electricity from the Bełchatów power plant, that also means that Tesla is "emitting" 120g of CO2/km travelled. There are many modern cars that have their CO2/km emissions at less than 120g of CO2/km. But even if they are slightly above that, it doesn't change the fact that the emissions from driving an EV are not zero like some people say they are. Even if we go back to the UK and use that 300g of CO2/kWh figure, the Tesla is still emitting 40g of CO2/km travelled. That's not zero. [0] https://thedriven.io/2020/10/20/model-3-achieves-record-low-energy-consumption-in-driving-efficiency-test/ https://thedriven.io/2020/10/20/model-3-achieves-record-low-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%82chat%C3%B3w_Power_Stat...
- munk-a 6y ago
  We've always got Nuclear energy and that will scale pretty much to the moon - old generation reactors have all sorts of fatal flaws including requiring a fuel that we have trouble acquiring, but that problems mostly been solved. Nah - I think your gut reaction is mostly just decades of propaganda painting fossil fuels as a necessary evil. On the topic of pure renewables - hydro definitely can't scale, we can get a lot more out of it then we currently are but it's comparatively not clean and most locations don't have unlimited options for power harnessing - wind and solar scale up pretty ridiculously and in most parts of the world one or the other is going to be quite accessible and, we've also got geothermal and some other options that we can look at. Beyond that we can look into demand reduction, the dead simplist of these is insulation/passive cooling requirements on housing and taxing private transportation to encourage ride-sharing especially in the commercial realm. We've got some great options to look at if only the coal barons would STFU and go away.
- p1necone 6y ago
  Stationary power generation even with fossil fuels is still more efficient than ICEs. This is just FUD.
  - p1necone 6y ago
    Actually to clarify: its not so much stationary as it is constant speed. I'm sure not having to be able to move around is a factor too though.
- tzs 6y ago
  Even if a given EV uses electricity produced by as much fossil fuel as it would have taken to fuel an equivalent ICE car, it's a win because a fossil fuel burning electric plant on the grid is stationary. An ICE car moves. With the ICE car, any equipment you add to try to capture emissions adds to the weight of the car, in turn making it burn more fuel, and you are also limited in the total weight that the car can have and still drive safely (or at all). You've also got space limitations. With the stationary power plant, by picking a place with sufficient space there are no weight limits on how much emission capturing equipment you can add to the plant.
mrtksn 6y ago
EV's may not completely solve the pollution problems because, as I was pointed out, the particles from the asphalt and the tires are actually major pollutants. Apparently, the dark greasy stuff that you can see covering everything close to vehicle roads is not coming from the fumes but from the asphalt, tires and brakes.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Mostly true, but some is fluid leaks, of which there are fewer in a typical EV (fewer fluid systems, more constant pressures in them, and EVs are newer and less frequently in disrepair; that last point is a downside in some ways as almost no one will be driving a 2015 Tesla in 2070 while there are tens of thousands of 1960s era Mustangs still operating).
- jeffbee 6y ago
  EVs do nearly eliminate brake dust, which is a large component of vehicle particulate emissions.
  - GordonS 6y ago
    I haven't heard this before - how does that work?
    - gambiting 6y ago
      Tha car slows down by using its electric motor to generate electricity instead. So actual brakes are only used for really heavy breaking. I see the same effect in my PHEV which uses its electric motor to regenerate power - after a year of ownership the brake pads are like new, there is no wear on them at all.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      Regenerative braking where the braking charges the battery, rather than just converting the speed into heat.
scrose 6y ago
As an asthma sufferer, I went from needing my rescue inhaler several times a day to not touching it for several months during the pandemic. The only thing that changed was I was biking and walking through empty streets compared to navigating through a sea of exhausts for most of my trips. Infrastructure that doesn’t encourage driving everywhere, and a switch to EV’s in cases where you ‘just have to’, can’t come soon enough.
- marshmallow_12 6y ago
  No such a thing as "have to". To walk everywhere you need to would take hours in a day it's impractical.
  - TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
    Only if where you work and purchase necessities is far from where you live. If you live close or work remote, then it would be easy and convenient to walk.
    - marshmallow_12 6y ago
      Neither your comment, or the other 2 have any bearing on the reality in which i live and that i know many others also live. The cities we live in are hundreds, if not thousands of years old. The idea of that a 15 minute city has any bearing on real life is sadly laughable. I'm sorry to have to say so, but it's true.
      - alistairSH 6y ago
        Cars didn't exist hundreds or thousands of years ago, so your statement can't possibly be true. Well planned communities can be close to car-free, at least for day-to-day activities. The problem is we haven't prioritized being nearly car free, choosing instead of externalize the costs of car culture (pollution that generations will have to deal with, health impacts on some community members today, depletion of fossil fuels and the impact of digging them up, vast swaths of land dedicated to flat tarmac for car storage).
marshmallow_12 6y ago
None of those are "economical benefits. Unquestionably social benefits, but increased longevity is hardly a boon to the economy.
- roughly 6y ago
  Increased productive years are, though.
- anonAndOn 6y ago
  I would think healthier populations improves the economy. The people with the most disposable income are usually the ones who either never had kids or whose kids have all grown up.
- sp332 6y ago
  More people alive spending money helps the economy.
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  One possible second order effect: when people's parents are alive longer, they feel happier and more connected to society and are more productive. There could be many other potential second-order effects (and third-order, etc).
mfer 6y ago
When it comes to economics there are also downsides for many people. For example, there are many people who work on car parts today that don't have a corollary in electric cars. Electric cars have fewer parts. This is going to negatively hit the economics of people who design, build, and service car parts. Some things are a trade-off. I wonder how society will help them transition to other things well
- ipnon 6y ago
  Just like the automobile displaced all those employed in the horse and buggy businesses, which was apparently massive given pictures of 19th century cities.
- Tade0 6y ago
  They'll be fine - EVs still have suspensions, brakes, and other serviceable parts. The other day a friend of mine bought his first car - a 2008 Honda Jazz. Stuff that needed to be replaced from the get go: -front stabilizer link rods. -front discs -brake pads -AC pump -12V battery -front lights Regarding combustion-related parts there's the muffler and oxygen sensor, but that's it. His case is fairly typical. Also there's a more immediate danger looming - newer diesels are so sophisticated that quite often repairing them is uneconomical. The same will happen sooner or later to gasoline, because usually it's the costly stuff like injectors and the flywheel that fails.
- megablast 6y ago
  Those poor buggy whip makers.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
One issue - real estate prices going up is not 'economic gain', its a drain on productive population. Nothing is actually produced in the real economy Imagine we talked about anything else like that: 'bread is getting more expensive by the minute in Germany" - thats not a sign of doing well. We all pay for this real estate not just in rent, every time we get a coffee a good chunk of that price is paying someone else's rent. In wages. Just because you are a homeowner does not mean its in your interest for realestate to go up, any more than if you own a fridge it would be in your interest for fridge prices to go up. Anyone who ever plans to trade up to a bigger home, has kids that will need to buy a house, or needs local economy to function does not benefit net from house prices going up. The only time you profit is if you are a massive landowner or real estate business. Its literally blood-sucking leech The economy is doing well when neccessities of life such as housing, food, etc. Are as cheap as possible and then you do not spend 90% of your effort and income just to keep wolf from the door. This disconnect between how we thing about housing and other goods is like a collective madness of oursociety
- db48x 6y ago
  This is not quite true. The price of real estate is a function of demand. If more people want to acquire the same property (whether to live there, or to work there, or to grow something there), then the price of the property will go up. This is a good thing because over time it ensures that properties are used for the most desiriable and profitable purposes.
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    This is not a good thing, because people need to live somewhere, and this is likely not the most profitable thing to do with a given piece of land.
    - db48x 6y ago
      On the contrary. Businesses need employees, and if there are fewer people living in an area then the cost of the employees goes up and the profitability of the businesses go down.
giantg2 6y ago
I agree with number 1. I don't think number 2 is necessarily true. Lifestyle and diet are much bigger influences. My grandparents lived in a town with coal as a heat source and for the trains moving through town. That's a lot more pollution than cars today. This is also the generation that walked places (for miles) and worked hard because they had nothing. They were a healthy weight and ate fairly healthy diets. They lived into their nineties and never went into a care facility. I don't see how number 2 and 3 could be true together. One of the major theories on the increasing cancer rates is that people are living longer and this increases the chances of having cancer at some point. My grandfather had cancer, but didnt get it until he was 91 - then he beat it. The other theories tend to focus on environmental toxins not from car exhaust. Usually it's based on household chemicals and indoor air quality from items in the home.
mperham 6y ago
The ever increasing wildfires will dramatically overwhelm any health improvement. When you are breathing ash for weeks on end every year, you’re taking years off your life.
anu7df 6y ago
I agree with point 2 and 3 you are making. As another commenter already pointed out real estate prices going up is not a net gain for the economy. Moreover, the direction of the price movement will (also) be decided by the state of the local economy which inturn drives the demand. Real estate prices in Houston, for example, may plummet because a major driver of the Houston economy is the oil and gas industry. Some companies and businesses may successfully transition to the low carbon economy, but it is unclear at this point how most may be affected.
nonethewiser 6y ago
"2. People will suddenly start living much longer lives with more quality years at the tail end "for some strange reason." While this is a good thing, it is an economic drain, not a boon.
beckman466 6y ago
> 1. Real estate prices in high traffic metros like Los Angeles and Houston will increase further because the return to clear skies from smoggy days and fresh air will be a bonus. Do you own real estate there or something? Are you aware that many people are homeless? Why is an increase in property values a good thing when it has never been more difficult and more expensive to buy a house than ever before? This increase is in large part due to the disgusting financialization of the housing market. A documentary called ‘Push’ (2019) does a great job at laying out all the facts, while at the same time showing the impacts of these changes on working class people the world over: https://youtube.com/watch?v=qWSVG9nsRa4 https://youtube.com/watch?v=qWSVG9nsRa4 For people in Europe or elsewhere you can use http://yt1s.com http://yt1s.com to download it if it’s region blocked. You can support the filmmakers and rent it too: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/pushthefilm https://vimeo.com/ondemand/pushthefilm
- itsoktocry 6y ago
  >This increase is in large part due to the disgusting financialization of the housing market. Greed, period. Owning an investment property is seen as easy money. When I was a kid it was essentially unheard of to own a second property for rent. Now a substantial number of people I work around own one (or more) rental properties. I know "just a guy" that owns 5 AirBNB condos he rents for $250-300 per night in the summer season, that sit vacant the rest of the year. I have no idea why we allowed this to happen.
  - Pokepokalypse 6y ago
    > Owning an investment property is seen as easy money. Sure beats working for it.
  - BMorearty 6y ago
    > When I was a kid it was essentially unheard of to own a second property for rent. Sorry but that’s flat-out wrong. Owning a second property for rent has always been a thing. How would you have known, you were a kid! Case in point: my family was middle class. My parents were a college professor (new grad from graduate school, not a big deal) and a stay-at-home mom, living in suburban America. They owned a second property for rent. I didn’t even know until 20 years later that they had owned it! Lest you think I’m some kid who grew up in the 00’s: no, I grew up in the 60s and 70s.
ArkanExplorer 6y ago
It appears we have a trifecta of evil materials in our environment: 1. Diesel/Petrol/Thermal Coal - air pollution 2. Plastics and Phthalates - hormone disruption, land and sea pollution 3. Sugar - obesity If anyone has any surplus energy, money, or political power, we would strongly benefit from these ingredients being removed as much as possible from human environments.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Haven't cancer rates been dropping for a while now?

zetazzed 6y ago

Our grandchildren will look at old films of people blithely walking around next to internal combustion vehicles and laugh in mild horror, much as we look back on images of parents puffing away on cigarettes next to a child.

annoyingnoob 6y ago
My dad smoked 2 pack a day, I hated it. He was an early riser and by the time I got out of bed there was a haze hanging in the kitchen/dining room, everyday for most of my childhood. On the bright side, I wanted nothing to do with cigarettes from a young age. I took the family to Europe in 2019, in terms of smokers and smoking it was like going back in time compared to the US.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  That depends very much on which country you visit.
  - samatman 6y ago
    It does, if you count Sweden at 8% of adults. I figure it's because of snus, which is smart on them; I'll always have a soft spot for the stuff, because it got me off cigarettes. Every other country in the EU has a higher adult smoking rate than the 14% in the US; second place is UK at 17%.
    - thatwasunusual 6y ago
      It also depends on where you come from. As an example, US is also 14%-ish smokers.
      - vitus 6y ago
        Well, it also depends where in the US you come from. California is 11%, West Virginia is 25%. I'm sure the disparities are even greater when you look at smaller populations (e.g. county, metro, city, etc). https://www.cdc.gov/statesystem/cigaretteuseadult.html https://www.cdc.gov/statesystem/cigaretteuseadult.html

YarickR2 6y ago

This is not primarily about cars, as some would've concluded from the headline

ummonk 6y ago
Yup. It isn’t broken down in the abstract but I would almost certainly expect most PM2.5 fossil fuel pollution to be coming from coal power plants. And to the extent it’s about vehicles, it would primarily be from diesel trucks.

ummonk 6y ago

What is with this confidence interval? I’m wondering what kind of uncertainty would result in an interval where potentially 10s of millions of lives are saved by burning fossil fuels. “ We estimate a global total of 10.2 (95% CI: −47.1 to 17.0) million premature deaths annually attributable to the fossil-fuel component of PM2.5.”

jasonfarnon 6y ago
The most important thing is that it includes 0.

WalterBright 6y ago

I rarely see any talk about moving from long haul trucks to freight trains. The latter burn far less fuel, and steel wheels don't create synthetic rubber dust.

ggm 6y ago
They also don't leave PM10 floating in the city as much, by virtue of not being distributed widely throughout the city ubiquitously close to schools, hospitals, homes. So apart from just emitting less, they emit less, specifically close to where people are, compared to trucks
mikepurvis 6y ago
My impression is that there’s a huge integration problem where rail freight is mostly set up to work with the sea-oriented container system, whereas truck LTL works on the pallet. Or, framed another way: trucks are just too cheap. Truck operators and truck-oriented logistics firms don’t pay for their negative externalities, so there’s no cost benefit in going to the trouble of routing your load through a rail freight exchange on both ends. It’s pure complexity and schedule risk with no upside.
atom058 6y ago
This is a topic that is talked about in academia quite a bit (I have a master in supply chain management) The main problem with trains is that you - naturally - have low flexibility in terms of where you can deliver goods. You are relying on trucks for the last-mile pick-up & delivery for the majority of trips. You might need to load/onload 4-6 times going from truck > train > truck. Because of the time & costs associated with switching mode of transport, these intermodal alternatives become uncompetitive compared to a single door-to-door delivery via truck, even for fairly long distances. The logistics providers will optimize for lower cost over lower pollution, so intermodal transport via train can be hard to justify unless the customer is willing to pay for it in terms of money or time.
- clairity 6y ago
  this is an example of how our economic choices are altered for the worse by negative externalities. we need to properly internalize the cost of pollution from fossil fuels, roads, tires, weight, miles, etc. so that economic choices are appropriately rationalized.

aaron695 6y ago

This is bullshit. Open fires and burning wood is extra deadly. "Three Billion People Cook Over Open Fires" Everyone can't be dying from air pollution. Step One is get people burning wood to fossil fuels. It's a no brainer. Or just reduce PM2.5 fairly. Help the worst effected then move up. In the ultra rich countries like the 1% who are mostly HN yes, fossil fuels near people are possibly the next step, but also dust and pollen and wood fires. Whatever is PM2.5

Qwertious 6y ago
Those three billion people don't live in too close proximity. One fire's worth may not be too bad, but you can imagine 1000 people doing it will start to add up real quick.
- Gustomaximus 6y ago
  > Those three billion people don't live in too close proximity. Apologies if I misunderstood your point but I would think many of those people do live in close proximity. My view is from anecdotal evidence not research, but its common to see wood/charcoal/dung fires when you see how people cook in slums all over the world. These people are tightly packed and very much using wood or similar to cook alongside gas/metho type stoves.

k__ 6y ago

I already thought so when they killed led fuel back in the days. People are always hating how electric cars aren't more environment friendly, but outsourcing "the bad parts" from our cities is actually a win.

bttrfl 6y ago
Hiding stuff under a carpet is never a win, not in a long term.
speedgoose 6y ago
They are more environmentally friendly, but still bad for the environment.

samizdis 6y ago

Not just fossil fuels are problematic. An article in The Guardian last month [1] with the headline and sub-heading, Wood burning at home now biggest cause of UK particle pollution - Fires used by just 8% of population but cause triple the particle pollution of traffic, data shows is an eye-openeer. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/16/home-wood-burning-biggest-cause-particle-pollution-fires https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/16/home-woo...

germinalphrase 6y ago
Is the particulate pollution universal for wood burning stoves? I was under the impression that modern designs burned quite efficiently.
- samizdis 6y ago
  I really don't know about the type of stove; things I've read about this refer to the type of fuel, and in this case specifically problems with burning wet wood rather than seasoned wood. (It's possible that some stoves or chimneys that vent them have some sort of particulate removal systems, but if they exist, they must be an absolute nightmare to unclog/clean etc. Having said that, I did find this site - https://woodstovefilter.co.uk/ https://woodstovefilter.co.uk/ - which seems to offer a solution ... but the product doesn't exist yet; it says "Expected to be ready for commercial sale early 2022". EDIT TO ADD: Actually, there seem to be a few companies selling "strap-on" systems to fit to chimneys that work on electrostatic removal of particles, such as Enervex [2], but again that's not to do with a stove type.) The Guardian article points out that wet wood sales are to be banned from May this year: "The government is not planning a ban on wood burners but a ban on the retail sale of wet wood will come into force on 1 May, as will a ban on bags of house coal, the first such restrictions since the clean air acts of the 1950s. Wet wood has not been seasoned and produces higher levels of pollution." The article also links to the UK Govt announcement [1] from last year, which as far as I can see has nothing to say about stove type, only fuel. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-takes-action-to-cut-pollution-from-household-burning https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-takes-action-t... [2] https://enervex.com/systems/particle-filter-system-for-stoves-and-fireplaces https://enervex.com/systems/particle-filter-system-for-stove...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dfilppi 6y ago

In net terms, burning fossil fuels creates life.

d_burfoot 6y ago

I don't understand how air pollution isn't the absolute number 1 issue for the Chinese government, and I'm not just saying that rhetorically. Maybe the CCP is a corrupt authoritarian kleptocracy, but the elites have to breathe the same air as everyone else, right?

exporectomy 6y ago
Most people are motivated by other things besides extending their own lives. What they do with that life is more important than how long it lasts, and rightly so.
asdff 6y ago
I'm sure a CCP elite spends very little time actually breathing the air in Beijing. Probably spending most of their time inside, and outdoor time spent outside the city like our elite in cities like NYC. They probably figure no matter what happens with climate change, their children and grandchildren will be rich and comfortable and immune to it all. They would probably be right in the end, too.
cheschire 6y ago
How does one write "Perri-Air" in Chinese? Might be a good startup opportunity there.
Synaesthesia 6y ago
It has become a concern in recent years, they've made some strides in protecting their environment.

tasssko 6y ago

I always had this in mind when i lived in London. In my experience i found the combination of vehicle exhaust pollution and pollen unbearable. Somehow the vehicle exhaust particles combine with the pollen and exacerbated my pollen allergies. I had zero allergies growing up and developed a very bad pollen allergy in south west London, then i moved to rural Dorset and i don’t have any allergies any more. Still get tons of pollen (i.e rural Dorset) but less pollution. I wonder if anyone has analysed the combination of vehicle exhaust pollution plus pollen?

mikewarot 6y ago

Since I wasn't able to read the study in question: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935121000487 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139... I wonder how much of this pollution has already been addressed by the EPA in the USA. Which types of combustion are the worst/lowest hanging fruit? How bad is it, really? Public dollars pay for research that gets locked behind a paywall. 8( [Edit] Also, what about particulates caused by tires and brake pads, etc.? And can we finally get the lead out of AvGas?

seesawtron 6y ago
You can find the paper on author's website: http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/publications/2021/vohra_2021_ff_mortality.pdf http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/publications/2021/vohra_2021_ff...
- mikewarot 6y ago
  Thank you. So it turns out that the study attributes 69 of 672 deaths due to lower respiratory infection in the USA to fossil fuel combustion within larger error bounds. (Table 2) in the PDF.

williesleg 6y ago

Not in China or india though. It's safe there.

gwbas1c 6y ago

> Pollution from fossil fuel combustion deadlier than previously thought But... Remember that the lifestyle improvements from fossil fuels greatly extend life. We (currently) need fossil fuels for our food and medicine supply. Just think of how many people would die if there were no fossil fuel ambulances or electricity to run hospitals. That, IMO, is the real reason why we're in the climate change mess. The lifestyle that fossil fuels enables is irresistible and too lucrative to accelerate the change to clean energy.

sfifs 6y ago

Here's the paper http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/publications/2021/vohra_2021_ff_mortality.pdf http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/publications/2021/vohra_2021_ff... This has models layered on models layered on meta-analyses of transfer functions and there appears to be no validation at all. I wonder if this is anything beyond hypothesis grade work.