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I know right, why do people care so much about air pollution? It’s not like it kills anyone, right? What’s smog anyway?
by pyrale 1y ago
I know right, why do people care so much about air pollution? It’s not like it kills anyone, right? What’s smog anyway?
- rbanffy 1y agoBesides that, who would imagine Elon Musk, of all people, would be breaking laws?
- spectre9 1y ago- person who has never in their life checked an aqi map of earth
- msgodel 1y agoI live somewhere that's never had a smog problem so I'm not super familiar with it but do gas turbines actually generate smog? I feel like of all the classes of heat engines they'd produce the fewest particulates. Is this actually a problem out there in the West?
- perihelions 1y agoBurning of methane (natural gas) produces oxides of nitrogen (NOx) (several types), which are a major driver of smog. See, as a starting point, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOx While natural gas is cleaner than coal in some obvious ways (i.e., no particulate solids), it has a specific problem with NOx, because of the super high temperatures inside internal-combustion gas turbines. The upside is higher thermodynamic efficiency (highest of any thermal source); the downside is, this.
- msgodel 1y agoMethane has no Nitrogen in it. All of that would have to come from the air. It's famously very very hard to react Nitrogen that way, I'd be surprised if gas turbines produced it in noticeable quantities. EDIT: didn't see your edit until now. Heh it shouldn't be too hard to scrub out if it were really a problem. That seems like a better way to handle it than this weird exemption process that seems to be in place now.
- rini17 1y agoAll diesels produce enough of NOx that catalytic reduction is needed.
- msgodel 1y agoDiesel has a lot of impurities. Methane is just one molecule.
- rini17 1y agoIf it were so easy just better refine the fuel why would Europeans bother to add these converters and adblue injectors? No it's not impurities, but high pressure/temperature combustion. The higher the more efficient and more NOx comes out.
- msgodel 1y agoEurope does all kinds of things, basing your understanding of chemistry around what a state does rather than the other way around is literally insane.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoHowever, it's not insane to look at what experts put in place and consider that there are reasons why they have done that. Yes, experts can be wrong or are forced to make sub-optimal decisions, but it's worth examining their thinking behind the decisions.
- msgodel 1y agoIt is always science -> experts. NOT the other way around.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoIn theory, yes. In practise, the experts will also consider real-world constraints (e.g. cost, planning, staffing etc). Also, taking the advice/opinion of respected experts (i.e. not YouTube experts) is a short-cut to spending years studying the science (that they had to do) yourself and that's even assuming that you can reach the same level of competency as them.
- pyrale 1y agoIt is not a problem if the plant respects regulation and industry standards... which in this particular case doesn’t seem to be a priority.