4 ms·
1) It seems we have this problem: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/03/25/202471/the-biggest-source-of-mistakes-c-vs-co2/ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2
by mapt 13y ago
1) It seems we have this problem: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/03/25/202471/the-biggest-source-of-mistakes-c-vs-co2/ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/03/25/202471/the-bigge...
Carbon is easier here because it's a lot closer to 'tons of fuel burned'.
2) Aside from that, 'motor gasoline' does not count diesel fuel, which contributes to motor vehicle emissions through our well-developed trucking industry.
3) In re: [3], they're speaking of some very specific types of pollution. Pollution we systematically eliminated in automobiles decades ago and in trucks recently by improving the refinery process & selecting cleaner oil deposits to produce low-sulfur fuel, implementing catalytic converters and combustion feedback sensors, and just generally getting smart about how we burn things. Low-hanging fruit. We could have fixed this in bunker fuel if we'd wanted to by now.
"Carbon pollution" is not like the other types of pollution. It's not a health issue, and it's not at all avoidable if you're using fossil fuels. If thermal efficiency is already up there, there is no reasonable way to reduce it in any sense, other than 'burning less'. It is also basically the same amount of carbon emissions per thermal output from coal to bunker fuel to gasoline (with slight improvements for natural gas). There's no 'cleaning things up'.
4) So... What on Earth were your original numbers supposed to indicate? Where did they come from?