Date:         Sat, 30 Jun 2012 09:30:09 -0230
Reply-To:     Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: EPA and Vanagon Emissions
In-Reply-To:  <084101cd55ac$b5ccdbd0$21669370$@net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

A liter of water weighs a kilo - that's how a kilo is defined.  Gasoline
weighs less than water.  But in any case, the point was that burning one
liter of gas (weighing less than one kilo) emits more than 2 kg of carbon,
which is what seemed odd to me.

Diesel may well emit less per distance - the point was that (irrespective
of your gas mileage) you have to burn less to emit less.  Depending on your
fuel and your fuel efficiency, that might mean you drive more or less
miles.  The ultimate goal here is not less emissions per mile, it's less
emissions.  If you have to reduce miles to accomplish that, so be it.

From what I've read, when people get more fuel-efficient vehicles, they
tend to drive more since the cost of driving has gone down.  So their
emissions stay the same.  From an environmental perspective, the goal is to
get emissions down.  Whereas the personal goal might be to be able to drive
more (i.e. go to more fun places) at the same cost (usually in money, not
emissions).  The personal goal does not help achieve the environmental goal.



Joy




On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 1:37 AM, Tom Hargrave <thargrav@hiwaay.net> wrote:

> Joy,
>
> 1 kg does not equal 1 liter.
>
> Also diesel emits more per liter because there are more BTU's per liter of
> diesel than gasoline. Compare kg's of carbon per 1000 miles or 1000 KM's
> driven in like vehicles and diesel comes out less polluting.
>
> Thanks, Tom Hargrave
> www.stir-plate.com
> www.towercooler.com
> www.kegkits.com
> www.grow-sun.com
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf Of
> Joy Hecht
> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2012 10:49 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Re: EPA and Vanagon Emissions
>
> That's great news, that the court upheld EPA regs on GHG emissions!  It got
> lost under all the talk about the Supreme Court decisions.
>
> The articles don't say anything about regulating auto emissions - they are
> focused only on power plants.  But for those concerned about GHGs emitted
> by
> your vans, the only way to reduce them is to consume less gasoline.  GHG
> emissions are a linear function of gallons of gas burned.
>
> According to
>
> http://www.environment.gov.au/settlements/transport/fuelguide/environment.ht
> ml,
> regular gas emits 2.3 kg of carbon per liter burned and diesel emits 2.7 kg
> of carbon per liter.  (Don't ask me how the weight of the emissions can be
> greater than the weight of the fuel burned, it doesn't make sense to me
> either!)  Burn less gas and you emit less fuel.  So anything that enables
> you to consume less gas will reduce your climate change impact.  Less total
> gas, that is - if you get better gas mileage and then drive more because
> you
> spend less per mile on gas, you aren't reducing your emissions!
>
>
>
> Joy
> -----
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