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Transportation Earth Science

25 Percent of Cars Cause 90 Percent of Air Pollution 395

Posted by samzenpus from the who's-to-blame dept.
HughPickens.com writes: Sara Novak reports that according to a recent study, "badly tuned" cars and trucks make up one quarter of the vehicles on the road, but cause 95 percent of black carbon, also known as soot, 93 percent of carbon monoxide, and 76 percent of volatile organic chemicals like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes. "The most surprising thing we found was how broad the range of emissions was," says Greg Evans. "As we looked at the exhaust coming out of individual vehicles, we saw so many variations. How you drive, hard acceleration, age of the vehicle, how the car is maintained – these are things we can influence that can all have an effect on pollution." Researchers at the University of Toronto looked at 100,000 cars as they drove past air sampling probes on one of Toronto's major roads. An automated identification and integration method was applied to high time resolution air pollutant measurements of in-use vehicle emissions performed under real-world conditions at a near-road monitoring station in Toronto, Canada during four seasons, through month-long campaigns in 2013–2014. Based on carbon dioxide measurements, over 100 000 vehicle-related plumes were automatically identified and fuel-based emission factors for nitrogen oxides; carbon monoxide; particle number, black carbon; benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX); and methanol were determined for each plume. Evans and his team found that policy changes need to better target cars that are causing the majority of the air pollution. "The ultrafine particles are particularly troubling," says Evans. "Because they are over 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, they have a greater ability to penetrate deeper within the lung and travel in the body."
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25 Percent of Cars Cause 90 Percent of Air Pollution More

25 Percent of Cars Cause 90 Percent of Air Pollution

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  • ... when the most populated countries have probably the highest percentage of badly tuned cars?

    We share the same atmosphere.

    • Re:Why concentrate on Canada (Score:4, Informative)

      by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @08:36AM (#49645879) Journal
      Probably because the authors of the study were researchers at the University of Toronto and had access to air sampling equipment set up in the area? Sometimes you have to do the research where you can, rather than where you might want to.

      (Also, we only share the same atmosphere on average. For, say, an urban area with lots of vehicle traffic, the amount of soot people are inhaling is going to depend very substantially on the vehicles in local use, with much weaker effects from more distant sources.)

    • Re:Why concentrate on Canada (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @09:27AM (#49646281) Homepage

      Concerning such pollutants, we actually don't share the same atmosphere. These sort of pollutants have short atmospheric residence periods, they're mainly problems at or near the point of emission (the particular distance that they pose a problem for depends on the type of pollutant).

      It's one of the reasons that even if electric cars didn't cut down in pollution (which studies repeatedly show that they do) and simply moved the same amount of pollution from the streets to the top of power plant smokestacks, they'd still improve public health on average. Any pollutants you do emit, you want them as far as possible away from where most people are (aka, away from areas with lots of traffic, aka, lots of people), and as high up as possible.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      I guess that it makes sense for a Canadian University to conduct experiments in Canada.
      The team suggested the Bahamas but for some reason, it was rejected.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        You jest but your proposal isn't so absurd. The Carribean is where old cars from the mainland go after they become too ratty for spoiled 1st worlders. Canadians doing a study there also doesn't seem so strange since my own alma mater has an outpost there.

        Besides, there are these things called boats and planes.

  • "The ultrafine particles are particularly ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Skapare ( 16644 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @08:19AM (#49645803) Homepage
    "The ultrafine particles are particularly troubling" .... well, now we know why small cars are bad

    • My small car puts out particles so big that they're visible, you insensitive clod!

      (And it's supposed to do that... it's a pre-2007 Diesel. Of course, it has a functioning EGR system and uses Biodiesel, so it doesn't put out as much of them.)

      (In fact, the emerging concern over "ultra-fine particles" is starting to make me wonder if engineering the soot out of Diesels -- which doesn't make it go away, but just makes the particles the same size as those produced by gasoline engines -- might not have been such

      • Concern over ultra-fine particles may be emerging because it turns out that the "regular-fine" particles that we used to worry about aren't much of a problem. They are bad for us but the amount of them in the air has been dropping steadily for over a century. The end of the steam era, using oil or gas instead of wood and coal to heat our homes, fewer but ever more efficient coal fired power plants, and increasingly clean diesels caused the drop, and the downward trend hasn't ended yet. So we need a new s

  • Cue the next massive-fail version of a government program.

    • Depends how it's implemented. My locality has a 2 year mandatory emissions check for $20 that has reduced these types of pollution by over 1/3.

    • Re:Cash-for-clunkers Redux (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Hasaf ( 3744357 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @08:47AM (#49645965)

      You have to remember that "Cash for Clunkers" was not intended to reduce emissions. It was intended to provide a short-term stimulus to the auto industry. In that regard it worked for a short time, as intended; however, it led to a situation where the auto industry faced low orders after the program ended because people had just "rescheduled" intended purchases.

      There was also the problem that the program was rather restrictive and actually disqualified many of the vehicles that should have been removed from the road if emission reduction had been a goal.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by alen ( 225700 )

      the last time in NYC my in'law's 2003 Acuca qualified but not the 1992 Ford

  • 1st: Who Owns the 25% least well-tuned autos? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @08:22AM (#49645821) Journal
    The poorest drivers probably own the lion's share of them. Individuals are likely even aware of their vehicle's condition.

    Hell, many of them probably wish they could afford to repair or replace the jalopies...sigh, fucking poor people are killing us again.

  • If the car was too much of a POS, you couldn't get the credit.

    So all they did was take a bunch of relatively clean cars off the road, but left the dirty ones.

    • If the car was too much of a POS, you couldn't get the credit.

      So all they did was take a bunch of relatively clean cars off the road, but left the dirty ones.

      Cash for clunkers wasn't about pollution. It was about bailing out auto companies. Both initially by the government subsidizing the purchase and later by removing late model vehicles from the used car market causing used cars to increase in price to a point where new cars were seen as an attractive option.

      Ironically, the upper middle class would have purchased new vehicles anyway, but the lower middle class and the poor were priced out of the "good" used car market and had to stick with what they had or rep

    • So all they did was take a bunch of relatively clean cars off the road, but left the dirty ones.

      I strongly disagree. Look at a summary of the stats [about.com] to see that the most-traded vehicles were light trucks. We're talking about a bunch of sloppy old pickup trucks with little or no emissions controls, usually literally nothing but one O2 sensor, an EGR, a PCV, and a catalyst. But modern light trucks have the same kinds of emissions controls as cars, even though the standards aren't as strict, so they do have much lower emissions.

  • This is why we have emissions inspections.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by toonces33 ( 841696 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @08:27AM (#49645837)

    Every year or two we undergo emissions inspections - they use a sensor to measure what is in the exhaust gas, and if things are outside of the required limits, you have to fix it. In addition, they use the OBDII port to see if there are any codes being thrown by the engine, and if there are you have to fix those as well.

    Older cars were grandfathered in, and only need to pass whatever the standards were at the time they were manufactured.

    • The study was Canadian. What are their emissions inspection requirements? In the US, in my state, cars get inspected annually, but here is a grandfather clause for old vehicles, which get a safety inspection only.

    • Burdensome on low income people (Score:5, Insightful)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @09:07AM (#49646129)

      When I was just out of college and broke I had a car that was clean and was reliable.

      When our state began emissions inspections my car failed and I was required to fix it. The repair estimate was $400 (in 1992) and I didn't have $400 to fix my car, so I had to stop driving it.

      I was lucky that of the two part-time jobs I had to make ends meet, one agreed to change the store I worked at to a location within reasonable walking distance AND the hours I worked to accommodate the bus trip I now I had to make every day to my other job (I rode the bus on days I only worked that job anyway).

      For a lot of people, though, they just don't make enough money to afford these kinds of repairs and they NEED a car to get to work or school or childcare or whatever their responsibilities are.

      Mandating this kind of fine-tuning sounds like a great idea, but it ultimately becomes another punitive burden on low-income people. If I wasn't lucky enough to have the alternatives I had, I would have been out of a job or forced to drive illegally.

      • Mandating this kind of fine-tuning sounds like a great idea, but it ultimately becomes another punitive burden on low-income people. If I wasn't lucky enough to have the alternatives I had, I would have been out of a job or forced to drive illegally.

        California has a system by which low-income people get some money from the state to fix their emissions problems. Your state should have instituted a grandfathering system to permit you to continue to get to work, while emissions-testing newer vehicles — precisely the same system that California uses. California also doesn't test very old vehicles, because there are so few of them on the road they can't possibly add up to much. However, if you manage to wander into an emissions checkpoint someplace (l

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by swb ( 14022 )

          What they should have done was mandate the emission testing process on used vehicles before they could be sold. This would have left everyone who already owned a car free from testing unless they went to sell it.

          My guess is that more newer cars change hands, so the burden on used car sellers would have been less.

          I did get a waiver for one year, but by next year I had to fix it or stop driving it. I borrowed money from a relative to get it fixed to pass emissions, but whatever they did was a poor fix becau

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bsolar ( 1176767 )
      We have periodic checks for old vehicles but for new vehicles they are not required anymore. All relatively new vehicles sold are required to have electronic injection which measures emissions constantly.

    • Inspections eventually become a boondoggle (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @12:22PM (#49647833)
      This isn't new, I've read articles on it (in California) over 20 years ago. Inspections work when a large percentage of your cars are emitting an excessive amount of pollutants. But as that percentage decreases, you end up wasting huge amounts of money.

      Say an inspection costs $25 and 1 in 10 cars is not in compliance. You're basically paying $250 to detect each polluting car and require it be fixed. That's probably a worthwhile tradeoff.

      Now fast-forward. After decades of inspections have successfully weeded out the worst-polluting cars, only 1 in say 1,000 cars is not in compliance. You're now siphoning $25,000 out of the economy to detect each polluting car. There's no way that's worth it.

      California is pretty much already in that second state. 20 years ago the companies that make the emissions testing equipment suggested a much more financially sensible solution. Stop the inspections or reduce them to random lottery inspections which would hit each car on average every 10 years - the vast majority of cars are already clean enough and there's little to be gained from annual or bi-annual inspections. Instead, place detection equipment like used in TFA on places where cars pass by single-file, like freeway on-ramps. This equipment would automatically measure the emissions of each passing car (or truck), and if a particular car was dirty it would snap a photo of the license plate. If a car was flagged repeatedly at multiple stations, the State could then issue the owner a notice requiring him to fix it.

      But the idea never got anywhere because the auto repair shops lobbied heavily against it. See, these inspections have become a billion dollar business, and they didn't want to lose that money. One person wasting money is another person making easy money.

  • Tuning is indeed important - as is balancing wheels; two fairly inexpensive steps you can take to get better efficiency out of your car.

    But when I tried to look in the first-linked article for tuning.. I couldn't. It was stuck. I tried to click on the link for the study - I couldn't. It was stuck. I figured I'd wait it out.. that was a long wait.
    By the time I could finally click the link for 'the study' (which is the 3rd link in TFS, for what it's worth, so just skip to that one), this is what the conso

  • It's always been like this. The focus on making new cars cleaner has always had small returns since you are simply making the cars that produce 10% of the pollution better and if you convert them all to "magic pixie dust fuel", you will still be left with the 90% from the broken cars. Previous studies have also shown that the pattern of which 25% isn't obvious. It isn't a simple rule like "old cars produce more NOx". Even a nearly new car can become a polluter without the owner noticing. Fortunately, the so

  • Personal Responsibility (Score:3)

    by Dartz-IRL ( 1640117 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @08:37AM (#49645887)

    As an RX8 owner, I'm probably responsible for at least half that total.

    With the catalyst gone out the tailpipe it smells like a refinery fire going up the road. A very fast refinery fire.

    • Re:Personal Responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) * on Friday May 08, 2015 @09:17AM (#49646203)

      Then fix your damn catalytic converter, for fuck's sake!

      You know, even if you're an enthusiast there's no excuse not to have a functioning cat. It's not as if it makes more than a negligible difference in horsepower (especially if the car is close to stock). I have a 25-year-old Miata that I use for autocross, and you know what? Even though it's so old that it's no longer even required to meet emissions, all the equipment is still intact, it doesn't smoke, and it doesn't smell. If I had to get it emissions-tested tomorrow, I'd fully expect it to pass with flying colors.

      Now, as for your rotor apex seals, those I can't blame you for failing to replace since they require disassembling the engine. But the cat isn't enough trouble to justify neglecting.

  • Coal Rollers (Score:3)

    by Cmdr-Absurd ( 780125 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @08:42AM (#49645917)
    Around here, almost all the soot can be attributed to folks who enjoy "rolling coal." -- particularly in close proximity to fuel-efficeint autos and bicycles.

    • Actually, we discussed here on Slashdot in days of yore about how cars emit more black carbon than previously thought [slashdot.org], specifically ultra-fine (e.g. "PM2.5") particulates which are the most hazardous to human health. And we've discussed on other occasions how diesel particulate re-burning systems convert their large-particulate soot into fine-particulate soot before releasing it into the atmosphere.

      One solution might be to convert to gaseous fuels, a plan with few drawbacks. You wouldn't primarily convert v

  • Effectively you'll be targeting the poorest people in your country, since they're the ones most likely to own older, less well-maintained cars.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Europe has emissions testing already. Nobody suffered.

      If every car has to pass emissions tests, then all cars are the same. The ones that fail the test fail the test the same as if their brakes don't work or the engine doesn't start.

      There were no riots, the poor didn't go vehicle-less, it just means that all cars come with catalytic converters as standard, emit inside emission guidelines, and do that from new until the day they are taken off the road.

      Saying "the poor can't afford it" is a poor argument.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Yep.

      And, en-route, invented electronic engine management, catalytic converters and everything else required to meet those targets, which is now all compulsory equipment, standard and included on all cars. Not a bad thing at all.

      If you're worried about it, test old cars regularly and take them off the road. If you don't, then you're not worried about it.

      • Yep.

        And, en-route, invented electronic engine management, catalytic converters and everything else required to meet those targets, which is now all compulsory equipment, standard and included on all cars. Not a bad thing at all.

        If you're worried about it, test old cars regularly and take them off the road. If you don't, then you're not worried about it.

        Cars, in locales that have emission testing, are only required to meet the emission requirements in place for the year manufactured. This is a good thing, because otherwise, emission standards could be tightened and everybody would be forced to buy a new car. Since older cars have a finite life, the problem of poorly running old cars will eventually resolve itself. When that occurs, the studies will show that overpowered high horse-powered cars and SUVs are the major polluters. Unfortunately, there doesn'

        • Good because some of us do not want to be forced to drive some tincan put put. I have a truck, it tows things it hauls things and still have enough umph to get the hell out of the way when some idiot driver does something stupid and aftermarket brakes stopping me faster than anything stock. I've also got a cheap and cheerful but still reasonably quick and agile hatchback for school/grocery runs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Chrisq ( 894406 )

      and does not let you back on the road if the values are bad.

      True, but either some people evade the tests altogether or their cars deteriorate a lot in the 12-months between. Just last week I was behind a car leaving a trail of blue smoke

  • Because every state pretty much requires and emissions test annually or bi-annually. It involves plugging a reader into the OBD-II port and downloading any condition codes, and then the standard tailpipe sniff.

    What makes it so gross polluters are still out there is because after failing said emissions check, a waiver can be obtained.

  • A 1/4" layer of black soot covering the back bumper.

    I see a lot of chipped up Diesels pukeing blackness.

    A lot of Eco friendly BIO-Diesel fueled are difficult to drive behind and show significant amounts of blue smoke.
    Lets sniff a TriMet short bus, the big ones must have cats on them. The small ones are really bad.

    • Yes, this makes me grumpy. My 1982 300SD only smokes when it's cold. I had a 1981 before, though, that would coat its back bumper with oil. I didn't have the wherewithal to rebuild it at the time, and it needed more than a valve adjustment. Anyway, the secret in its case is that the vacuum lines aren't clogged and the linkages are greased. That's all it takes.

  • And then you have "rolling coal" (Score:3)

    by sirwired ( 27582 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @08:59AM (#49646063)

    And then you have the small subset of people that believe it makes sense to protest emissions regulations by having a switch that makes their diesel run super-rich and throw plumes of thick smoke out the tailpipe.

  • still works

    • But this is 90/25. It violates the rule! My conclusion is the findings are erroneous, they have violated the 80/20 rule, first proposed by Albert Einstein.

  • Up next on the news US Congress votes that pollution from cars is not a man made phenomenon, but part of a natural cycle..

  • Twenty Years Ago in Ventura County (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joelsherrill ( 132624 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @09:07AM (#49646133) Homepage

    That this would be a new idea surprises me. In 2009, the US had the Car Allowance Rebate System (aka Cash for Clunkers) program which likely helped reduce emissions even it was more of an economic program. Further back, twenty years ago Ventura County offered money to get old clunkers off the road strictly for emissions reasons. In 1995 per the article I link below, "More than 50% of the smog comes from vehicle emissions and a large percentage of that comes from older, pre-1974 clunkers." If you look at the distribution of cars, many are late model, well-maintained, and operating at or very near their peak. But as cars age and lose value, newer cars are built to higher emissions (and safety) standards, the parts get worn, routine maintenance gets done but many repairs aren't done because it isn't worth it based on the value of the vehicle. In areas without emissions testing, there is absolutely zero incentive to worry about it with an older vehicle. I realize this every time I get behind a vehicle that is smoking or burns my eyes because it is in such bad shape. This is not even about zero or low emissions, it is simply about getting extreme polluters off the road.

    Bottom line: Encourage people to replace clunkers and keep their vehicle well-maintained.

    As an odd aside, there are articles that show a similar distribution of costs in emergency room. A small number of patients dominate ER costs in the US because they have no insurance and chronic conditions. Google that one for yourself.

    Ventura County Reference: http://articles.latimes.com/19... [latimes.com]

  • Except where they clarify in the article's lede, the title, summary, and article makes it sound like these 25% of vehicles cause 90% of the air pollution on the entire planet. Let's not forget that the millions of cars on the road are nothing compared to large factories or even a small fleet of cargo ships.

    Certainly let's do something about those old cars, but that's not the real problem.

  • That seems to clash with the stat that 11 cargo shipping container super ships cause more air pollution than all the cars in the entire US.

  • 25% that accounts for all the idiots in the big lifted pickup trucks belching black smoke.

  • How one drives is a big part of the story (Score:5, Informative)

    by caseih ( 160668 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @09:45AM (#49646403)

    It's easy to meet EPA standards on test bench. Out in the real world it becomes a lot harder. Heavy acceleration is bound to dump all kinds of particulates, NOx, and CO, despite pollution controls like catalytic converters. Things like catalytic converters and other pollution controls run best under constant conditions, with the proper amount of fuel to air, temperature, etc. All of which probably works well while cruising at constant speed down the open road. The moment you start doing stop and go, all bets are off. Hit the gas pedal hard and the fuel mixture goes fairly rich as the engine tries to keep up. I'm not a hypermiler freak, but I do tend to accelerate and brake conservatively (I have a CDL and drive big trucks occasionally as well, which influences my habits) which seems to anger people in city driving, unfortunately. I also try to take curves in a manner that makes things as smooth as possible.

    Most people on the road seem to not care one bit about fuel consumption and race from light to light, without actually getting ahead of anyone doing that, nor actually getting anywhere faster. I'm sure emissions could be curtailed quite a bit if everyone just slowed down and cars limited their acceleration to something realistic.

    I imagine these horribly-bad 25% of cars emitting the most pollution would do a lot better if people would drive them properly.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Those fine particles spewed out from truck exhausts in those bullies crawling uphill going in your lungs - not an issue at all - that would go against the contractually granted right in the TPP for Chinese truck manufacturers to make profit.

  • Particulate filters work (Score:3)

    by Spugglefink ( 1041680 ) on Friday May 08, 2015 @12:05PM (#49647717)

    I drive two trucks that were both brand new in 2013. One of them is a Freightliner Cascadia, the other a Ford F150 with the 5.0 "coyote" engine.

    The Freightliner has almost 400,000 miles on the clock now, while the Ford has a mere 25,000. The inside of the stack on the Freightliner is still as silver and shiny as the day it was new. The inside of the tailpipes on the Ford have been black since about day two of operation.

    With all the advances in gasoline engines, and all the technology in this 5.0 I'm driving, I was really surprised by how comparatively dirty it is. Considering the days when my trailers used to have a black streak running their whole length, I never expected a diesel to be radically cleaner than a gasoline engine. The key to the whole thing is the diesel particulate filter, and it obviously works very well.

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