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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Among many things that former head of the EPA Scott Pruitt did during his time at the agency was to cease enforcement of emissions standards for so-called "Glider" trucks. Gliders are new heavy truck chassis that have older, less technologically advanced and emissions-compliant engines installed into them.
The Obama administration sought to close the loopholes that allow gliders to be built and sold in significant numbers in an effort to curb their pollution but Pruitt opted to toss that aside in the name of business. We've covered the glider situation in the past, but the big news is that the new acting head of the EPA, a former coal lobbyist, has moved to reinstate the Obama regulations after a court insisted that they be enforced once again.
[...] Many trucking fleets like gliders because they are often cheaper to maintain and run than modern trucks, but the amount of pollutants that they emit can be hundreds of times more than the federal standards would allow. The laws that permitted gliders to be built in the first place were designed primarily to reduce the number of wrecked trucks going into scrap yards, instead giving their engines new homes. That kind of backfired.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:20AM (10 children)
Embedded in the article linked to in TFS there is a link to one of the biggest manufacturers websites [fitzgeraldgliderkits.com]. Reading their bullet points makes it seem as if gliders are a net benefit to the environment in addition to being cheaper to buy and run. Sadly, they don't back up their claims with references to credible sources with actual numbers, but at least their points sound plausible at a cursory glance:
What do you guys think?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Sunday July 29 2018, @05:23AM
You could get a 40MPG car three decades ago. But the exhaust was a hell of a lot nastier than the 35mpg car in my driveway.
Not the US, but look at the evolution of EU emission standards, which most engines worldwide have to keep in mind : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards [wikipedia.org]
Also, because I'm not gonna bother to answer Runaway directly: Yes, you do still see many trucks blowing thick dark clouds bigger than the truck itself, at every single traffic light. When I lived in Chicago, that was almost a daily sight on my commute.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Sunday July 29 2018, @10:48AM (8 children)
I think that the USonians really should argue for better products. And that list of arguments are a great set of reasons why.
1) "12 million pounds" is a bit less than 6_000 tonnes (6kt). For sense of scale the US annual steel use is in the range of 100Mt (40% goes to construction)
2) The reasons why steel is 10% of the worlds carbon emission is due to old technology and the sheer volume of steel being produced.
2b) Take a look at the emissions per tonne of product from the LKAB furnaces* compared to the world standard. (* among the cleanest in the world)
2c) The upcoming (as in - commercial units are up an running since a few weeks ago) generation of steel furnaces are at the point where the carbon in use is the carbon that travel to and from the steel itself.
3) You can pretty much ignore the carbon emission issue by switching from coke to charcoal from managed forests (producing the charcoal is an exotermic process as well, so you can construct the charcoal manufacturing to double a biomass electrical plant)
4) You can make perfectly usuable diesel at close to european diesel prices from wood already.
5) USA really should build a proper electrified railway grid - it would save a lot more fuel.
6) NOx quite frankly only is an issue in high concentrations, and in cities (where the only place are where you will have enough trucks to reach high enough emissions - unless you really botched the infrastructure) you don't want anything but the strictest emission control (due to high concentration of engines and poor windflow).
But if using manufacturing technology that is as old or older than the engines themselves - yeah, then it might be a better choice than to scrap them (but just upgrading a single steel furnace would probably do more for the enviornment)
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 30 2018, @12:44AM (5 children)
Well, I disagree with you about NOx emissions. They are significant even at low levels, though I agree that higher levels are worse. As with other poisons, it's not clear that there *is* a minimum dose a which they do no harm. There are levels at which they do no measurable harm, but it would take a cleaner environment than exists with significant population in it to do studies that show there are levels at which it does no significant harm.
That said, the different oxides have different levels at which they are reasonably safe (for any particular measure of reasonably safe). An nitrous oxide may actually be required at some level, though probably the body can generate sufficient for its needs.
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(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday July 30 2018, @11:53AM (4 children)
Considering that nitrogen fixing by plants and bacteria gives off NOx as byproducts I'd say that it would be very suprising if there wasn't a safe (well, as safe as clean air (which I admit is harmful)) level somewhere. (the main human-made source for nitric oxide (NO) is agiculture).
I guess we need to figure out exactly what we consider "high concentration" and "low levels", but I assume we agree in principle on that up until a yet-to-be-determined point it doesn't make sense to worry since the worrying will be more harmful :)
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 30 2018, @05:07PM (3 children)
You are making the assumption, not, AFAIK, provably wrong, that naturally occurring levels of NOx aren't harmful. This is not guaranteed to be true.
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(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday August 01 2018, @10:20AM (2 children)
I'm making the assumption that there is a limit where NOx makes less harm than the body's coping mechanism, but I do not touch the "naturally occuring levels" unless I have to (but I do not include agricultural practices in this - so naturally occuring levels hasn't been seen for about 10k years).
The reason why I assume there are safe limits are threefold.
1) NOx generation by life has been around for longer than the modern human, so we are evolved with it around us
2) Nictric Oxide (NO) is a signalling molecule in most (allmost all) known life, and since it is a gas some venting will occur
3) Coping mechanisms in the body tends to go haywire when there is an absence of an adversary (so I'd except an autoimmune reaction in absence of (excess) NOx).
(The entire "aren't harmful" - consider the case of milk to see the problem of trying to define this one (especially the cases of good nutrition vs lactase tolerance))
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday August 01 2018, @10:21AM
s/lactase/lactose/
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday August 01 2018, @04:40PM
That a defensible presumption, but it's still a presumption. And as you say, those levels can't even be approached.
FWIW, hydrogen peroxide is also used in the body, but it's still harmful. The normal activities of mitochondria are destructive to the cells that they exist within (and possibly also to themselves). Etc. Being a normal part of the body activities is not proof that something isn't destructive, merely that the advantages are usually more important than the costs.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @04:22AM (1 child)
What's your point about NOx and cities? That's where most people live. Air pollution kills.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday July 30 2018, @11:40AM
That you shouldn't use long haul trucks in cities was my point.
Or put another way - the trucks will mainly spend their time travelling between cities so their NOx profile should be judged differently from a car that will spend most of their time in cities.
(Quite frankly the best would be to have reloading stations in the suburbs where long haul trucks and short haul (eletrical) trucks meet)