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Electric cars still pollute a lot study shows.


LanghamP

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I did not know this; seriously had no idea which now makes me wonder how much pollution I get from riding my EUC to work. I'm guessing it's a lot; I wear googles because otherwise a lot of dust gets in my eyes.

https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/04/fewer-cars-not-electric-cars-beat-air-pollution-says-top-uk-adviser-prof-frank-kelly

Prof Frank Kelly said that while electric vehicles emit no exhaust fumes, they still produce large amounts of tiny pollution particles from brake and tyre dust, for which the government already accepts there is no safe limit.

Electric vehicles emit no NO2 but do produce small particle pollution from the wear on brake discs and tyres and by throwing up dust from roads. A recent European commission research paper found that about half of all particulate matter comes from these sources.

Swapping cars for bikes, not diesel for electric, is the best route to clean air

“While governments don’t currently pay much attention to particulate matter, it is in fact highly polluting, with strong links to cardiopulmonary toxicity,” said Kelly in an article in the Guardian.

The Royal College of Physicians estimates that 29,000 people die early each year from particle pollution, more than the 23,500 premature deaths attributed to NO2. The combined total is 40,000 because some people are harmed by both pollutants. NO2 levels are illegally high in most urban areas, allowing legal action to be taken, but small particle levels are not.

I was hoping EV's of all sorts, especially cars, would reduce pollution in some dystopian future but that wouldn't be the case if half of pollution is by just kicking up dust and rubber by driving along the road. Not sure what can be done about that...

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Interesting aspects of pollution I also was not aware of. The good news is that it also says that "Swapping cars for bikes, not diesel for electric, is the best route to clean air", and I don't think EUCs are very different to bikes in this respect.

EDIT: the quote seems to come from a different article :huh: The point remains though that cars have disc brakes and disperse probably much more dust than bicycles or EUCs or pedestrians do.

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23 minutes ago, Mono said:

EDIT: the quote seems to come from a different article :huh: The point remains though that cars have disc brakes and disperse probably much more dust than bicycles or EUCs or pedestrians do.

I thought EUC's and electric cars do not use it gave disk brakes and use regenerative braking. Or cars use both disk brakes and regen.

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The article has a hint of futility about it.  The thing is, fossil-fuel-driven cars produce the same kind of brake dust and tire particulate pollution as electric cars already, but on top of that fossil-fuel-driven vehicles also produce about 1.5 billion metric tons of C02 per year.  That's just the USA.  And that doesn't consider the variety of other toxic fumes that are produced by burning fuels.  Electric cars produce less brake dust than fuel-driven cars because they use the motor's regenerative braking for a considerable percentage of the speed reduction.  I think brake dust and tire particulates are negligible in the grand scale of this, at least for now.  Once the majority of transportation is renewable-electric we can look at eliminating brake dust, tire particulates and other relatively minor pollutants by coming up with new non-toxic tire materials and having braking be 100% electro-magnetic (with a traditional braking system backup for redundancy). There is currently no technology that allows long distance transport with absolutely no pollution whatsoever.  Even a bicycle produces brake dust and tire particulates and uses crude-oil-derived lubricants and environmentally-unfriendly materials.

One thing going for us EUCers is that our EUCs don't produce any brake dust as they rely totally on electro-magnetic braking.     

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Well there are 2 conflicting principles: 

The newer no-threshold theory/model ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model )
and the older
Paracelus quote: 
"All substances are poisons there is none which not without poison - It is the dosage that makes it not poisones ..."

The modern no-threshold theory is obviously also all about the precautionary principle.  

The Modern no-threshold theory is also usefull to have a reason for infinite regress version of lower and lower amounts of polution that is aceptable... (because there is no-threshold in which something toxic is not harmfull - following this theory)

I like the older Paracelsus quote better... 

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1 minute ago, Roland said:

Well there are 2 conflicting principles: 

The newer no-threshold theory/model ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model )
and the older
Paracelus quote: 
"All substances are poisons there is none which not without poison - It is the dosage that makes it not poisones ..."

The modern no-threshold theory is obviously also all about the precautionary principle.  

The Modern no-threshold theory is also usefull to have a reason for infinite regress version of lower and lower amounts of polution that is aceptable... (because there is no-threshold in which something toxic is not harmfull - following this theory)

I like the older Paracelsus quote better... 

I agree that the dosage makes the poison.  Swallowing or breathing in a single molecule of mercury will not have any measurable or perceivable toxic effect in the human body.  Cyanide is thought of as extremely poisonous but many of us consume it every day in our fruit smoothies.  And inversely, the least poisonous substances can be toxic with a high enough dose.  Water consumed in excess can deplete sodium levels so low that it causes hyponatremia, which can kill you.  Oxygen causes damage to our cells every single day. 

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If you ever ride the London Underground you will see the effects of particulate matter. The tube walls can be black with filth which is the direct product of the all electric trains. I'm sure most of their braking is regenerative but they also have friction based brakes that work VERY well in an emergency and the tracks and wheels wear down.

When I cycled in London from the train station to work I wore a filter mask. It was black within days and had to be washed or replaced. Much of that was diesel particulates I think but there has to be a significant amount of other materials too. I've often wondered where all the tire rubber and brake pad material goes and for the most part assumed the rain took it down the drains and sadly into our river systems but during dry periods it is sure to get airborne.

I long to be car free. But the layout and public transportation systems of many US cities make life very hard if you try.

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22 minutes ago, WARPed1701D said:

If you ever ride the London Underground you will see the effects of particulate matter. The tube walls can be black with filth which is the direct product of the all electric trains. I'm sure most of their braking is regenerative but they also have friction based brakes that work VERY well in an emergency and the tracks and wheels wear down.

When I cycled in London from the train station to work I wore a filter mask. It was black within days and had to be washed or replaced. Much of that was diesel particulates I think but there has to be a significant amount of other materials too. I've often wondered where all the tire rubber and brake pad material goes and for the most part assumed the rain took it down the drains and sadly into our river systems but during dry periods it is sure to get airborne.

I long to be car free. But the layout and public transportation systems of many US cities make life very hard if you try.

Very true.  I used to live in the UK and a single day of public transport use in London can sometimes yield black sludge when one blows their nose upon arriving home.  The worst street-level pollution I ever experienced was Barcelona in 2003, where the streets were full of thousands of 2-stroke mopeds and scooters.  I could hardly breathe and I lost my voice.  It was absolutely filthy.  Electric cars and bikes will make a dramatic difference to street level pollution.  Having only tire and brake dust to worry about will be a breath of fresh air. 

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1 minute ago, RooMiniPro said:

Very true.  I used to live in the UK and a single day of public transport use in London can sometimes yield black sludge when one blows their nose upon arriving home.  

I forgot that little gem. Yes indeed. Pretty gross.

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1 minute ago, RooMiniPro said:

Very true.  I used to live in the UK and a single day of public transport use in London can sometimes yield black sludge when one blows their nose upon arriving home.  The worst street-level pollution I ever experienced was Barcelona in 2003, where the streets were full of thousands of 2-stroke mopeds and scooters.  I could hardly breathe and I lost my voice.  It was absolutely filthy.  Electric cars and bikes will make a dramatic difference to street level pollution.  Having only tire and brake dust to worry about will be a breath of fresh air. 

I lived in Bangkok for some years, and visited Beijing. The pollution is ghastly. People,. especially children, die from smog days all the time, and even healthier people suffer from permanent asthma.

Like if you're in the sixth floor of a building the ground is barely visible. Although we whine about jobs being sent to China, I wonder if that's actually a good thing as we've also moved pollution from here to there.

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3 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

I lived in Bangkok for some years, and visited Beijing. The pollution is ghastly. People,. especially children, die from smog days all the time, and even healthier people suffer from permanent asthma.

Like if you're in the sixth floor of a building the ground is barely visible. Although we whine about jobs being sent to China, I wonder if that's actually a good thing as we've also moved pollution from here to there.

Pollution is a ballance. At some points in its history a society will tollerate more pollution to get more prosperous faster. This is a question that each society / locality will have to answer for it self. 
Still I maintain that pollution regulations can become less than usefull for the society as a whole if there is no benefit to be seen from an even higher standart that makes no difference in terms of population health.

As in: A difference that makes no difference - makes no difference...  

Certain kinds of overly aggressive regulations will only  move industries out of the country they have been enacted in...
 

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On ‎04‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 5:32 PM, LanghamP said:

 

Like if you're in the sixth floor of a building the ground is barely visible. Although we whine about jobs being sent to China, I wonder if that's actually a good thing as we've also moved pollution from here to there.

We all live in the same enclosed global ecosystem as the Chinese, so all that smog will affect all of us, including you in America eventually.  Pollution is one of the many things that reveal humanity to be much more stupid than we believe.  If we ever overcome our incredibly self-destructive nature I think future generations will struggle to understand the caveman-like behaviours we all participated in, because, well, everyone wanted a new iPhone every year, so we burned everything on earth to make them.

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1 hour ago, RooMiniPro said:

We all live in the same enclosed global ecosystem as the Chinese, so all that smog will affect all of us, including you in America eventually.  Pollution is one of the many things that reveal humanity to be much more stupid than we believe.  If we ever overcome our incredibly self-destructive nature I think future generations will struggle to understand the caveman-like behaviours we all participated in, because, well, everyone wanted a new iPhone every year, so we burned everything on earth to make them.

It doesn't happen often, only twice in the last 20 years that I lived in Texas, but there were a few days when the sky had noticeable amounts of smoke in it.  Came to find out, it was said that it was from farmers in Mexico practicing slash and burn farming, when the land stopped growing crops, it was said that they would move to a new area, cut and burn the vegetation, and plant there.  Don't know it it was true or not, but for sure there was smoke in the air.  I just figured it depended on the wind direction, it usually comes from the south in spring and summer, and from the north in fall and winter.  Just a few years ago, the dust from a volcano erupting carried around the globe, shutting down airports in parts of the world.

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1 hour ago, steve454 said:

Just a few years ago, the dust from a volcano erupting carried around the globe, shutting down airports in parts of the world.

I remember that incident in Iceland.  I got stranded in England for several days, unable to fly out until the air cleared.

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