Car Emissions: Change and the Future
Exhaust fumes contain Carbon Dioxide and methane, which are gases that help create the greenhouse effect that contributes to global warming. So every time you step into your Range Rover or VW Golf you could say we are controlling climate, but is this the case? We live in an industrial society where fresh new technologies are making our live easier and easier. To get these technologies mass amounts of pollution must be evident through factories, emissions of goods, deforestation, landfills and so on, which is surely causing large amounts of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane which are green house gases that cause global warming. This is correct as carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have gone up by approximately 35 percent since the 1900s, rising from 280 parts per million by volume to 387 parts per million in 2009 [1]. Are humans and their industrial society the main source of the carbon dioxide leading to green house gases?
“Humans produce a small fraction, in the single digest, percentage wise of the CO2 that is produced in the atmosphere”- Prof John Christie [2]. If humans are not the main source then what is?
Anyone who thinks carbon dioxide is responsible for most of the warming of the 20th century has not looked at the basic numbers (Michaels 2007) [2]. Carbon dioxide is a natural gas produced by all living things but most prominently emitted through natural sources on our earth, and they come from 3 main sites. Animal and plant respiration (including decay), ocean-atmosphere exchange, in which the oceans absorb and release CO2 at the sea surface, and lastly volcanic eruptions, which release CO2 from rocks deep in the Earth’s crust. “If you take CO2 as a percentage of all the gases in the atmosphere, the oxygen, nitrogen the argon and so on, its 0.054%. It’s an incredibly small portion, and then of course you have to take that portion that supposedly humans are adding, which is the focus of all the concern and it gets even smaller”- Prof Tim Ball [2]. Once we take that percentage that humans are creating in terms of emissions caused by cars it is even smaller. More than half the energy-related emissions come from large sources such as power plants and factories, while about a third comes from transportation [3].
Humans have evolved with mechanisms designed to protect the developing infant. These mechanisms can be made to work in different ways for different classes of people. In some instances, like the mechanisms of the physical world, they are being made to operate in ways that are dangerous. In such ways, ‘the risk society’ is being actively created. The key point here about critical realist position is its recognition of reality, independent of discourse and language. (Dickens 2004)
It seems that the world is at a stage where media, corporations, politics and so on are all on this rampage to clear man-made CO2 emissions because of the harm that its doing to our environment, and yes it does do damage to the environment, but is that the bigger picture? Or is it that everybody has forgotten the fact that the one resource that we pretty much all rely on (oil) is unsustainable and will one day run out anyway. Automotive companies are investing million upon millions into going green ‘for a greener world’ but is it really worth it for that tiny percentage of pollution under the overall 0.054% CO2 that automotives are creating or are they investing in alternative ways of powering cars because sooner or later the option won’t be there.
Peak oil is upon us, the issue with it is not about running out of oil it is about running out of oil that is easy to get to, because when its not easy to get to then its far to expensive to extract. The energy demand of each country for petroleum is forever rising. Stemming off this energy demand are factors of population, agricultural effects and population limits which could cause severe issues around the world including a sharp increase in food prices and possible famine in the years ahead.
This is a good point and a scary one at that. Do people even nearly realize what needs to happen to accommodate the scares ness of oil production that will come upon us? There are over six hundred million cars driving on our roads around the world today and it has taken almost one hundred and eight years to reach that figure since the first car built by Ransom Olds in 1905. According to many sources, they say that oil will run out in no longer than approximately fifty years. What actions will need to be taken in the development and transaction of those six hundred million cars at an annual production of 51,971,328 units (2009) [5]? Now if this demand for alternative powered vehicles is going to be met with current demand then car companies are going to need to develop and use the technology we have created to produce an automotive replacement that has the availability, and reliability as the more or less flawless internal combustion engine.
The wilderness, like the forests, was once a great hindrance to our civilization; now, it must be maintained at great expense because society cannot do without it (Hannigan 1995).
Now that CO2 emissions have to go what has been done thus far to tackle the issue. Most automotive companies are all on a trend to poor all there current and future investments in powering cars using alternative energy. It seems to be an incredibly innovative and interesting topic as it is the future, as we know it. Where does the automotive industry start, do they use Red Bull to power cars or do they search for power on neighboring planets. In 2006 BMW had almost struck gold with the development of the ‘Hydrogen 7’, which was built in a limited series, and sold to select customers around the world. The special thing about this car was the fact that it was capable of running on gasoline or hydrogen, which was an incredible innovation as hydrogen is available in almost infinite supply. The main issue with this car is that once your light flashes saying your hydrogen is running out, then where exactly do you go to top up. Since the beginning of the internal combustion engine in cars we have build an infrastructure of petroleum-based filling stations, which will take decades to convert to hydrogen, and that’s if hydrogen turns out to be the antidote to our problem.
What seems to be another contender for the replacement of oil is electricity. Car companies have begun the hybrid market, which seems to be progress but its still not quite there. The hybrid engine that these ‘hybrid’ cars use is a mixture of normal internal combustion engine and an electric motor. What happens is the electric motor powers the car until it runs out and then the petrol engine kicks in and at the same time recharges the electric motor. The most successful hybrid car is the Toyota Prius, which has been sold to all kinds of people including celebrities and politicians who want to be known as in support of ‘going green.’ This seems to not be a solution to the problem but a blindfold over what’s really going on.
Automotive companies like Citroen and Mitsubishi have produced cars such as the C1 ev’ie and the i-MiEV respectively, which are fully-fledged electric cars but they are not for your everyday needs, they are small because they need to be, to be solely powered by an electric motor as the batteries weigh large amounts. Electric cars are, at present, much more expensive to buy and lacks the performance and range of a petrol-powered car even though the electric car market is positively growing. There are many other sustainable sources that we could use to power cars such as biofuels, solar power, biodiesel, and steam but these sources are not nearly as progressed as the electric or hydrogen motor.
There is a multi billion $ car industry that is created around the car enthusiast. When the petrol is gone what will we use to power up that 500 bhp Ferrari or that classic Jaguar E-type that we love so much? Will cars take the sideline to tiny C1 ev’ie’s or lanky Prius’s. What will happen to motorsport like Formula 1 or the World Rally Championship? It seems to be a growing worry in the eyes of most performance based companies who are taking a positive approach over the issue. Recently at one of the worlds most glamorous automotive car shows, the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, Ferrari and Porsche revealed there take on the global issue by revealing the Ferrari 599 HY-Kers concept and Porsche 918 Spyder respectively, they are both hybrids which isn’t the ultimate ideal but it is progress on a entirely new and untouched market. Standing out the most in the recent past is the introduction of the Tesla Roadster, which is the world’s first fully electric sports car to enter the public market. The issue with this, apart from having great reviews, is that it along with other electric cars the distance you can travel is nothing compared to petrol powered car especially with the Tesla’s range, which will decrease even more so when the performance is used. And what about what most car enthusiasts love most about cars, the sound of a petrol engine; the fire and the soul. What lengths will be taken to achieve a similar interest, possibly a Bose sound system playing you the sounds you want to hear.
The use of cars in the eyes of most people is taken for granted in the sense that we are using an unsustainable substance, oil. Not only is this substance on its way out, the majority of the working world is almost dependant on it. It seems to me that unless miracles happen, at some stage the internal combustion car will be nothing but a sad memory in the museum of the past. The time is coming alarmingly fast, we as humans must support the transaction that needs to happen and welcome it or else we will be left in the past along with our cars.
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Bibliography
Primary source:
Pickens, T. Boone. Jan 15 2010, http://www.hybridcars.com/news/pickens-stirs-terrorism-fears-push-natural-gas-vehicles-26439.html
Michaels, Patrick. 2007, Global warming swindle
Fleming, Kevin. 2008, How cars pollute the air, www.driversense.com
Hanigan, J. 1995. Environmental discourse. In: Environmental Sociology. New York: Routledge.
Dickens, P. 2004. Society and Nature: changing our environment, changing ourselves. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Branson, Sir Richard. Feb 18 2010, http://www.hybridcars.com/fuels/branson-report-warns-peak-oil-early-2015-27270.html
[1] Friederike Wagner, Bent Aaby and Henk Visscher (2002). "Rapid atmospheric CO2 changes associated with the 8,200-years-B.P. cooling event". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 99 (19): 12011–4. doi:10.1073/pnas.182420699. PMID 12202744.
[2] The Global Warming Swindle, written and directed by Martin Durkin, 8 March 2007
[3] http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/fq/emissions.html
[5] http://www.worldometers.info/cars/
Secondary source:
Evo Car magazine
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