Can cars help make our planet green?
Wrong question. The right question is: are cars making our planet less green, as in, harder for life to exist?
The answer? No. In fact, to have over 8 billion motorized vehicles on this planet, we are remarkably green, friendly, and healthy. Chalk up another divine win for the Lord.
How can this be? Haven't the left wing, liberal, tree lovin' media types told us that it's all this mechanized madness that is supposedly, allegedly destroying our ozone, our atmosphere, and our polar bears? Of course, there is no hard and fast data to give an inkling of proof, but that doesn't keep them from shouting their message of mass awefullness.
Ever since 1970, auto manufacturers in North America have been installing equipment on cars and trucks that is designed to lower the harmful emissions they naturally produce. In the 38 years hence, some of that equipment has evolved, grown, and been added to, and along with great strides in other technologies, we now have cars and trucks that run so efficiently and cleanly, the ever present smog that used to lay over NYC and Los Angeles is all but forgotten. To be sure, it's been the tree huggin' folks that have pushed Detroit to build cleaner running cars, but there was a natural evolution occurring already that was going to lead auto builders to design more efficient, more powerful vehicles anyway. The green crowd just pushed them a bit.
Today, the typical car relies upon catalytic converters, EGR (exhaust gas recurculator) valves, PCV (positive crankcase valves) valves, and a myriad of electronic engine controls to clean the tailpipe exhaust. The advent of multi-port fuel injection (and in more recent day, direct injection), coil-on-plug (distributorless) ignitions, and computerized engine management controls has not only made smaller engines as powerful as big blocks were 3 decades ago, they also are more efficient and run very clean. The reason? Why, it's simple....
The internal combustion engine is inherently inefficient by design, but steady improvements in the field of technology has raised what used to be a standard of 25% efficiency, towards 60%+ efficiency today. Igniting gas and oxygen in a combustion chamber is not a complicated process, but that process creates heat, and all together, fumes such as NoX and Co2 are produced. The good news is -- the more efficient the engine, the less noxious gases are produced. Better efficiency means better mileage, and better mileage means you can now afford to buy a coke, instead of settling for water.
What the tree huggin' crowd doesn't realize is that there is no need for such novelty jokes as compressed hydrogen, E85, and electric cars. All those "technologies" are inefficient, costly, and promise far more than they can deliver. Electric cars are by design highly inefficient, and the battery technology just isn't there. Maybe one day, but for now, battery technology is analagous to where TV technology was in the 1950's.
Compressed hydrogen is fraught with packaging problems, as is natural gas. Want to drive a certain explosion vehicle? Get yourself a compressed gas ve-hickle. Makes the Pinto of yore look like a fire cracker.
E85? Has anyone gotten the memo that E85 produces more torque, less power, and far less mileage than regular gasoline? Sure, run E85 in your big bad F-150, but be prepared to pump in about 25% more corn flakes in your tank at each fill-up. And guess what? The farming community already knows that far more land will have to be used to keep up with the demand on corn, raising the price even more. Oh, don't forget that E85 requires more expensive conversion systems on your car, raising the buying price by at least 15%.
But what about those pesky little hybrids? Again, that technology is in it's infancy, ever-changing, and frankly, does not look promising. The lofty Toyota Prius has routinely returned actual mileage far lower than expected. The average Prius is reportedly getting closer to 38 mpg on the highway, rather than the 48 that was supposed to be seen. It's underpowered, over complicated, highly expensive, and the trees are greener than ever. Not due to this "earth saving" vehicle, but because it's spring.
Auto makers of the world cringed when President Bush announced the CAFE standards for 2020, set at the ridiculous level of 35 mpg. What this means is that all auto makers will have to build and design cars and trucks in their fleet that meet, on average, 35 mpg on the highway. Now, that's a gross over-generalization, but it is close to the truth. This new standard will have to be interpreted and wrangled over with the energy secretary and the auto makers, and together they will hack out deals and loop holes, but regardless of how it plays out, it means one thing: either vastly more efficient gas fired motors, or far smaller and lighter cars, or both. Don't look for tidy little electric cars zooming around, because that is not likely going to happen. What is far more likely is that Americans,. at the very least, will be forced to change from high riding SUV's (sorry, sadistic soccer moms) to low riding, little mini-movers with turbo-charged 3 and 4 cylinder motors that are direct injected, run clean, and return great mileage. Detroit can do it, and will, and then the Japanese and Germans will steal our technology, develop it further, and call it their own.
Ah, well, such is the world of the automobile.
Ignore the ignorant hype and the promise of a cleaner environment. Smaller, cleaner, more powerful, and better packaged cars are coming, and they will burn good old gasoline, and all will be well with the world. This global warming fiasco will abate, such as it has already three times in the past century, and small minded people with a left leaning will get back to working, spoiling their children, and voting for candidates that represent the former Soviet Union more than the United States.
Maybe we will still be able to buy loud aftermarket mufflers and make those turbo'd 4 bangers sound fierce.
Drive precise!
