Posted on 06/26/2006 9:32:02 PM PDT by neverdem
WASHINGTON, June 26 — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether the federal government is required to control vehicle emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas that scientists have linked to global warming.
In accepting a petition from states, cities and environmental groups, the justices agreed to hear arguments on whether the Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide and other gases as air pollutants that may affect public health or the climate.
The case is one of the biggest environmental tests yet for the Bush administration, which has steadfastly opposed binding controls on greenhouse gases, instead calling for a voluntary approach by industry to curb emissions.
"At stake in this case is nothing less than the survival of the earth as we know it," said Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general of Connecticut, which sued the government in 1999 along with New York, New Jersey, nine other states, three cities and a dozen environmental advocacy groups, including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense.
Ten other states and several industry groups joined the side of the administration.
The case began in the final year of the Clinton administration, when a group of states and environmental organizations petitioned the E.P.A. to regulate carbon dioxide. After four years of study, the agency refused, concluding that the Clean Air Act did not require it to regulate emissions to prevent climate change.
The law, which was first written in 1963 and revised in 1970, before global warming emerged as a widespread concern, names many specific pollutants that the agency must regulate, including compounds released by cars, factories and power plants that form soot and smog. It does not name carbon dioxide, and in updating the law in 1990, Congress did not add the...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
Perhaps even the whole galaxy is at stake.
there is no issue the surpeme court will not inject itself into. its out of control.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
LOL!
reducing CO2 tailpipe emissions will unavoidably increase CO emissions, and increase the frequency of high HC emissions.
From a driveability technicians standpoint for all these years of exhaust gas analysis the rule of thumb for efficiency and pollutants has been 'the higher the CO2, the better'.
These people are crazy!
The greater the proportion of produced gasses comprised by CO2, the better. On the other hand, if one can reduce the amount of work that goes into things such as drawing vacuum on the air intake or heating and pressuring the exhaust, one will reduce the amount of fuel/air mixture that needs to be fed through the engine, thus improving efficiency while reducing the production of everything including CO2.
I really don't know why more efforts aren't made toward such goals, though perhaps the tax benefits for hybrids are discouraging non-"hybrid" efficiency improvements.
Agreed. The leftists are working hard to undermine capitalism in it's greatest domain.
"The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether the federal government is required to control vehicle emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas that scientists have linked to global warming."
This could actually be a seminal case for federalism, if they do it right. They haven't actually RULED anything.
IIRC, all you need to "grant cert (certiari)," i.e. have the Supreme Court say it wants to hear a case, is four votes out of the nine Justices. You have four fairly reliable conservatives, i.e. Thomas, Scalia, Roberts and Alito. You also have four fairly reliable liberals, i.e. Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter and Stevens. Anthony Kennedy is a switch hitter.
Folks that stay home or vote third party can expect more 5 to 4 decisions on contentious issues unless Ginsburg, who has a history of colon cancer, or Stevens, who is at least 85 years old, retire, and GWB gets lucky. Any corrections are always appreciated.
in todays cars, the ram and scavenge effects have been tweaked and exploited to the max, within practical limits for production cars.....the same is true with the variety and sophistication of fuel metering and catalyst systems.
For the treehuggers:
We need CO2 to assure that vegetation has a plentiful supply to convert to O2.
Can anyone predict the possible decision? How likely the decision will be in favor of the environmental groups?
A ruling by the Supreme Court could influence another case currently before the same appeals court, involving many of the same plaintiffs. They are arguing that the E.P.A. should also regulate carbon emissions from power plants.
This quote shows why the Court was wise to grant certiorari at this time. Not only were the original plaintiffs appealing the lower court's decision, but California and 10 other states were issuing CO2 regulations on the assumption that they had the legal authority under the Clean Air Act to do so. Thus, the Court is not just giving the original plaintiffs another bite at the apple; it's also going probably to rule on an ongoing legislative trend that needs to be stopped. Conservative and liberal justices would both have good reason to vote for certiorari in this case. However, given the Court's penchant for issuing confused and confusing consensus opinions, the result might be no more clear than Breyer's incomprehensible decision in the Vermont CFR case.
Save the universe.
I'm hardly an automotive expert, but from what I understand, (1) in most cars, the primary means of limiting the amount of air entering the engine is a throttle valve which forces the engine to draw a partial vacuum; all energy spent drawing this vacuum is wasted; (2) no production engine that I know of has any speed-independent means of harnessing any energy left in the fuel/air mixture at the end of the power stroke; if the intake is near atmospheric pressure, and the expansion/compression ratios are nearly equal, the exhaust pressure must be significant for the engine to produce any meaningful amount of power.
I've read a white paper on the subject of using late intake-valve closure to reduce compression ratio (without affecting TDC volume or expansion ratio), and another paper (written by a FReeper) on the subject of using switchable compounding to double the expansion ratio. Although I am aware of engine designs which use unequal compression and expansion ratios, I am not aware of any common production designs that make them equal when maximum power is needed and unequal when it's not. Since most engines spend most of their time producing well under maximum power, allowing efficiency optimization for that case while also allowing power optimization when power is needed would seem like a major win.
"....harnessing any energy left in the fuel/air mixture at the end of the power stroke...."
there (above) is the pipe dream......the "smidge" of 02 remaining in the (pre-catalyst) exhaust gas is witness to (in a word) stoichiometric efficiency.
making use of the (catalytic) heat generated by what are literally trace amounts of HC and CO in the exhaust of a contemporary engine with all systems operating properly would be to add cost to a system/technology that long ago passed the point of diminishing returns.
your other concern, compression----remember, it works both ways on the piston equally with no fuel/ignition......and that low manifold pressure w/low throttle sense shuts off fuel these days (when "backing off" throttle/coasting).
P.S. - there is no cold, but there IS atmospheric pressure - I trust you git the drift :)
"....all energy spent drawing this vacuum is wasted....)
"gulp valves" (25 or so yrs ago) attempted to address this theory......they were quickly discontinued because they were so problematic driveability-wise, not to mention engine damage (from lean mixtures). An air inlet tee'd into the induction south of the carburetor.
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