Posted on 06/03/2003 11:49:19 PM PDT by prisoner6
E.P.A. Says Catalytic Converter Is
Growing Cause of Global Warming
By Matthew L. Wald
Copyright 1998 The New York Times
May 29, 1998
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WASHINGTON -- The catalytic converter, an invention that has sharply
reduced smog from cars, has now become a significant and growing
cause of global warming, according to the Environmental Protection
Agency.
Hailed as a miracle by Detroit automakers even today, catalytic
converters have been reducing smog for 20 years. The converters break
down compounds of nitrogen and oxygen from car exhaust that can
combine with hydrocarbons, also from cars, and be cooked by sunlight
into smog.
But researchers have suspected for years that the converters
sometimes rearrange the nitrogen-oxygen compounds to form nitrous
oxide, known as laughing gas. And nitrous oxide is a potent
greenhouse gas, more than 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide,
the most common of the gases, that is warming the atmosphere,
according to experts.
This spring, the EPA published a study estimating that nitrous oxide
now comprises about 7.2 percent of the gases that cause global
warming. Cars and trucks, most fitted with catalytic converters,
produce nearly half of that nitrous oxide, the study said. (Other
sources of nitrous oxide include everything from nitrogen-based
fertilizer to manure from farm animals.)
The EPA study also showed that nitrous oxide is one of a few gases
for which emissions are increasing rapidly. Collectively known as
greenhouse gases, they trap heat in the earth's atmosphere.
The increase in nitrous oxide, the study notes, stems from the growth
in the number of miles traveled by cars that have catalytic
converters. And the problem has worsened as improvements in catalytic
converters, changes that have eliminated more of the nitrogen-oxygen
compounds that cause smog, have conversely produced more nitrous
oxide.
Wylie J. Barbour, an EPA official who worked on the recently
published inventory, said that the problem created by the converter
is classic. "You've got people trying to solve one problem, and as is
not uncommon, they've created another."
Nitrous oxide, or N2O, is not regulated because the Clean Air Act was
written in 1970 to control smog, not global warming. And no
regulations exist to control gases that are believed to cause global
warming.
The United States and the other industrialized nations agreed in
Kyoto, Japan, last December to lower emissions of greenhouse gases to
5 percent below 1990 levels, over the next 10 to 15 years, but the
agreement has not been approved by the Senate, and no implementing
rules have been written.
"This hadn't really been on people's radar screen until climate
change started becoming an issue," said one EPA official involved in
reducing pollution from cars, who asked not to be identified by name.
The EPA has not proposed a solution at this point, and is seeking
public comment on its study. Auto industry experts say they could
solve the problem by tinkering with the catalytic converter, but some
environmentalists suggest that the growing production of nitrous
oxide is yet another reason to move away from gasoline-powered cars.
The EPA's study estimated that nitrous oxide may represent about one-
sixth of the global warming effect that results from gasoline use.
"It's like, clean is not green," said Sheila Lynch, executive
director of the Northeast Alternative Vehicle Coalition, a public-
private partnership that encourages non-traditional power sources.
Another expert, Christopher S. Weaver, an engineering consultant who
wrote a study on the subject for the environmental agency, said, "We
haven't cared enough to establish standards."
Precisely how much nitrous oxide the converters produce remains an
issue. A report used by the EPA in preparing its greenhouse gas
study, calculated that a car with a fuel economy of about 19 miles a
gallon would produce .27 grams of nitrous oxide per mile. That
represents an amount that is about one-third the limit of emissions
for nitrogen oxide, the chemicals causing smog.
Steven H. Cadle, a research scientist at General Motors, said, "it's
a huge number." In contrast, an older car without a catalytic
converter produces much larger amounts of nitrogen oxides, but only
about a tenth as much nitrous oxide, the greenhouse gas.
The EPA calculated that production of nitrous oxide from vehicles
rose by nearly 50 percent between 1990 and 1996 as older cars without
converters have neared extinction. Using a standard unit of measure
for global warming gases, millions of metric tons of carbon
equivalent, nitrous oxide emissions rose to 54.7 million tons from
36.7 million during those years, the study said.
The contradictory impact of the converter has not been lost on
environmental officials or industry experts, who continue to debate
not only the extent of the growing problem as well as how to reduce
the emissions in future years.
Ned Sullivan, the head of the Maine Department of Environmental
Protection, said the converter problem requires a "comprehensive"
response. "This specific issue fits into a broader context that our
regulatory system has tended to deal with pollutants on an
individual, rather than a comprehensive, basis," he said.
He and others favor moving away from today's typical car design, a
big gasoline engine driving the wheels, to electric cars. Maine would
like electric cars. Another solution is hybrid cars, which use small,
efficient engines running on gasoline to help turn the wheels and to
charge batteries for electric motors that also run the wheels. Those
have much higher fuel economy, and thus lower greenhouse gas
emissions.
Car industry experts, however, favor less drastic changes. They
propose cutting nitrous oxide production by adjusting catalytic
converters in future models. They suspect that the gas is produced
when the converter is warming up, and believe the converters could be
redesigned to reach optimum temperature faster. That would also help
them destroy other pollutants better.
Weaver said that measurements on more kinds of cars and light trucks
would be needed to be certain about the size of the problem. But
Weaver said, "It is quite clear that you produce nitrous oxide in a
catalyst, in some circumstances."
At the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group, an
expert on transportation pollution, Roland Hwang, said, "We can't be
pushing forward trying to reduce smog while making the global warming
problem worse; we can't have programs that undercut each other." He
said this was evidence that the transportation system would have to
use something besides gasoline.
Cadle, of General Motors would not go that far. But, he said, "You
have to be holistic and try and look at everything, which is
obviously difficult."
So let me get this straight. According to the EPA we're still gonna cook to death, but we'll die laughing thanks to their meddling.
Can't somebody invent a fuel that produces BEER as it's only byproduct?
I found this article on the Yahoo Chrysler minivan group, but I don't think I can link directly to it.
prisoner6
Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
At the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group, an
expert on transportation pollution, Roland Hwang, said, "We can't be
pushing forward trying to reduce smog while making the global warming
problem worse; we can't have programs that undercut each other." He
said this was evidence that the transportation system would have to
use something besides gasoline.
As we get down to the bottom line of what this is all about.
Just to put things in some perspective:
Mankind's impact is only 0.28% of Total Greenhouse effect
" There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050. "
Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia,
and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service;
in a Sept. 10, 2001 Letter to Editor, Wall Street Journal
Anthropogenic (man-made) Contribution to the "Greenhouse
Effect," expressed as % of Total (water vapor INCLUDED)
Based on concentrations (ppb) adjusted for heat retention characteristics % of All Greenhouse Gases % Natural
% Man-made
Water vapor 95.000% 94.999%
0.001% Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 3.618% 3.502%
0.117% Methane (CH4) 0.360% 0.294%
0.066% Nitrous Oxide (N2O) 0.950% 0.903%
0.047% Misc. gases ( CFC's, etc.) 0.072% 0.025%
0.047% Total 100.00% 99.72
0.28%
Personally I wouldn't mind a bit of Global Warming. It would save me the time and trouble of moving south.
prisoner6
That tells us that the EPA is BS, but we already knew that.
prisoner6
Global warming my behind! It's June 3rd and its 58 degrees outside. Kids should be swimming and it feels like football weather.
These environazis (and everyone at EPA qualifies) need to be burned alive to provide us some warmth. We are all freezing to death here.
(For the cognitively challenged the above paragraph is obviously tongue-in-cheek. The author does not promote or condone burning environazis at the stake regardless of the needed heat output that would result. Burning them stacked like cordwood gives a far longer lasting and more complete burn, resulting in greater total heat output. :^p )
prisoner6
It is interesting that the EPA is still firmly convinced that global warming exists, and even more interesting that they are basically taking some of the blame for it. If... IF global warming is eventually proven beyond speculation and junk science (which I doubt), that will mean that the EPA did not solve the pollution problems in the high-population areas. The problem just changed from smog in the cities to greenhouse gas *everywhere*. Early automobile pollution control hardware was referred to as "anti-smog", IIRC. More proof that the EPA is the intersection where socialism and environmentalism meet.
At least I live in a state that does not have a "sniffer" test as part of the annual vehicle inspection. Heck, they don't even peek underneath to see if the cats are still there.
Buy a hacksaw today... help save the planet. ;-)
They have no proof but that never stopped them from their BS before...
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