Chat & Social > The Bar - General Chat
'Green' cars not that Green really.....
Sheddy:
Its all about environmental debt and recycleing costs. When an article is produced, in this case a hybrid car, there are always a certain amount of pollutants thrown into the atmosphere. That coupled with the damage caused to the environment in getting the neccessary materials out of the earth is put together and calculated on a dollar scale.
One of my most hated items is the catalytic converter. I'll explain.
In 1921 the US airforce needed higher compression engines to enable them to launch aeroplanes from ships - seaplanes. When the engine compression went over a certain ratio the fuel began to pre-ignite under compression (knocking). To make the fuel more stable they put lead into the fuel.
Lead has been know for centuries to be extremely harmful and the governments ofthe developed world recognised the damage that the lead in petrol was doing, they wanted to get rid of it and the other pollutants that were causing acid rain and smog.
In order to reduce substantially the pollutants the catalytic converter was divised. This device is a ceramic honeycombe coated in a microscopic layer of precious metals - palladium, rhodium, platinum and iridium.
These metals have one thing in common, they are all trace metals. This means that an awful lot of rock has to be crushed and go through the refining process to liberate them from the metal element bearing strata (ore). The metals appear worldwide but are more concentrated in what are considered the third world or developing world.
In these areas huge amounts of forests are removed to enable polluting earth moving equipment to tear out great swathes of the earth in the mining process. This ore is them transported by polluting, energy inefficient vehicles to coastal areas where it is loaded onto (typically) archaic coasters or trains and sent off the the refineries.
These refineries used huge amounts of fossil fuel generated power to liberate the metals from the ore. Irrespective of the power used, refining in itself is a hugely polluting process. Having released the desired metals, the recovery and refining process is completed.
Now we need a ceramic honeycomb core on which to put the precious metals. The manufacture of this core causes further environmental damage from mining, transport, manufacture and firing processes.
We have the metal, we have the core, now we need to stick them together. Guess what .... another hugely polluting and energy hungry process.
Now we have the catalytic converter there is another problem. If leaded petrol is used, the lead would over-coat the microscopic layer of precious metals and render it inoperative so the lead was taken out of the petrol and replaced with another retarding agent - benzine. A little known fact is that benzine is one of the most carcinogenic substances known to man. It also has a boiling point of around 61 degrees. So next time your filling up your tank on a hot day and you notice the pretty vapour haze coming up from the filler, just remember, thats probably benzine fumes and yopu are breathing them in.
It was calculated that the cost to the environment in producing a catalytic converted was in excess of 7 years. That is to say that the averge car covering the average milage would have to use the same catalytic converter for over 7 years just to repay the damage done in its production. So if your c/c has been working correctly for 8 years, it has stopped more damage to the environment than has been caused in its manufacture.
How many cats still work at 7 years old?
Just off now to get some ointment on me fingertips, I've got blisters after all that typing!
Rich_P:
Well the 3 on my father's merc fell apart with age a couple of years ago... although the car is '92....
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