October 07, 2004
Smog Check
I wanted to blog on this a few days ago when I saw this post over at Roger Simon's blog (but work ratcheted up and I didn't get the time). The story is that Gov. Schwarzenegger has supported rule changes that will enforce the toughest smog rules to date.
Now I am not familiar with the gory details of these rules but my guess is they will do shit to reduce smog and air pollution in general. I hear periodically that 5% of the cars are responsible for some large percentage of the pollution. The idea being we need to get rid of these super-polluter cars. The only problem with this is that I have yet to see one of these super-polluter cars.
Now granted, my not seeing one of these super-polluters doesn't mean they don't exist. But after living in California for the past seven years and spending no small amount of time on Southern Cali's freeways you'd think I'd see a few. Then it dawned on me. Maybe they aren't cars. I noticed that the biggest billowers of foul black stuff were tractor-trailers and buses. Maybe that 5% weren't cars at all, but were large vehicles. And we all know that the smog rules for these vehicles are much, much less stringent. Oh...you didn't know that. Well now you do.
The point is that eventually you wont be able to squeeze much more pollution reduction out of people driving regular cars. They are already quite low in terms of emissions. Now there is alot of potential for semi trucks, buses, cement trucks, and construction vehicles. However, these guys have strong lobbies (compared to the regular schmuck sitting in his Hyundai) on the freeway.
These new rules are bad. They raise the costs for drivers who are already bearing the lion share of the "emission reduction burden". They force up transportation costs (especially for the poor--nice and regressive there isn't it?). It is also a sign that special interest politics still rule in California politics despite all the rhetoric. Don't get me wrong, I want clean air, but these rules are not going to do Jack fucking shit.
Posted by Steve at October 7, 2004 10:56 AMWhat, you've never seen an old mid '70s or earlier car being driven? You don't ride around with poor high school students and poor people in general enough.
Of course, that's the problem. The same cars that emit the most pollution are the cheapest, oldest ones. Getting them off the road would disproportionately hurt the poor.
'60s VW Bugs are also pretty bad in pollution, despite being small. Worse than a modern SUV. Anything diesel is, as you note, pretty bad for smog pollution. (People conflate gas mileage and C0_2 production with CO, NOX, and SOX smog pollution all the time, though.)
Posted by: John Thacker on October 7, 2004 11:04 AMJohn,
I have seen them and they don't belch the black stuff. They may emit more than say a 2004 Honda, but compared to a truck, bus or construction equipment I just don't see it.
When I come into work in the morning the first 2 lanes of the freeway is an endless "river" of big rigs all belching that foul black smoke. It is like that for the entire 20 miles or so I commute.
Posted by: Steve on October 7, 2004 11:20 AMIsn't it a statistical phenomenon that 5% (or whatever the actual number is) of cars cause 50% of the pollution?
Even if you have cars coming right off the dealer lot, 5% of them will cause 50% of the pollution. That level of pollution will be quite low, cars being as clean as they are these days. But the numbers still work because it is a statistical phenomenon.
Diesels emit much more NOx than cars do (the black stuff is particulate matter, which is an irritant but does not cause smog.) So, yes, if you really cared about smog, you would regulate diesels more, not cars.
There are new EPA regs for diesels coming on line in 2007, 2010, and 2014. More than likely California wants to regulate cars because there are no new federal regs coming along for cars.
The bottom line is that Steve is correct. The cleaner cars become, the more California has to look at other sources of smog. For example, California has outlawed 2 stroke engines in weedwackers and other equipment. Hard to believe that weedwackers are a big source of smog, but compared to new cars, they are.
Here is a good question: what has helped eliminate smog more? 0% financing or the laterst round of CARB regulations?
Posted by: Buzzcut on October 7, 2004 12:40 PMI would not be surprised at all if it is the 0% financing as people buy newer and cleaner cars.
Posted by: Steve on October 7, 2004 01:18 PMIf the idea is to get rid of the older polluting automobiles, my first thought was, "why don't authorities just tax the hell out of them?" Because they're disproportionately owned by the poor, most likely.
There might be a more economically effient way to get to that dirty 5% than just taxing them to death: force them to choose between lowering their emissions on the polluting car or scrapping the car entirely, but provide a safety net.
This is done in the auto emissions test areas of Northern VA, where I live. Cars that don't meet inspection MUST be repaired, or they can't be registered. To make sure the poor aren't screwed over too much, a car that can't meet emissions specs will be waived for two years if at least $620 is spent in repairs.
That is, dirty cars have an extra cost to their owners--currently at least $310 a year, or 85 cents a day.
Posted by: Kevin Brancato on October 7, 2004 01:47 PMThe biggest cut in smog from traffic is easy and free. Get rid of car pool lanes. Instantly there's a huge reduction in time on the road.
Posted by: Ron Hardin on October 7, 2004 02:56 PMOld passenger car has to have smoke check at smoke test only station every 2 years in Cal. Unless, you said all smoke test only stations are corrupted, then the amount of polution by old cars are nelligible. Steve is right. Those bus and trucks are the one needs to have their asses checked as rigid as passenger cars. Or California voters unite and kick out every single public officials out the door every election and bring the new ones in, until everybody starts listening. It can never be harmful by rotating idiots and incompetents but it is tremendously harmful by letting idiots and competents stayed on the job too long.
Posted by: Lanny on October 7, 2004 04:57 PM"compared to the regular schmuck sitting in his Hyundai"
Who are you calling a schmuck?!!
The last time I lived in a large metropolitan area subject to air quality regulations, I learned that older cars were exempt from emissions inspections. The rationale is that older cars owned by poor people can't be expected to be as clean as new cars owned by rich people. So it just wouldn't be *fair* to impose the same requirements on them. If you can follow that logic, I have a Democrat for sale.
One of the most interesting cultural phenomenons of the Bush era has been the turnover in the automotive fleet due to low interest rates. Everyone and their brother has a new car. The average age of the fleet has gone down by a couple of years. Newer cars have the latest technology (SULEVs are sold in California, and they are essentially zero emissions vehicles), so one would expect smog to get better over the next few years.
You just don't see junkers like you used to.
As for diesels, like I said, the Feds are on the case. By 2014, diesels should be as clean as cars, if the diesel companies can figure out how to meet the regs (it isn't as easy to clean up diesels as it is gas engines).
Posted by: Buzzcut on October 8, 2004 06:30 AMOf course when you crack down on the big rigs, the retail price of what they're carrying goes up. I guess that's why they've been cut some slack this long... you're not only cracking down on the owner of the truck, you're cracking down on everyone that goes to the grocery store. At some point the marginal improvement isn't worth it.
Posted by: Ken on October 8, 2004 07:00 AMBuzzcut, this is just plain wrong:
One of the most interesting cultural phenomenons of the Bush era has been the turnover in the automotive fleet due to low interest rates. Everyone and their brother has a new car. The average age of the fleet has gone down by a couple of years
Actually, the median age of cars has been steadily increasing under Bush, after stabilizing from 1998 to 2001. This is happening because fewer cars are being scrapped, as the newer ones have been more and more durable. Posted by: Kevin Brancato on October 8, 2004 08:04 AM
Aren't buses going to natural gas and other alternative fuels going to cut into this? Also, my 1997 car probably has a neglible difference in emissions than a 2004 - I don't think that the age of cars is going to make that much of a difference unless we are talking about stuff from the 60's-70's (pre-cats). But that 70's horsepower...boy, do I miss it!
Posted by: Don Mynack on October 8, 2004 08:17 AMI think that there is inside baseball kind of stuff going on in those BLS stats. The bottom line is that the auto industry has been selling record or near record numbers of autos over the last 4 years. Unless the size of the fleet is increasing by 18 million per year, the average age HAS to be going down, not up.
Of course, legal and illegal immigration adds millions to our population every year. Maybe all those new cars aren't enough to keep the fleet average steadt or dropping?
Not to mention all the people with third, fourth, and fifth cars. Of course, that 'vette in the driveway doesn't get driven much, so does not impact smog to any extent.
As for a 1997 vs. a 2004 auto, 1997 cars meet LEV standards. 2004 meet ULEV or even SULEV standards. You can find out on the web what those different standards are, but 2004 cars are cleaner.
Also, you have to take into account wear and tear. A car with 100k miles emits more that one right off the showroom floor. So unless you recently changed the cat on that '97, it almost certainly emits more than a 2004.
Posted by: Buzzcut on October 8, 2004 09:03 AMWouldn't auto emmissions follow the Pareto effect, or 80-20 rule, or whatever its called? Or something very much like it?
Posted by: Buzzcut on October 8, 2004 09:11 AMIt's not just older cars that make up the polluting 5 (or whatever)%. Cars badly out of tune, or with exhaust problems, are most of the problem.
This Dec 96 article from Reason says more than half of auto pollution comes from 10% of cars: http://reason.com/9612/col.lynn.shtml .
...Gross polluters are not just all those smoking old junkers easily identified by make, model, and year. Stephanie Deason of Torrance, California, told the Los Angeles Times that her 1994 Chevy Blazer, with a hitherto undiscovered broken fuel injector, flunked the smog test as a gross polluter. So did Redondo Beach attorney Jason Schlossberg's 1989 Nissan 240SX. ...
Sorry, the article doesn't address diesel issues. I can't imagine diesels are cleaner than modern cars, but most of the "black stuff" does not contribute to smog... it just smells terrible and gives you cancer :-) .
Posted by: PJ/Maryland on October 8, 2004 10:39 AMPJ,
The paragraph above what you quoted was actually more illuminating for me. Notice how they shift between cars and vehicles. I'm still not convinced. I want to start seeing some data on this.
Posted by: Steve on October 8, 2004 02:02 PMSteve,
You're right to ask for data, and I need to go dig up some of the EPA statistics. However, the sheer gap between the legally allowed emissions (and then the LEV and ULEV standards) in the '70s and each time the EPA has tightened the standards makes me certain that older cars do pollute significantly more. Of course broken cars contribute a lot.
Diesel fuel is really bad, though. High NOX and SOX production, and really bad soot. Used to have a lot of formaldehyde. Advantages are its high amount of energy per weight and volume, hence the use on large trucks and buses. Also due to that, it has a high "miles per gallon" rating.
Still, pollution can be much worse on one car without seeing black smoke belching. The black smoke is usually caused by particulates, which are particularly bad in diesel. Many pollutants are relatively invisible.
Here's a document discussing the 1990 changes to the law. Note that the NOX standard was cut from 1.0 gpm to 0.4 gpm. Note that diesel particulate standard droped in 1993 from 0.25 to .1 gram per brake-horsepower per hour. Note that here claims that the original NOX standard of 1.0 gpm was not implemented until 1981, because the manufacturers said that they couldn't meet it.
Read here, where it says "Today's passenger cars are capable of emitting 90 percent less carbon monoxide over their lifetimes than their uncontrolled counterparts of the 1960's." Note that most passenger cars didn't have catalytic converters until 1975, and they were significantly improved in 1981.
Also read here.
Actually, just check out everything on the EPA's page here.
Mid '70s, and especially pre mid '70s cars are MUCH, MUCH worse. Thankfully most of them have been phased out, which is why emissions have dramatically decreased over the last twenty years despite a massive increase in miles driven, as many of those papers point out.
Posted by: John Thacker on October 8, 2004 05:06 PMKevin-- there's a car vs. truck problem that messes up that data, as the release itself notes. Passenger sales have tilted sharply in the direction of light trucks recently, resulting in a younger truck fleet and an older (non-truck) car fleet.
Posted by: John Thacker on October 8, 2004 05:08 PMOne story I remember from my time living in California. My mid-80's car (T-bird. Damn I loved that V-8 and to hell with smog) had more emissions turned off and sitting in my driveway than a new Honda (late 90's) doing 70 down the freeway.
The explanation was something along the lines of evaporation from the gas tank.
Not sure if I really believe it but if true, pretty amazing.
>>Not sure if I really believe it but if true, pretty amazing.
It is true. The fuel system these days is sealed (that's why you have to turn the gas cap until it clicks three times, and if you do not, the check engine light comes on to scold you).
From what I can find, it looks to me that diesels are allowed to emit 10 times as much NOx per mile as ULEVs. It looks like diesel emissions will be brought in line with car emissions by 2014, IF the technology to do so can be developed by then and IF it is still economical to use diesel as a result.
If not, expect the big rigs to switch over to gas power, which in turn will totally f-up gasoline markets. Oil refiners do not have the capatity to meet demand from big rigs.
Posted by: Buzzcut on October 11, 2004 11:14 AM