Message text written by Steven Newell
>Here's what I've found. *Disclaimer: I haven't checked sources.*
"A car causes more pollution before it's ever driven than in it's entire
lifetime of driving." (Cradle to the Grave, Umweltund Prognose-Institut
Heidelberg) and http://www.carbusters.ecn.cz/WCFD%20Stats.htm
The Environmental Cost of One Car
Extracting Raw Materials:
26.5 tonnes of waste
922 cubic metres of polluted air
Transporting Raw Materials:
12 litres of crude oil in the ocean
425 million cubic litres of polluted air
Producing the Car:
1.5 tonnes of waste
74 million cubic litres of polluted air
Driving the Car:
18.4 kilos of abrasive waste
1,016 million cubic litres of polluted air
Disposing of the Car:
102 million cubic litres of polluted air
<
I had heard this before,many years ago. I believe that this factoid is
"swept under the carpet" because building cars provides so many jobs and
cutting back would have detrimental effects to the economy - at least short
term.
By the way, this is an unfair comparison. You (or at least the authors of
the report) are comparing apples and oranges. Producing the car doesn't
preclude the use or non-use. You would still use a car whether it was a
recently produced model or an older, refurbished model. The question that
counts, actually there are two are: How much waste is produced restoring an
old car vs producing a new car from scratch and how much less polution is
produced by the new car vs. the older car. Although the newer cars are
cleaner in terms of HC, CO and NOx they are just as prolific, if not more
so, as the older cars at producing CO2.
And, if there was enough of a market there would be (and there probably
are) retrofit engine managment systems that would close the gap.
None the less, it is important to keep in mind that new cars (and any other
new product) are the result of much industry and don't just fall from the
heavens.
Dave Massey
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