Environmentalists won't quit until we are walking and have no vehicles

[crash325]

So, what happens if a site does not become a superfund site? Does it just sit there unused forever? Do they just pretend the toxins are not there or don't affect anything?

I can't see houses being built at an abandoned asbestos mine.. so what happens to that land?

Have you ever seen or been to an asbestos mine???
I have.
Have you ever done a brake job???
I have 100's if not thousands and that was back in the day when brake linings were made of asbestos.

I worked on and flew in military planes that were full of asbestos covered objects.

Some how I have survived for 72 years without cancer.

Like everything else the EPA does its hazards are blow all out proportion.

Currently asbestos is still being used in asphalt highways.

 

[buickanddeere]

Domush & creeley. You and your type seem impervious to the common sense from those like toppop52,crazyal and RoyJackson. Did you guys grow up watch Star Trek or something? High ideals are great but some can not be achieved.

And that is different from any other position of power, how? This is hardly an EPA specific argument.

Time to rein in the EPA's big egos, just like any other big ego.


Have you ever read up on the efficiency of the internal combustion engine? They are horribly inefficient (18%-20%). Last 1%? More like last 80%. I have yet to see a single post in which someone has said cars pollute way too much, but even if they did.. they are right, internal combustion engines suck.. gas! Time to push the auto industry to find a better way, or more pointedly, get out of the way of alternatives, such as far more robust mass transit.

Until you can find a way to cheat the laws of physics. There are no efficiency break throughs just around the corner. Ever done any engineering in physics, chemistry and fluid dynamics? The low hanging fruit was picked long ago.


Seeing as the USA is far behind other countries in mass transit, I hope they keep going until the automotive dam finally breaks and we begin to see alternatives to people driving gas guzzlers into town for a cheeseburger. I would love to see more focus on making mini-cars or purely electric vehicles or modernizing our electric grid to something resembling this century.

Mass transit only works where many people are crammed into a small footprint such as NewYork, London England, Tokyo etc. The US and Canada is mostly wide open spaces with a very low population density unlike France, Germany, England etc.

 

[crazyal]

....“We have to be careful about what we say yes to,”...[/url]

Again, if you lived here and talked to the people who live next to the mine you would get a different story. What they were saying was "we will loose everything if the EPA declares it a superfund site" what the press reported "worried about property values". The fact is once declared a superfund site the EPA has no choice. By law they have to go after everybody including those who have the tailings.

Part of my HASWOPER cert requires me to go for a yearly refresher class. Depending when I go sometimes there's people from other businesses there. Each one usually has had a run in with the EPA. For example the last time I went there were two people from one of the hospitals. They were there because the EPA stopped in and found that someone had thrown away used paper towels after cleaning in the regular trash. To the EPA they were medical waste and needed to be separated.

There was also a guy from a local business that makes a product that everyone drinks. They were putting all of the unusable natural products in a custom composting facility they built. Turns out that a couple of the flavorings have trace amounts of all natural "toxic" waste in them. Luckily for them it wasn't the EPA who caught them. After reading the rules and just being more confused than ever they now are setting up a department that will deal with EPA issues.

That's just this year in this one group. Last year was the railroad. The gas station was in the middle of town so it was all out in the open. Last year there was a contractor that got hit by the EPA because some of the dirt he was excavating had something in it from decades ago. Two years ago it was a local company that put some absorb towels on top of a 55 gallon drum of new engine oil, a big no no, to catch anything that might leak out. The man who runs the training company has thousands of stories about local companies who found themselves on the loosing side of the EPA and DOT.

 

[Domush]

Domush & creeley. You and your type seem impervious to the common sense from those like toppop52,crazyal and RoyJackson. Did you guys grow up watch Star Trek or something? High ideals are great but some can not be achieved.

What do you get when you aim low.. lower than your aim. You aim high and accept good or, at least, decent. That is what ideals bring you. When you expect little, you get what you expect.

Until you can find a way to cheat the laws of physics. There are no efficiency breakthroughs just around the corner. Ever done any engineering in physics, chemistry and fluid dynamics? The low hanging fruit was picked long ago.

It is basic math based on physics.

Electrical energy is created by burning fossil fuels in a power plant at 40% efficiency, followed by transmitting it to your house at 93% efficiency, and using it in an electric vehicle at 92% efficiency, providing a total efficiency of around 34% for an electric vehicle.

Crude oil refineries operate at 75% efficiency, and gasoline distribution might cause another 6% energy loss. Since internal combustion engines are only 20% efficient, total efficiency would be around 14%.

Assuming that the natural gas and oil to power our vehicles comes from the same well, we can directly compare these efficiencies, and thus conclude that electric vehicles are significantly more efficient (34% vs 14%). That is only the automotive equivalent. Subways are already electric for this reason. This, of course, is from today where electric vehicle research is at a bare minimum. Ramp that up and the numbers will only get better for electric.

There is also the added benefit of electric going further with less weight, so people will naturally be compelled to reduce the size of their cars/trucks instead of simply throwing in more gas, like they do today. As with electric, more weight == more batteries required, and that costs money. There are intrinsic benefits to moving to electric which need not be legislated.

Mass transit only works where many people are crammed into a small footprint such as New York, London England, Tokyo etc. The US and Canada is mostly wide open spaces with a very low population density unlike France, Germany, England etc.

Over half of the US population is located within 50 miles of the ocean. Pollution centers such as Los Angeles, Chicago, etc can be equipped with more robust mass transit, cutting down on a very large amount of auto emissions. The entire US need not be a perfect grid of mass transit, but there certainly could be a few transcontinental high speed railways to cut down on auto and air travel as well as a bulking up of near-ocean transit for the majority of the population.

Maybe others should be watching a little less television altogether and reading more. It's time to step back to assess the situation from an objective standpoint instead of an emotionally invested one. Gas engines are outdated. It's time to move on as much as possible, and sitting still doesn't fix our looming oil crisis. China is not getting any smaller and oil has never been plentiful enough for us.

Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. It's time to stop spinning our wheels, in multiple senses.

Is this the way to go? I don't know, but at least have the conversation. It should be quite obvious we are not on a sustainable course.

 

[Lady Tonka]

buickanddeere said, "There are environazis that will cling to their positions of power until horses were the only source of transportation."

Nonsense -- we're willing to allow bicycles, too.

I suppose this would be the wrong thread for me to own up to my lifetime membership in the Sierra Club, my hero worship of Al Gore, and my volunteer position at the EPA but, hey, you have to remember I live in Liberal Land and it's kind of like a necessary protective coloration up here.

 

[toppop52]

When one includes cost per mile, toxic disposal cost in both dollars and environment the gap not only disappears, but flips in favor of gasoline powered cars. That's those high ideals mentioned earlier, it seems like. Great ideas cannot stand in a vacuum but must include all aspects, cost to the economy included, as well as where will used batteries from say 300 million cars go, outer space? Does any rational person believe that if the USA were to suffer the consequences of all this to possibly make a difference, that China or India would? Surely you jest! And if they don't all we will have accomplished is totally losing our entire manufacturing base because most of the world is still going to buy gasoline. As of last year the world in the time since oil use started, has consumed 18% of what experts say we have discovered, that means we have 140 years at current usage rates and more is discovered every day. So, if you want to drive a Prius, by all means please feel free, but shut the h3ll up about what I drive! But in a tip of the hat to the tree huggers, in the morning I'm going to fill up my Olds with racing gas from the speed shop and do a big smokey burnout and dedicate it to Al Gore!

 

[Domush]

Have you ever seen or been to an asbestos mine???
I have.
Have you ever done a brake job???
I have 100's if not thousands and that was back in the day when brake linings were made of asbestos.

I worked on and flew in military planes that were full of asbestos covered objects.

Some how I have survived for 72 years without cancer.

Like everything else the EPA does its hazards are blow all out proportion.

Currently asbestos is still being used in asphalt highways.

What you put forth is called anecdotal evidence. Just because a single smoker dies without cancer doesn't mean smoking cigarettes is benign.

Asbestos is not a health hazard unless it is disturbed. Inhaling it is the main issue. Stepping on pavement is not going to give you cancer, at least not from the asbestos in it. Imagine what construction equipment will stir up if that mine is built on. There is plenty of evidence of asbestos leading to cancer. Are you really arguing all of that is made up?

I guess I'm confused at to what you are asserting.. although I never intended on focusing on asbestos, as I just wanted to know what happened to sites which got voted down for cleanup.

 

[aczlan]

Over half of the US population is located within 50 miles of the ocean. Pollution centers such as Los Angeles, Chicago, etc can be equipped with more robust mass transit, cutting down on a very large amount of auto emissions. The entire US need not be a perfect grid of mass transit, but there certainly could be a few transcontinental high speed railways to cut down on auto and air travel as well as a bulking up of near-ocean transit for the majority of the population.

So, you are in favor of more rail?
Per Fuel efficiency in transportation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Table from Wikipedia with my additions in bold:
Edit: Here is a screenshot of the table as the formatting was unusable in the other version:

So, planes vs trains comes out to 46.21 P-MPG for planes vs 46.46 to 53.65 P-MPG for trains with "Rail (Transit Light & Heavy)" coming in at 51.92 P-MPG.
As a comparison, a Prius (assuming 40 avg MPG) with 2 people in it gets 80 P-MPG, my parents 15 passenger Ford E-350 (17 avg MPG) with 10 people in it gets 170 P-MPG, my wife's 2002 Caravan (19 avg MPG) with the 3 of us in it gets 57 P-MPG and your average sedan (25 Highway MPG) on a cross country road trip with 4 people in it gets 100 P-MPG.

So, would running trains vs airlines save enough gas to make a difference? That depends on infrastructure costs (ie: is it cheaper to build rail lines and train terminals across the country or to use/expand the existing airports).
Would I take my 2 year old on a trip from Rochester, NY to Salt Lake City, UT (as we did in April for a wedding) on a 300 MPH train that stopped in 40 places between Rochester and Salt Lake if I could (for a similar cost) take a 600MPH plane that only stopped once? NO WAY


Aaron Z

 

[Domush]

So, you are in favor of more rail?
Per Fuel efficiency in transportation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Table from Wikipedia with my additions in bold:
Edit: Here is a screenshot of the table as the formatting was unusable in the other version:
View attachment 271579
So, planes vs trains comes out to 46.21 P-MPG for planes vs 46.46 to 53.65 P-MPG for trains with "Rail (Transit Light & Heavy)" coming in at 51.92 P-MPG.
As a comparison, a Prius (assuming 40 avg MPG) with 2 people in it gets 80 P-MPG, my parents 15 passenger Ford E-350 (17 avg MPG) with 10 people in it gets 170 P-MPG, my wife's 2002 Caravan (19 avg MPG) with the 3 of us in it gets 57 P-MPG and your average sedan (25 Highway MPG) on a cross country road trip with 4 people in it gets 100 P-MPG.

So, would running trains vs airlines save enough gas to make a difference? That depends on infrastructure costs (ie: is it cheaper to build rail lines and train terminals across the country or to use/expand the existing airports).
Would I take my 2 year old on a trip from Rochester, NY to Salt Lake City, UT (as we did in April for a wedding) on a 300 MPH train that stopped in 40 places between Rochester and Salt Lake if I could (for a similar cost) take a 600MPH plane that only stopped once? NO WAY


Aaron Z

Those figures are not for high speed rail, but commuter rail (AKA subway), so it doesn't apply for a comparison.

In the same article you cite it lists a high speed passenger train which actually runs on diesel (so no conversion is needed) from Colorado Rail (USA), which has an efficiency of 468 passenger-miles/US gallon, which is 3 times a full capacity e-350 van, crushes a Prius by almost 6 times efficiency (keeping with your assumed 2 people, although the US average is even lower at 1.2 people per vehicle) and 4 times a 747 airliner (the most efficient airplane listed) at 91 p-MPG. Also, a standard twin track railway has a typical capacity 13% greater than a 6-lane highway (3 lanes each way), while requiring only 40% of the land.

In short, high speed rail can be a big win in the US, especially for intercity travel. It also has no baggage check in, far lower rates, larger seats, bigger tables, better food service, no bans on wi-fi and cell service and is fairly immune to weather delays.

As for cross-country travel, it isn't the purpose of rail to bring you from Boston to Los Angeles (though it could), but it will greatly speed up travel to destinations where a 2-6hr drive or a short flight would otherwise be the other options. Moreover, typical passenger rail carries 283% more passengers per hour per meter (width) than a road, all at a far greater p-MPG, which means lower emissions. A win-win situation for efficient travel time and cleaner air.

 

[Proletarian]

Is it safe to assume there are a few "warmists" in the crowd??