Sunday, February 28, 2010

Cycling to work, I emit hydrocarbons

Not me - my car that is sitting back at home. While I'm saving those co2 emissions, it is releasing hydrocarbons and contributing to smog:

Vehicles sitting in the sun for days at a time can spew out damaging hydrocarbons – one of the main ingredients in smog, a federal government study has found.

Hydrocarbons are in the vapour that escapes from petrol tanks on a warm day. Most newer cars have canisters that trap them before they are released but if cars are left sitting for longer than 24 hours the canisters can fill up and stop working until the vehicle is driven, the Second National In-Service Emissions Study found.

As many as 3 million Australian cars may not conform to Australian standards for evaporative emissions.

"The results indicate that when vehicles are parked in warm conditions for an extended period (more than a day), the evaporative emission control systems may not be able to effectively control the build-up of evaporative hydrocarbons, as even the latest systems are only designed to provide effective control for a continuous 24-hour period," the report said.

Ya know ya do ya best... At least this lets me off the cycling 5 days a week. Maybe I drive to the train station twice a week, and cycle the rest. And drive on rainy days.

1 comment:

bluemooner said...

One must take into consideration the politics and money involved. First, it's politicians who decide which scientists get the handouts. All those who say there is global warming ARE paid by the same people who want new tax revenue coming in as well as the same "Al Gore" people who invested heavily in alternative fuels, etc.. Those are the facts. Hey, I want clean waterways to fish, boat and swim in. I want clean air to breath but I don't want to pay some greedy politician who will pocket 99% of the funds collected to attempt to achieve some theoretical goal. Remember that we are living on a ball of molten lava spinning around the sun, not too far away and you want me to believe there is something WE can do to change the temperature of this planet? Hogwash! You are all being conned by people no better than used car salesmen and with the same tactics.