The Truth About Smog in California

[RandR10]

Earlier today I was thinking of safety testing for automobiles on the road, or the lack thereof, in the state of California, and that they find immediate personal safety of drivers and pedestrians less important than smog emissions.  A quick bit of research on this led me to some interesting findings.  I thought it would make a good little truth about video, or at least part of one, so I put together the beginnings of a presentation below:

 

The Truth About California's Smog Pollution Controls

 

-California spends roughly $10 billion annually to reduce smog emissions from motor vehicles per year in the state

-Motorists spend another estimated $1 billion annually to have smog emissions testing performed (this does not include necessary repairs to emissions equipment for failed tests).

-It is illegal for a motorist to make any modification to the engine emissions equipment, even if said modification will reduce emissions.  Any aftermarket parts manufacturer must obtain a California Air Resources Board (CARB) exemption order for each part, costing 10's of thousands of dollars for each application.  If any modifications are made or unapproved parts are used, the vehicle will fail the visual portion of the test.

-This visual testing makes it prohibitively expensive for aftermarket parts manufacturers to produce auto parts due to the necessity to undergo rigorous testing to qualify, significantly reducing sales in what is a $310 billion industry in the United States, no doubt costing jobs.

-This also makes the repairing of older vehicles prohibitively expensive in California, impacting the lowest income earners in the state the most.  It drives consumption of new cars and the resultant manufacturing pollution that it causes as well.

-These smog tests primarily test for carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in motor vehicles and must be performed every 2 years.

-Automobiles account for only 4% of NOx emissions, while about 75-80% come from agricultural production, of which California is the largest producer.

-Despite motor vehicles being a small contributor to this type of pollution, Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) valves are mandated on vehicles in order to reduce NOx emissions.  The recirculated exhaust gases reduce the high combustion temperatures that generate NOx during combustion.

-Catalytic converters are designed to burn fuel that wasn't burned already in the engine combustion process.  Their level of functioning is measured by CO emission.  The higher the CO, the poorer the catalytic converter functionality.

-In the process of completely burning the fuel, catalytic converters remove particulate matter that is produced from burning gasoline.  This particulate matter has actually been shown in some studies to reduce global temperatures and increase rainfall because it seeds cloud cover.  

-Catalytic converters and EGR valves cause engines to burn less efficiently, causing total fuel consumption and carbon emissions to increase.

-Despite the most strict and expensive emissions regulations in the country, California has the worst cumulative air quality of any state in the union.

-California is the number 2 carbon emitter in the country next to Texas.

-Of the 15 worst polluted cities for Ozone in the country, California claims 10 of those top spots, and the top 5 are in California alone.

-California has 8 of the 10 worst cities in the U.S. for particulate pollution (the thing the catalytic converter is supposed to reduce).

-Much of this pollution is caused by the government subsidization of roads and the total lack of viable mass transportation options in most cities in the state.

 

 

Sources:

http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/n2o.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Smog_Check_Program

 

My undergraduate concentration was in environmental studies, and I live in California, so some of this info is from what I remember from my research on the subject throughout the years and my experiences having gone through this process a dozen or so times.

 

Please let me know what you guys think.

 

Update:

Found some interesting stuff on this in my research.  There's a concrete material that will remove as much NOx as 20 years of oppressive policies would if they just built the roads out of it.  I imagine it would be less than the $220 billion or so that's been spent in the interim to the same purpose:

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100706082058.htm

Edited July 17, 2014 by RandR10

[NeoCortex]

I have never been to California, or in the states for that matter (I life on the other side of the ocean!). But dang, this shit seems terrible. How does it compare to the smog in some Asian countries? I remember seeing footage of that, and holy shit balls I don't want to life there! I remember something about the mountains being a factor in the smog thing, it made the smog stick around for longer or something?

[RandR10]

I have never been to California, or in the states for that matter (I life on the other side of the ocean!). But dang, this shit seems terrible. How does it compare to the smog in some Asian countries? I remember seeing footage of that, and holy shit balls I don't want to life there! I remember something about the mountains being a factor in the smog thing, it made the smog stick around for longer or something?

Yeah, the hilly terrain here makes the haze stick around longer.  It was reported in historical records that Native Americans making signal fires was enough to cause smog, so it doesn't take much to get it going.  It's not as bad as the Asian cities, but it's pretty bad.  I remember I lived right next to a freeway when I first moved here and sometimes I would get short of breath just walking up the hill to my car.  I used to be a cross country runner and I was regularly exercising at the time, so that was unusual for me.  

There are no viable mass transport options here either.  I tried riding a bicycle combined with the bus when I first arrived.  It took me 4 hours to get from my apartment to downtown to buy a monthly bus ticket.  It's 14 minutes by car, if there's no traffic of course.  It's about 45 minutes during rush hour.  Once I got a car and a job, my daily commute took 45 minutes.  I switched to the night shift at the same job to get the bump in pay and the trip took 11 minutes door to door.

[SamuelS]

Thanks for sharing that.One thing was confusing for me, this sentence "The recirculated exhaust gases reduce the high combustion temperatures that generate NOx during combustion." perhaps you're saying exactly what you want to say, but it seems counter-intuitive to me, I would think recirculating exhaust gasses would increase the temperature in the combustion chamber.

[fractional slacker]

"-Despite the most strict and expensive emissions regulations in the country, California has the worst cumulative air quality of any state in the union."How does the air quality today compare to that of 20 years ago?

 

 

"-California is the number 2 carbon emitter in the country next to Texas."Is carbon ,in fact, a pollutant?

[RandR10]

Thanks for sharing that.One thing was confusing for me, this sentence "The recirculated exhaust gases reduce the high combustion temperatures that generate NOx during combustion." perhaps you're saying exactly what you want to say, but it seems counter-intuitive to me, I would think recirculating exhaust gasses would increase the temperature in the combustion chamber.

The exhaust gases aren't nearly as hot as they are upon firing in the combustion chamber itself. The way I understand it is that the injection of the already burned gases into the mixture sullies it up enough to reduce the temperature at which it burns.

"-Despite the most strict and expensive emissions regulations in the country, California has the worst cumulative air quality of any state in the union."How does the air quality today compare to that of 20 years ago?ARB claims a 50% improvement in CO levels, which are an indicator of NOx emissions."-California is the number 2 carbon emitter in the country next to Texas."Is carbon ,in fact, a pollutant?

According to environmentalist dogma it is. I used to believe the case for global warming was iron clad but with recent data I'm very skeptical at this point. In high enough concentrations CO2 (carbon) is toxic though. I couldn't find any data on whether its local concentrations are healthy, which means they probably don't monitor it. The point I was trying to make is that all of this extra effort and expense is to little to no effect compared to the rest of the country, which mostly has relatively lax standards, or at least more reasonable ones.

[SamuelS]

The exhaust gases aren't nearly as hot as they are upon firing in the combustion chamber itself. The way I understand it is that the injection of the already burned gases into the mixture sullies it up enough to reduce the temperature at which it burns.

I think I understand, but it's confusing...even though the exhaust gasses are extremely hot compared to the cold air coming through the intake, their presence in the fuel-air mix causes that mix to burn at a lower temperature, thus reducing NOx...thanks for clearing that up, the original sentence makes more sense with this understanding.