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Save the planet: Drive a car, Part 2

By Mark Halper | May 9, 2012, 5:06 AM PDT

Setting the record straight: Richard Parry- Jones, who has ties to both the auto and rail industries, says the most environmentally friendly cars will drop to 25g/km of tailpipe emissions in about 20 years. That's not as early as suggested in recent reports.

We don’t just eat and run here at SmartPlanet. When we find a good meal, we like to stay awhile. Perhaps even go back and enjoy it again, maybe baked instead of fried.

In that spirit, I return to a dish from last week, called Save the environment: Drive a car, which noted that CO2 emissions from the most environmentally friendly cars would drop to a level that matches electric trains by 2020.

I indicated in that story that I was seeking clarification of this astonishing assertion, which I had picked up from a website called Autocar, which had attributed it to Ford Motor’s former top engineer, Richard Parry-Jones. Autocar was reporting on Parry-Jones’ keynote speech at a recent transportation conference in London.

I received my clarification this morning, when I spoke with UK-based Parry-Jones by phone. To paraphrase his elucidation: right place, wrong time.

Parry-Jones certainly does believe that cars’ tailpipe emissions will drop to 40 grams per kilometer (g/km), which equals 25g/km per passenger and rivals today’s electric trains.

But this won’t happen by 2020. Rather, Parry-Jones says it will take more like 20 years for cars to reduce to that level. Somewhere in either the delivery of his speech or in the original reporting on it, someone got their “20’s” mixed up. For the mathematically challenged: Twenty years from now would be 2032, not 2020.

“Of course, by 2030, electric trains will be considerably more efficient again,” so cars will continue to trail trains, Parry-Jones added when we spoke this morning.

Still, a plunge to 25g/km per passenger in tailpipe emissions would represent a huge decline from today’s average European vehicle of close to 90g/km per passenger, or 140g/km per car, Parry-Jones pointed out. It’s also a drop that’s environmentally necessary to help stop the build up in greenhouse gases, he said.

Parry-Jones, a former group vice president at Ford, is uniquely positioned to compare cars and trains. He is the co-chairman of the Automotive Council UK, a joint government/industry automotive group. He is also the incoming chairman of Network Rail, a privately owned company that maintains the UK’s rail infrastructure. And he’s the managing director of his own company, RPJ Consulting.

How can he head both an automotive initiative and a rail group? Isn’t there an inherent conflict? Or could rail and auto essentially blend into one intelligent transportation system, saving energy, time, congestion, costs and the environment? Chew on that overnight, and tune in to SmartPlanet tomorrow to find out. Y’all come back now, ya hear?!

Photo: thecarmarket.co.za

Previously, on SmartPlanet:

Save the environment: Drive a car

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About Mark Halper

Mark Halper is a contributing editor for SmartPlanet.

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Save the Planet: Drive a car, Part 2

..."Save the environment: Drive a car,"........"that CO2 emissions from the most environmentally friendly cars would drop to a level that matches electric trains by 2020."
Electric cars are OK, in order to enrich the diversity of fuel consumption choices, due to variety, availability, and types of energy sources. In addition, variety of energy sources foster new growth, new investment,new production, and more market competition. However, with all due respect, Mr. Halper at smartplanet.com, you don't want to make CO2 "public enemy No. 1" to thereby also make human beings and their biological processes "public enemy No. 1." For, we, human beings, exhale CO2 after our lungs extract Oxygen from atmospheric gases; CO2, which, according to ecological sciences, is utilized by flora, in the process of photosynthesis. Mr. Halper - smartplanet.com, "the environment" does not need "saving." People need saving. Babies dying in abortuaries need saving. "The environment" has life-support systems, such as the atmosphere (Oxygen), the oceans and rain (Sweet Potable Water), and the soil for growing our foodstuffs, that are maintained naturally on "auto-pilot" without needing human intervention. Barring Armageddon, the earth and its ecology will remain here, long after your death. So, "the environment" per se in and of itself does not need "saving." It's our burial ground after we die. Eventually, like all other human beings before you, you'll be buried in it some day, six-feet-under; but "the environment" will keep going. Therefore, "saving the environment," though lucrative as a profitable advocacy, (Mr. Al Gore, is now a multi-millionaire), should not take precedence over the laws of science and the necessities of human living on the earth. So, with God's help, be concerned with SAVING PEOPLE - human life, human liberty, and human health, for examples, which, because they go hand in hand and go together, will motivate and incentivate you to do what is right for all-human well-being and all-human general welfare. Thank you very much, and God abundantly bless you.

Edited by lion of paradise

Updated - 9th May 2012

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Save the planet: Drive a car, Part 2

HUMANS COME FIRST

Life is the first inalienable right and is therefore paramount. Thus, We Humans must have precedence over "Nature" from which we have been made separate as spiritual-thinking Beings empowered with moral intelligence and creative productivity for economic abundance that fulfills all our God-given needs.

Again, it is worth reiterating:

"And, once we put human beings first, as previously proposed, good stewardship and beneficent caretaking of the environment will naturally flow from all our industrial, business, and commercial production and consumption activities. Things will just fall into place, because there will be an irreversible agreement between our constructive frame-of-mind or paradigm, prioritizing human well-being, and the objective consequences of our actions that will edify, enrich, and sustain it."

Posted by lion of paradise

11th May 2012

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Save the Planet: Drive a car, Part 2

Posted by lion of paradise

Updated - 9th May 2012

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Great point on making CO2 public enemy number 1.

Following their successful court battle declaring CO2 as toxic to people, the EPAs new rules on controlling CO2 emissions released in 2011 technically would allow the EPA to require CO2 scrubbing masks to be worn by all people.

They said they would never make such a demand on people, but they also refused to modify the wording of the regulations to clarify that CO2 emissions from people were not considered a hazard.

Posted by Hates Idiots

11th May 2012

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Save the planet: Drive a car, Part 2

In addition, Mr. Halper - smartplanet.com, industrial and vehicle emissions can be "scrubbed" before release into the atmosphere, the water system, and the soil, in accordance with the laws of science, but not from the Marxist-socialist perspective of forceful government-imposed edicts that violate liberty, impede creativity, restrict production, and sabotage freedom of consumption. And, once we put human beings first, as previously proposed, good stewardship and beneficent caretaking of the environment will naturally flow from all our industrial, business, and commercial production and consumption activities. Things will just fall into place, because there will be an irreversible agreement between our constructive frame-of-mind or paradigm, prioritizing human well-being, and the objective consequences of our actions that will edify, enrich, and sustain it. The logical reasoning that will ensue from such a spiritual transformation will affirm this moral imperative: We breathe Oxygen from the earth's atmosphere, thus, to pollute it is to pollute our own lungs. And there is no controversial or contrary argument, whether from greed or profit, that can overthrow such scientific logic and production morality. Thank you very much and God abundantly bless you.

Posted by lion of paradise

9th May 2012

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That's the point, isn't it?

You say "We breathe Oxygen from the earth's atmosphere, thus, to pollute it is to pollute our own lungs. And there is no controversial or contrary argument, whether from greed or profit, that can overthrow such scientific logic and production morality."

That's exactly why there's a push to reduce the impact we seem to be having on the environment. While CO2 has been given perhaps undue focus of late, we need to continue the path we started in the 1960s toward eliminating (as much as possible) both the inherently harmful gases and particulates, and the excess of those which we would normally produce, but now produce in much higher quantities. You say it will just fall into place. That being the case, this improved efficiency is a part of that "falling into place".

Posted by AlanLaRue

9th May 2012

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Save the planet: Drive a car, Part 2

REALITY-CHECK
We must put things in perspective, for, it is unthinkable that it would be false to assume that no human being having authoritative stewardship of "the environment" would want to commit suicide by deliberately poisoning it: 1) It is paramount to remember that Carbon Dioxide is not a "pollutant" - we exhale it and plants utilize it for photosynthesis. Carbon Dioxide is a natural by-product of life-giving biological processes and is not a poison. But Carbon Monoxide is a poison, and thus, a "pollutant." So if environmental zealots force industrial enterprises to "sequester all CO2," you would have no vegetables, no fruits, no grains, no cereals, etc.. In short, you would have no foodstuff produced by plants to eat, including honey - no flower, no nectar, no surviving bees, no honey. Fine way to commit suicide due to fanatical worshipping of the so-called "environment," your six-feet-under grave-to-be! The Earth and its ecology are on "automatic pilot" and will be here long after your death, and they do not need you to "save" them; 2) Pollutants like sulfure dioxide, dioxin, carbon monoxide, and other non-atmospheric gases and compounds, only contain Carbon and Oxygen molecules in combination with other elements that compose them. So, in those industrial emissions, Carbon Dioxide is not a direct whole molecule in the same form that we exhale it or in the same form that plants utilize it for photosynthesis.Therefore, to target Carbon Dioxide directly or in the specific form that we exhale it, or in the particular form that the plants utilize it for photosynthesis, is beyond logical reasoning and beyond good scientific sense. Rather, the true pollutants, like sulfure dioxide, carbon monoxide, and dioxin, because of particulate and pre-combusted soot contents, ought to be "chemically detoxified" or "toxically neutralized" or filtered or "scrubbed," BEFORE they are released into the atmosphere, soil and water systems. In short, man-made problems also have man-made solutions. Man-made problems in the pursuit of profitable production ought to be resolved by technological and scientific problem-solving applications, but not by making human beings and our biological processes "environmental public enemy No. 1." So, devout zealots of environmental worshipping who profit by destroying human precedence over soulless and spiritless things like "the environment, "ecology," "Nature," etc..., these inanimate things are asking you: "Which kind of wood, rock or mineral would you like your coffin to be made of, as you are profiting from ranting and raving about "saving the earth" that's too ready to "swallow your dead body" in your six-feet-under grave? And when you do die and are buried in the ground of Nature and the environment, may you rest in peace after leaving behind your stock portfolios, CDs, gold, silver, and stocks and bonds which you accumulated from idolizing and worship your own tomb dug in the dust of the ground of the earth. For, your coffin will have space only for your dead body. And as you stand in front of the judgment seat of Christ, may God have merci on your wayward souls!

Posted by lion of paradise

11th May 2012

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Save the planet: Drive a car, Part 2

CORRECTION: CO2, which, according to ecological sciences, is utilized by flora, in the process of photosynthesis.

Posted by lion of paradise

9th May 2012

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2030 seems more reasonable

Thanks for the follow up, Mark.

To those who posted on the original article arguing that we have to practically abandon personal transportation, I would remind them that it was the internal-combustion-powered vehicle that eliminated the pollution from our cities that came in the form of dung, left by beasts of burden as they pulled wagons or carried riders. Super-dense cities and public transportation will not eliminate the need for people to have vehicles that move faster, and carry more, than bicycles.

And if technology solved one problem a hundred years ago, there's no reason it can't solve the problem that has built up since then. Urban sprawl is, itself, the result of increased urban density. We are no longer able to live in small towns, as jobs have moved to cities that some say aren't dense enough, but that others say are already over crowded. The result is that instead of living on large lots in the small towns where we work, we live 20 or 30 miles away on much smaller pieces of real-estate than our parents, because we're crowding in toward the mega-cities where the jobs have moved. The highway system allows us to crowd in and live closer together.

The automobile supplanted the train because of convenience, not because the government forced it on us. The roads were built in response to the people's demand; they did not create the demand for personal transportation.

As cities become more crowded, living quarters there (homes or apartments) become more and more expensive. My wife and I have been looking, and the extra cost of a home within walking or bicycling distance of work would never be overcome by giving up one car. It isn't that I wouldn't want to live that close, but that the cost makes it completely impractical for me, and impossible for many.

If public transportation could get me to the office as quickly, or even in half-again as much time, as driving, I would be glad to accept it. But it won't ever run right by my house, or right by the office, and will always require a transfer either from train to bus, or one bus to another.

If we can make our cars to have near-zero emissions, why would some insist that it still is morally wrong? What was initially a method to reach a goal, increased density and public transportation in order to reduce our impact on the environment, is now a goal unto itself. Let's accept that there may be more than one way to reach the goal.

Posted by AlanLaRue

Updated - 9th May 2012

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we could go much lower right now.

The emission reduction targets aren't particularly challenging. It sounds as though the figures are based on cars that would look much the same as they do now.
For most applications what is needed are narrow track vehicles designed to move one or two vehicles. Narrow track means vehicles that can travel two abreast in a single lane so there is a real congestion change.
Combine light weight construction control systems that focus on accident avoidance instead of crash survival and...

Posted by John R Davidson

9th May 2012

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Save the planet: Drive a car, Part 2

Posted by lion of paradise

11th May 2012

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