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The state of Virginia is about to start taxing hybrid vehicles. To compensate for hybrid owners' not paying (or paying less of) gasoline taxes which are used to fund roads maintenance/construction.
I don't find that unreasonable and expect many other states will follow suit. A hybrid causes the same amount of wear and tear, per mile, on the roads as a similar weight all gas powered car. The state is just expecting the hybrid owners to help defray their use of the roads and will do so outside of just collecting the gas tax.
Yes, but he's doing it through hyperbole that doesn't stand up under critical analysis. See my posting about ammonia in urine. Just because it comes out of your body doesn't mean it's not dangerous or polluting in concentrated industrial form. Thus the EPA regulations regarding CO2 emissions will be written by grown-ups who will make allowances for minor emissions such as those from respiration. Same thing regarding pee, and everything else under the sun.
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It would take something like 25,000 years at the current rate it's increasing before the levels would effect humans, perhaps 100K before it would be fatal level.
"Affect"
and
It would only a few minutes of running your car in a closed garage.
I always get those mixed up, I gave up a long time ago....
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It would only a few minutes of running your car in a closed garage.
It's more than a few minutes and that's CO (Carbon Monoxide), the fatal exposure is a sliding scale based on the ppm and exposure time. The ppm values for what is fatal are very small, if it were the same as CO2 concentration in the atmosphere we're all dead. CO bonds to the hemoglobin in you blood preventing it from carrying oxygen, that's what makes it so deadly. Exposures to lower levels that would not immediately be fatal can be over time as it builds up in your body. Even with immediate medical attention if the exposure has been severe enough you're going to die, if you don't die recovery times are lengthy.
The level for CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) in the atmosphere is approaching 400ppm or 0.04% and that would kill you in about 4 hours if it were CO. A century ago it was about 300ppm or 0.03% . CO2 will begin to affect humans around a 4% concentration, concentrations about 12% can be fatal however you only need some fresh air for a quick recovery.
The level for CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) in the atmosphere is approaching 400ppm or 0.04% and that would kill you in about 4 hours if it were CO. A century ago it was about 300ppm or 0.03% . CO2 will begin to affect humans around a 4% concentration, concentrations about 12% can be fatal however you only need some fresh air for a quick recovery.
My (sorta) mistake. While I knew it was CO which kills you, I did not realize it happened at such a low CO2 partial pressure. So if you had an engine with no CO emissions (hamster wheels?), you'd be sitting in your garage (alive) for a much longer period of time.
So if you had an engine with no CO emissions (hamster wheels?), you'd be sitting in your garage (alive) for a much longer period of time.
A lot of CO is generally the result of incomplete combustion, e.g. black soot coming off a candle is an indicator it's producing more CO gas. As far as the cars it's all variable, newer model cars have better combustion performance and don't produce as much CO. While on the topic the other reason it's so deadly is because it has a specific gravity of .96 so it easily travels along natural or forced air currents in a house. CO2 on the other hand is 1.5 and sinks, deaths from CO2 are rare and usually industrial such as a guy working in a tank without realizing there is high concentration of CO2 in the bottom.
Since when does riding a bicycle save anything? I visited SF and they have this moronic thing called critical mass. The history of it doesn't matter, what matters now is that on the days they have critical mass, bicyclists block and tie up traffic in that city for hours. Cars can't move and people can't even cross the street.
So all those cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles sit there, engines idling as they wait for the grace of some bicyclist to make room so they can continue on.
So take a few thousand cars (traffic backs up all over the city and to and from it) sitting there burning fuel with the exhausts doing nothing but slowly floating around waiting for someone to take a deep breath.
Bicyclists saving anything but their egos? Sorry, just don't see it. You want to save something? Walk.
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CO bonds to the hemoglobin in you blood preventing it from carrying oxygen, that's what makes it so deadly. Exposures to lower levels that would not immediately be fatal can be over time as it builds up in your body. Even with immediate medical attention if the exposure has been severe enough you're going to die, if you don't die recovery times are lengthy.
