CO2 Emissions reduction policy in Europe

[0707]

Laws forcing carmakers to limit CO2 are going to be set at pan-European level. Today, the average from vehicles is around 160 grams per kilometre. After much debate, the European Commission looks ready to ask for an overall cut in carbon dioxide emissions from new cars to 120 grams per kilometre by 2012.

While the vehicle manufacturers would be required to attain the 130-gramme mark, additional cuts of five grams per kilometre from both bio fuel use and other technology, such as better tyre design, would further contribute.

This Wednesday, EU sources say the Commission will suggest its strategy be implemented through binding legislation. The proposal is part of EU efforts to fight climate change, with European carmakers falling short of targets, which have been voluntary till now.

Ecologist expert Aat Peters argues for strict broad-ranging standards: "Every climate policy is a policy mix. So, there is technical innovation in cars, there is innovation in tyres, there is innovation in fuels, and many other aspects of policy like traffic management, etcetera. These are all elements which are important, but none of these elements should be exchanged for the other."

The European Automobile Manufacturers Association says its members reduced CO2 emissions by 13 percent to in 2004, compared to 1995 levels. Yet environmentalists say carmakers should take more responsibility for the emissions from bigger, more fuel-consuming engines.

Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee of the current EU presiding nation, Germany, which makes mostly big cars, said: "What we need is a code of good conduct which takes into account the sections of the market, so that the makers of smaller cars don't just sit back while those making the big ones bear the whole burden."

Cars on the EU's roads - their number increasing by some three million per year - create more than one-fifth of Europe's greenhouse-gas emissions.

EuroNews
7 of February 2007

 

[GregLocock]

That'd be politics, not engineering. It won't go ahead in that form.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[PSE]

Greg,

I agree that it is politics and not engineering. I do think it might go forward though as the form of a requirement that engineering will need to achieve. Public policy tends to set the standards we all try to follow.

Regards,

 

[rb1957]

if we got rid of all those nasty cars (that's be all of them) we'd save the planet ...

mind you, the economic fall-out would probably also rid the planet of that nasty human population.

 

[controlnovice]

There might be innovation in making tyres more efficient that may help in reducing emissions.

But this would involve making the tyres less safe.

So, instead of slowly killing the people with pollution, we opt to kill them off quickly?

Companies will stop doing business in Europe. Already BP and Shell are getting out. Many more to follow.

______________________________________________________________________________
This is normally the space where people post something insightful.

 

[rb1957]

yeah, and move to places that are "allowed" to produce CO2 ...

 

[KENAT]

Multi faceted problem.

Even assuming that CO2 is a problem and that reducing emissions from cars is a way to address this there is still more to look at than just the emisions of the vehicles themselves.

Why do people drive so much?

Why aren't they using public transport, what can be done to improve it and increase its use.

If people aren't living close enough to where they work that they can walk/cycle/public transport then why?

Accomodation prices? Quality of life?

The list goes on...

 

[SnTMan]

KENAT, in my part of the world, the people who use public transport (the bus) are mostly going downtown (that's where most of the buses go) or they can't AFFORD a car. Nobody else has TIME to ride the blinkin' bus. I sure don't.

As for where people live, the houses are in one place, and the factories are in another. The "good" houses with the "good" schools are nowhere near where the jobs are.

I guess there are people who live in an apartment near the mall they work in, but who wants to work in a mall? For that matter who wants to live in an apartment?

For better or worse, it's a car society around here.

Individual perception of "Quality of Life" has everything to do with it.

Regards,

Mike

 

[0707]

I think that Individual behaviour is one of the most important items on CO2 reduction. Individuals must be more and more prepared for changes.

Rules should not be based on political demagogy. Rules on CO2 emissions should be ambitious but economical feasible. CO2 rules being universal, should take into consideration earth geography specificities, on what it concerns economies and development.

Technologies should aim rules accomplishment, creating devices, engineering and alternative energies to lower emissions reduction.

This being obvious is not easy to implement because of the impact on quality of life, economies, employment and in world development sustainability.


Regards

Luis marques

 

[davefitz]

regarding car use in EU countries, some interesting tidbits:

a) In London, they found that by removing roadways from service( blocking access), they reduced the number of people that wanted to drive through the resulting gridlock, and increased the number of people that rode bikes and took the bus. Sort of cosnsistent with the normal observation that as a a set or roadways are expanded or added, the total amount of traffic increases. Ergo, to reduce car traffic into a city , reduce the number of roads. ( I found that the most effective way of increasing bus ridership is to simply eliminate parking spaces in the city, as at Seattle and Vancouver BC). This apporach does not involve taxes or any legal /political hassles.

b)IN Germany, the proposal to add a 55 mph speed limt to the autobahn died a quick death, but they projected it would reduce car exhaust emission from the entire nation by over 33% ( and would rpobably cut Porsche , BMW and mercedes sales by much more than that).

 

[moltenmetal]

Local reporting on this subject noted that the North American auto fleet is doing far worse, at substantially greater than 200 g/km, relative to the 160 g/km the European fleet apparently already meets.

Why the difference? One reason accounts for the vast majority of it: fuel prices! Fuel is taxed far more in Europe than it is in North America.

Want to make cars, homes, businesses etc. consume less fuel? Don't force Greg Loccock to build something the market won't purchase- that would be pointless. Instead, TAX FUEL. People conserve what they find to be expensive, and they waste what they find to be cheap. If the tax revenue is dedicated to offsetting the capital investment required to improve energy efficiency, what we may see is economic GROWTH rather than economic collapse. Especially in the US- if I were an American, the fraction of the enormous US economy that is transferred yearly to oil-rich nations (my own included), AND to their military to keep their access to these resources "secure", would appal me.

Everybody is an environmentalist when it means that someone ELSE has to make the sacrifices and they can choose to keep doing what they're already doing. Right now "the environment" polls as the #1 issue with Canadian voters, principally because of concerns over global warming. Politicians are quickly ducking into the hardware store to bathe in green paint. We'll see if any of this leads to decent public policy, but I'm not holding my breath. I doubt that there's the political will to do what truly needs to be done. Rather, I expect ill-considered and ineffective regulation of industry.

 

[epoisses]

Read and smile:

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressRelease...format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Note that the EU admits that the decision has been taken before having determined how much it will cost. I guess the EU is the only place where this kind of decision-taking is tolerated and even admitted in public. I would not dare to try this at home.

 

[epoisses]

Re the replacement of carbon content of biofuels vs conventional fuels, am I missing something or is it at odds with the following table (Energy per CO2, righthand column):

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

 

[moltenmetal]

epoisses: the Wiki table you posted is simply an indication of how much energy you can derive from a fuel per kg of CO2 you emit when you burn such a fuel. It's a combustion energy table.

The CO2 figures for the biofuels listed do not include the CO2 emissions associated with the fertilization, cultivation or transportation of the fuels, some of which would usually be of fossil fuel origin. However, they also do not take into account the fact that nearly 100% of the carbon contained in the biofuels themselves originated in the atmosphere and was "fixed" from that source by the plants that produced this fuel. If you were able to get 100% of the fertilizer, tractor fuel, refining energy, transportation fuel etc. from similar bio-fueled sources, then using these fuels would be neutral in relation to the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, rendering the fuels essentially stored concentrated solar energy. The trouble is, that would make the fuels themselves very expensive, while at the same time reducing the yeilds possible of these fuels per acre of arable land planted with the source crops.

Some of the biomass materials such as bagasse, corn stover, switchgrass etc. are either waste products of food production or plants that grow wild with little or no fertilizer or other inputs for cultivation. These materials unfortunately suffer from low useful energy content per unit raw mass, and even lower energy content per unit volume. That represents a large transport cost, rendering them poor fuels- except for local stationary energy production such as electricity generation etc.

Similarly, the figures given for the fossil fuels don't include the energy necessary to recover, refine and transport these fuels.

So yes, I think you're missing something.

 

[epoisses]

Thanks

I have nothing against fuel-efficient cars or biofuels, I am just looking for cost and benefits of these plans.

Are there any reliable figures on overall CO2 emissions from biofuels vs fossil fuels? (plenty apparently UNreliable figures available, I noticed when googling around a little)

 

[owg]

epoisses - Cost/Benefit is really tough for bio vs fossil fuels. However a good place to start is an energy balance, which I think is a short step from CO2 emissions, for a selected biofuel case vs a selected fossil fuel case. Patzek from Berkeley has published extensively on the subject. He shows that ethanol from corn needs more energy input than it makes available. However he counts the energy used by the guys driving to and from the plant every day. I have not seen any similar studies on fossil fuels. A good one to study might be SAGD production from tar sands through to the vehicle and other fuel tanks. This is incremental production, as is ethanol from corn. The two cases need to be set up for a proper comparison. There are examples of what to include "in the envelope" in studies by the Pembina Institute. If anyone is interested in studying this subject I could make the Patzek and Pembina papers available on a website. Perhaps we could collect a few additional references as well.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[davefitz]

The bio-fuels controversy may be hopelessly entrapped by political considerations. But then again, the whole CO2 issue is as well.

In the case of ethanol, the economic benefits to farming states overwhelms the discussion of environmental costs or benefits. And, its promotion has backfired , as seen in the food protests in Mexico ( high price of corn meal caused by preferred use of corn to produce ethanol).

Its a good time not to be a politician.

 

[KENAT]

SnTMan:

I think you got my point.

When I was a young kid in the UK during late 70s/early 80s all the major stores were in the center of town. I happened to live close to the center of town so we walked to town to shop. All of the bus routes led to the center of town so you could fairly easily catch the bus to go shopping if you lived further out.

In the late 80s/early 90s they started building out of town shopping areas (typically one very large supermarket with 5-20 smaller stores around it) with giant car parks, and closed some of the stores in town. Although some of the shopping centers had a free bus service from the shopping center to the town center and back by the time you'd made the connecting bus journey (who’s prices accelerated above inflation) it was a pain, could take half a day to do a couple of bags worth of shopping.

So we got a car and started driving to the edge of town to shop.

Then in the 90's the big concern with global warming takes off and they basically told us to stop using the car and use public transport/walk/bike etc instead and increased the already heavy gas tax. Sadly the infrastructure of the town now only supported cars so we were pretty much forced to pay the tax.

My example of shopping can apply to jobs/accommodation too.

Seems unfair to punish people for a behavior the government effectively taught them.

 

[SnTMan]

KENAT, things were not so different here in the old days either. When I was a kid in the late 50's and 60's, I would ride the bus downtown, to see a movie or whatever on a Saturday. I remember going downtown with my parents and things were open at night. Then the downtown area started closing up at 5:00 P.M. which just caused more people to go to the outlying shopping districts, a vicious circle, till it seemed, and mostly still does, downtown was mostly for people who worked there.

And, as you said, they are now pushing the idea of living downtown again and driving less.

Whatever. I don't think we are realistically going back.

Regards,

Mike

 

[0707]

USA were maybe pioneers on environment rules as on other engineering standards. Federal states have great independence and are sovereigns in the definition of establishing their own exigencies on regional policies.

USA were maybe pioneers on environment rules as on other engineering standards. Federal states have great independence and are sovereigns in the definition of establishing their own exigencies on regional policies.

Before CEE, European countries had their own standards; most of them based on US codes. Now inside EEC European community there are commissions of standardization trying to uniform European standards codes, not only to avoid confusion laws between member states but also with quality exigencies to protect European industry against outside EEC pressure.

To avoid this world dispute between codes, rules and standards, with different tolerance degrees and ranges, from one state to another, why not to create a world agency for environmental purposes? WEO (World Environment Organization)

Luis marques