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Originally Posted by jm1234
I've acquiesce a thousand times to this trivial point. It seems to be that anything done by man is in some way shape or form associated with pollution. Bravo, keen point, well made. 
My point is the exact source of the pollution. I'm not sure how that detail is not getting through? It is both my point and the only point made regarding any of this in the video. The operation of that car is not the source of any pollution. It's that trivial. Engineering 101, define your system and then evaluate it. |
If you narrow down your system boundary to the extent that the batteries are fully charged and the guy is simply driving around, of course the operaration of the car does not result in as much pollution as it would if the power input was to taken into consideration. That is an irrelevant formulation of little consequence. It would be of some consequence if the car had a system of solar arrays mounted on its roof that could generate, say, 200kW of power. Right!
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Originally Posted by jm1234
The production of the car may or may not pollute. Nobody has tried to explicitly show this point so I'll make it.
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You can't possibly claim the production of a product of that size and complexity may not result in pollution. If you do, that is nonsense.
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Originally Posted by jm1234
The production of the electricity the car runs on may or may not pollute. Likely a fact but pollution levels vary greatly dependent on the source of the electricity and many other factors. You don't have a clue what goes into producing the electricity for this car. For all you know, he (or the track) is plugged into a solar array. Yes, I know pollution is formed during the creation of solar arrays. I also know they are trucked to their destination using diesel powered trucks.
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What are the chances of PIR powering its facilities entirely with solar arrays? Regardless, yes, pollution is formed during the manufacturing, transportation, maintenance, and retirement of solar arrays. Nevermind that most people watching that video will naturally think about its implications for plug-in electric vehicles in general, and we have a pretty good sense of how average people would charge their plug-in electrics if they had them and how electricity is currently being produced nationally. (Again, that would still most likely result in less pollution than my M3, so I have no agenda against plug-in electrics or anything.)
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Originally Posted by jm1234
The disposal of the car or car parts may or may not pollute. People have stated that there is a widespread criminal operation violating our recycling laws. No proof though and our legal system doesn't work like that so I'm going to assume it isn't true.
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Disposal of that car and its batteries results in pollution even if it is done in a legal manner. Claiming it might not is nonsense.
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Originally Posted by jm1234
Nobody has stated that any of the above three processes are not polluting. We do not have enough information to say one way or the other.
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Of course we do. We can say with confidence that those processes result in some degree of net pollution. We can't pinpoint the exact extent based on the information available, but we can say with confidence they result in pollution. That has been my point all along. You can claim that is trivial. It is indeed a trivial point that many people are simply ignorant of. More importantly, it has consequences. Your point about a narrowed down system boundary is also trivial, but inconsequential. So, if you want to argue about an inconsequential point, I'll leave you to it.