Quote:
Originally Posted by lucid
jm1234, what exactly is your point here? His car causes pollution. His car causes pollution because it uses energy and materials. The exact source of the pollution is irrelavant. How can you deny that? It really is rather pointless to say the source of the pollution is elsewhere, and therefore it doesn't matter.
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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.
The production of the car may or may not pollute. Nobody has tried to explicitly show this point so I'll make it.
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.
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.
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. At no point did I say that because the source of any potential pollution is elsewhere that it doesn't matter. I actually think it matters a great deal. Regardless, I did say it is irrelevant to the point made in the video which is that the operation of the car is not the source of any pollution. It's a trivial point, manifestly true and disputed here regardless of that truth. It's entirely relevant because our current solution is very polluting despite it's very high energy efficiency.