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Originally Posted by theunchosen
Given that they are not very high in pollutants per gallon it could be argued that cars are 1:1 in emissions at the refinery. However this does not take into account the Coal plant that was used to produce the electricity(I agree moderately that CO2 is not a huge deal, but if we are going to talk about reducing emissions in the form of maintaining the global atmospheric conditions as are then we have to count it). The electrical plants alone are enough concern because coal waste cannot be dumped in a landfill as it damages soil conditions and water tables and is not convenient like nuclear waste in that several oil drums can contain the size of the waste. Coal waste is an enormous issue. By ton its loss obnoxious than nuclear waste, but there is not very much nuclear waste whereas coal plants produces tons per hour of hazardous waste.
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Electricity consumption by oil refineries is a relatively small part of their energy consumption(~1/10th to ~1/20th IIRC), and naturally coal is half of that according to the U.S. average. The difference of course is that auto emissions tend to be the worst is heavily populated areas and can have a greater impact than a coal power plant located farther from population centers. I'd certainly be interested in what any research you do turns up but IME these sorts of things tend to be considered already.
Quote:
Originally Posted by theunchosen
Obviously there are the transport ships, trucks and pipelines as well which have not been factored in or calculated.
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Actually they are. CA recently had it up to there w/ emissions from heavy duty diesels since they were costing the state billions of dollars in costs/lost revenue, so they put forth legislation that's way more strict to deal w/ the problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by theunchosen
Anyway US coal plants pump out 37 lbs of CO2 per gallon of gas and your car can only produce 20 lbs(theoretical maximum(which means there are 0 unburned hydrocarbons coming out)). The refineries drop .2 grams of NOx per gallon and .5 grams SOx per gallon.
Now you are informed and can make a decision.
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T2B5 is .05g/mile of NOx so at .2g/gallon and lets say 20mpg, refinery emissions account for .01g/mile of NOx and we can still see greater gains via auto emissions system. The
CA BLM has light duty trucks at .01g/mile for SOx, compared to .03g/mile at 15mpg for refinery emissions so in that case cleanup of refinery output is definitely better, although I'm pretty sure that would be the case no matter what since a three way cat doesn't deal w/ SOx emissions anyway.