Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
What I find interesting, is the EPA seems so worried about NOx, and to be fair, it does creates some issues, but since nitrogen is the heavy hitter when it comes to what makes up the atmosphere, this almost seems like an over concern on NOx being some form of environmental destroying substance. Only in strategic locations like L.A., Denver, and other places that have a geography that lends itself to NOx "pooling up" and leading to detrimental ozone issues does it seem to need addressed. Hauling freight from Nebraska to Indiana, like I regularly do, NOx is barely a blip on the radar, and never was even in the "bad old days" of no emission controls on vehicles.
They have a problem with a vehicle emitting NOx, but the emission devices to counteract it in turn cause less fuel efficiency. Now there is environmental issues with getting and refining even more fuel, that seems to be defeating the whole purpose of reducing NOx coming out of vehicles. It is like the dog chasing its tail. But then, governments like to perpetuate problems to justify their existence and get larger budgets. Thereby leading to more hot air coming out of D.C. and causing global climate change. To listen to these bureaucrats, you would think that pollution is being created more than ever. They seem to forget the old coal smokestacks of the early industrial revolution days, or that the Cuyahoga river caught on fire in 1969. We don't hold a candle to the days gone by, but the government sure tries to make us think so.
Well said. Thats why I always have to chuckle at 8 MPG v8 SUVs being labeled partial zero emissions vehicles, while 48 MPG small diesels are gross polluters.
By being constrained the way we are, we end up wasting more fuel and making more dumb decisions. Of course if we focused on total tonnage (effectively CO2), then some other faction will gripe about that.