What technology did California sue the auto makers for not using to clean up greenhouse gasses?

Question

In the news on Sept 20 it says the State of Californiasued GM, Chrysler, Ford, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan because they did not use technology to limit the emissions of carbon dioxide. Do they know of some present technology or are they trying to force the auto makers to develop something new? Or do they really want more increases in gas mileage so a car burns less gas?

Answer 1

They're a lot of ideas that can get more mileage, less emmissions, etc. But the bottm line is automobile engines are at very mature design stage. All the easy improvements have been done. All the improvements left are harder, more costly , and don't get you much better performance than you do now.

Here's the basics:

Gasoline is primarily a Hydrogen-Carbon mixture. A engine gets it energy from the mixing of that with air, igniting it, causing the hydrogen atoms to leave their carbon buddies and combine with the oxygen to form water.

Problem is, all those carbon atoms are lonely and have only more oxygen to grab. The lucky ones grab two oxygens and form carbon dioxide, others can grab only one, and become carbon monoxide.

There's a lot of other minor players, in the heade confusion, some nitrogen guys end up pared with oxygen gals and come out nitro oxides. Sulfur in the gasoline ends up with some oxygens, sulfur dioxide. All the emmision controls are fiddling with the process to give the elements time and incentive to join with the right partners to get the desired waste products.

Theoretically, the best you can do, is get all the impurities out of the gasoline, get all the other gasses (than oxygen) out of the air, make the engine so that all the hydrogens get two oxygens. And the carbons bond with each other as they lose their hydrogen buddies. --But hey!! Pure carbon is a solid. "How do we get that out of the engine?"

If California really wanted to reduce emmisisons, they could tax gasoline so bad everyone decides to use public transport.

Electric cars won't do it either. Electric cars need charging. That electricity comes from a powerplant. All it does is move the emmissions to Arizona. All the tailpipes are now one big stack east of California.

Oh yeh, Joseph forgot, they breed the flakes there.

Answer 2

I don't think it will get too far.

The bigger reason might be population density.
There are an awful lot of people commuting at an idle, daily.
Compound that with California's geographical are, that is the Rocky mountain range,which does not let the air move freely across the state and you have a lot of issues that are effecting the air quality.
Besides, if they do force automakers into a cleaner technology, it will get very expensive. Fast.

Answer 3

All of that. They just want the automakers to consider global warming in making cars. Could be better gas mileage, could be electric, could be fuel cells. Anything that will reduce CO2.

They don't actually expect to get money. It's a move to embarrass both the automakers and the Federal Government, who California sees as doing absolutely nothing about the issue, and make them explain what they plan to do about global warming.

Answer 4

i'm a California resident and that's time for the State legislature to make some difficult judgements...time to reduce the spending. do not bail us out -- they made their mattress, enable them lay in it. Like a collection of youngsters w/ the mastercard interior the sweet save...

Answer 5

Ah California! If you check out http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FruitandTreeNuts/Background.htm
you will see that California is the largest producer of both fruits and nuts. Enough said?

Answer 6

An electric car.

But this is more political than technology. Court will throw it out.