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The Problems with Gasoline

Gasoline has two problems when burned in car engines.  The first is contributing to  smog and ozone in big cities.  The second is emissions of carbon and greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, the internal combustion engine is not perfect.  In the process of burning gasoline, it also produces carbon monoxide [a poisonous gas], Nitrogen oxides [main source of urban smog] and unburned hydrocarbons [main source of urban ozone].

When cars burn gasoline, they would ideally burn it perfectly and create nothing but carbon dioxide and water in their exhaust. Unfortunately, the internal combustion engine is not perfect. In the process of burning the gasoline, it also produces:

Carbon is a problem. When it burns, it turns into lots of carbon dioxide gas. Gasoline is mostly carbon by weight, so a gallon of gas might release 5 to 6 pounds (2.5 kg) of carbon into the atmosphere. The U.S. is releasing roughly 2 billion pounds of carbon into the atmosphere each day.

If it were solid carbon, it would be extremely noticeable -- it would be like throwing a 5-pound bag of sugar out the window of your car for every gallon of gas burned.

But because the 5 pounds of carbon comes out as an invisible gas (carbon dioxide), most of us are oblivious to it. The carbon dioxide coming out of every car's tailpipe is a greenhouse gas. The ultimate effects are unknown, but it is a strong possibility that, eventually, there will be dramatic climate changes that affect everyone on the planet (for example, sea levels may rise, flooding or destroying coastal cities). 

Report links global warming to man-made burning of fossil fuels

POSTED: 3:13 a.m. EST, February 2, 2007

PARIS, France (AP) -- The world's leading climate scientists, in their most powerful language ever used on the issue, said global warming is "very likely" man-made, according to a new report obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The phrase "very likely" translates to a more than 90 percent certainty that global warming is caused by man.  The panel quickly agreed Thursday on two of the most contentious issues: attributing global warming to man-made burning of fossil fuels and connecting it to a recent increase in stronger hurricanes.

Why doesn't gasoline burn cleanly? 

Gasoline is a liquid formed purely of carbon and hydrogen. Gasoline has 150 ingredients. Gasoline is made up of carbon chains of different lengths ranging from C7H16 through C11H24. If you could burn gasoline as a vapor with a hot flame and plenty of oxygen, you would get nearly pure carbon dioxide and water as the combustion products. That is why you can burn natural gas, LP gas and kerosene indoors in the winter. An appropriately designed kerosene heater, for example, can be "ventless".

Automobile exhaust, unfortunately, contains a lot more than carbon dioxide and water. The most important pollutants in car exhaust include:

There can also be some impurities like sulfur in the gas that form sulfur oxides.

The idea behind a catalytic converter is to try to eliminate the carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides and hydrocarbons by reacting them with plenty of oxygen on a platinum catalyst. However, catalytic converters are not perfect, so some of the pollutants escape.

On hot summer days we see the effect of these pollutants in the form of smog and ozone. Nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons mix with air and get bombarded by ultraviolet rays in sunlight. Nitrogen dioxide releases an oxygen atom, which combines with oxygen gas to form O3 (ozone) at ground level. 

What is the true cost of oil?

“ America is set to spend $5 trillion over the next 10 years to buy foreign oil”

Imagine if President Bush, after 9/11, simply declared war on oil and put the whole nation behind ending our crippling dependence on it.

Imagine if we had spent the money we allocated to the war in Iraq toward eliminating the oil addiction. The tab for the Iraq war hovers around the $1 trillion mark and grows at a clip of at least $12 billion a month. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the cost through 2017, including hidden costs such as veterans’ benefits, could total $2.4 trillion.

There is little question that America is defending its interests in the Middle East largely because of oil. In his recent memoir “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World ,” former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote: “I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows:

The Iraq war is largely about oil.”

Declaring war on oil should be — literally — a war, giving the president and Congress emergency powers to mobilize the nation as never before.

I am not talking about platitudes, which we are once again hearing from presidential candidates.

I remember watching Jimmy Carter’s 1977 televised speech in which he said dealing with America ’s oil dependency as “the moral equivalent of war.”

In the years since, every president and presidential candidate has repeated the call to lessen America ’s dependence on foreign oil. Yet little has been done.

Today the crisis is worse than ever as oil soars over $100 a barrel.

Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens recently appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” Pickens painted a dire picture: The U.S. is paying foreigners one-half trillion dollars a year — and some of those nations are our enemies.

At current rates, America is set to spend $5 trillion over the next 10 years to buy foreign oil, Pickens said, adding “That's more than $1 billion a day.”

And he’s right; the beneficiaries of this wealth transfer are often the “bad guys” — Russia , Iran , and Venezuela .

The numbers show our dependency. Currently, about 70 percent of U.S. electricity generation comes from the burning of fossil fuels, with nuclear power accounting for about 20 percent, hydroelectric 5.6 percent, and all other sources only about 2.5 percent.

We need to declare war on oil.

Here’s how such a “war” might work. The president and his administration would have emergency powers to develop, design, create, and implement alternative energy sources — just like the president can do during a full blown war. And since this would be a war, the trial lawyers and environmental extremists wouldn’t be allowed to bring millions of dollars of time-consuming law suits to stop the implementation of these energy sources.

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