‘Global warming is a
Chinese hoax designed to weaken US manufacturing’, according to US
President-elect Donald Trump. Alan
Bunting asks: So can we expect the incoming Republican administration to scrap
all greenhouse gas (GHG) control legislation?
GHG
emissions are, for diesel- and gasoline-engined vehicles, directly linked to
fuel consumption and there are now, in the US, separate energy conservation
rules laid down by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
regarding fuel usage.
So even if the current and proposed
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) CO2 emission standards for cars and
commercial vehicles on US roads were abandoned, the parallel NHTSA requirements
would achieve effectively the same goals.
In any case, regardless of legislation,
ongoing competition between vehicle makers focussing on fuel economy will
ensure a continuing advance in fuel efficiency technologies.
Those technologies must include complete or
partial powertrain electrification, including different levels of
hybridisation, as well as hydrogen-fed fuel cells. They all bring undoubted
air-quality benefits, reducing the oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate
pollutants associated with diesels and equivalent gasoline engine emissions.
But the jury is still out on the extent of GHG
reduction to be expected from electrified drivelines and fuel cells, relying as
they do on external electric power. Even
the simplest (non-plug-in) hybrid requires large energy in-put at the
manufacturing stage.
Unless and until all coal-, gas- and oil-fired
power stations are superseded by nuclear installations, solar panel or wind
‘farms’, there will be a GHG penalty, giving Trump’s environmental advisers
fuel for thought.
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