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Motorcycle pollution -discussion
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June 13, 2008 at 2:59 pm #1516sunshinernnrParticipant
I just read an article in the LAtimes about motorcycles and pollution, it claims that motorcycles are 10x more polluting per mile than cars. I wanted to share this and see what everybody here thinks. Is the article right in your opinion? Are there any folks who try to take measures against their personal smog contributions?
http://www.latimes.com/classified/automotive/highway1/la-hy-throttle11-2008jun11,0,3268856.story?track=rss
June 13, 2008 at 3:08 pm #7308shagglesParticipantThat really sucks. I’m going to feel guilty riding my motorcycle now.
June 13, 2008 at 3:57 pm #7311megaspazParticipantAssuming it’s correct that a motorcycle emits 10x more than suvs and other cars, I guess the question is, are there more than 10x cars/suvs/hummers out on the road compared to motorcycles? If so, then woopty doo. Call me when the motorcycle population equals the car population. Until then…
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If there’s anything more important than my ego
around, I want it caught and shot now…June 13, 2008 at 4:21 pm #7314shagglesParticipantI’m sure there are at least a few hundred cars for every motorcycle on the road. It still bums me out though. I try to be environmentally concious.
June 13, 2008 at 5:08 pm #7316monumentGuestWhy would the number of cars to the number of motorcycles matter? The article is stating that it is more economically friendly to drive a car than a motorcycle. Just because there are more cars doesn’t mean that motorcycles pollutes any less.
June 13, 2008 at 5:23 pm #7317megaspazParticipantEconomically friendly, how? the article states that motorcycles pollute 10x more pollutants than cars, you can bet it matters, since the overall pollution problem still comes from the number of cars on the road.
from the article:
Right now, there are no plans for the air board or the EPA to further tighten motorcycle emissions requirements because:
* Motorcycles account for such a small portion of vehicle miles traveled.
* There haven’t been enough advances in motorcycle emissions technologies to enable further pollution reduction to any significant degree.
* There are other, even bigger polluters to deal with, such as diesel trucks, construction equipment and non-emissions-compliant products from China.
California doesn’t see this as a problem with motorcycles (yet) because there’s less of them on the road than other vehicles. There’s bigger fish to fry on the environment front.
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around, I want it caught and shot now…June 13, 2008 at 5:34 pm #7319MattParticipantThis story has popped up on the net everywhere recently.
From what I can tell it is based on a poorly done and/or out of date view of motorcycles.From what I understand the testing lumps together:
Road Legal motorcycles, 2-stroke scooters, non-road legal 2-stroke dirt bikes, non road legal ATVs. And it assume they all emit the same pollutants.
So basically they are using the average polutants for a wide range of vehicles (Many of which were never designed to pass any emissions testing what so ever) and using it to describe on-road motorcycles.They mention that most motorcycles do not have catalytic converters, but any bike that meets the 2004 Euro standard (so is for sale in Europe now) has a catalytic converter. The newest standard (Euro tier 3) is pretty strict. Read any review of an internationally released bike and they’ll mention how it meets those standards. The California standards are slightly more strict. So any bike that passes the California EPA testing is a clean machine.
Here is a slightly more in-depth look at motorcycle EPA standards (circa 2007).
http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/Article_Page.aspx?ArticleID=4352&Page=1A US Tier 1 (2006) Motorcycle (so any motorcycle sold since 2006) is required to emit no more than:
1.4g/kg Hydrocarbons + NOx Combined
12g/km CarbonmonoxideTeir 2 (2008 in California, 2010 rest of USA)
Reduces Hydrocrabons and NOx to 0.8g/kgNow, if we compare we can see that a current light-duty vehicle(passenger car, more strick that trucks and SUVs) is required to emit less than: (from: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/cert/veh-cert/b00001.pdf )
0.25g/kg Hydrocarbons
0.4g/kg NOx
and 3.4g/kg CarbonmonoxideOkay, so yes, cars definitely produce less polutants. But 10x? No.
By law a car produces 0.65 grams of hydrocarbons and NOx per kilogram as compared to the motorcycle’s 1.4g/kg (a motorcycle produces just over twice the hydrocarbons and NOx per kilogram).
And a car 3.4 grams of carbonmonoxide as compard to the bike’s 12g/kg. Which means the bike produces 3.5x the amount of carbonmonoxide as a car.Now, what I’m not entirely sure on is the measure of g/kg. Is it one kilogram of fuel or one kilogram of exhaust gases (most likely the later). In either case this means things are better for the bikes than it looks. Because a bike uses less petrol (and thus makes a smaller amount of exhaust).
The article sights motorcycles have roughly twice the fuel efficency as cars. And given that 50mpg seems to be a fairly often sighted number for motorcycle economy, and 25mpg for cars, we’ll play fast and loose and say that a motorcycle produces one half the amount of exhaust as a car for the same distance travelled.
Following this generalization the motorcycles make roughly equivilant hydrocarbons and NOx to passenger cars and produce twice the carbonmonoxide per distance travelled.
So once again, are motorcycles more polluting than cars? Yes. They produce roughly twice the carbonmonoxide that a car does. They produce roughly the same hydrocarbons. Is a Hummer less polluting? NO because it produces far more exhaust per distance travelled than any motorcycle does.
June 15, 2008 at 8:10 pm #7333AaronMerlotParticipantLets not forget where the gas is coming from. The less money I can give to Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or any other nut job that has more oil then brains, the better I feel.
June 15, 2008 at 8:54 pm #7357acidpopeParticipantI’m not going to bother to read the article, because I honestly am uninterested as to whether it’s true or not. I know 2 stroke off road bikes are heavy on the pollution, but as far as I know thay are the only type. It’s one of the reasons that 2 strokes aren’t seen on the road anymore, it’s impossible for them to pass emissions. Keep in mind though that bikes that ARE on the road have to pass inspections that enforce government regulated emissions standards, just like cars. So I fail to see how motorcycles are subjected to the same guidelines as cars, to varying degree, and are somehow “killing the planet” any more. Especially when there are exponentially fewer numbers of them than cars operating on the road (alteast in the United States).
I’d just like to repeat that, to make sure it sticks out: BIKES HAVE TO PASS EMISSIONS JUST LIKE CARS.
If they pass their test, then get off their back. Those that don’t are restricted just like cars and have to be fixed or taken off the road.
Mind you I’m sure in the… less well off countries, emissions are not enforced. But there’s nothing we can do about that and taking clean running bikes off the road in our own country is not a solution. This is just an article to demonize bikes.
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