Fear, uncertainty and doubt in an age of decarbonisation
Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. This rhetorical triptych is increasingly used as an insult to describe interventions from anyone who deviates from the current environmental orthodoxy. When French philosopher René Descartes sat down in the seventeenth century Netherlands to write his Discourse on Method, he also faced FUD. Fear that his beliefs about the world, both factual and ethical, were built on flimsy foundations. This led to great uncertainty in a time of religious adherence. The solution was doubt: to chip away at any beliefs that were not based on good reason, applying persistent and critical doubt. In doing so, he believed that he had rebuilt knowledge and faith but with firm foundations, based on his cogito ergo sum - I think therefore I am.
Rather than being used as an insult, FUD is what should be applied with urgency to the current debate about climate change and transport decarbonisation. Now faced with a growing body of information and concerns about a strategy of pure battery electrification being the optimal approach, we should stand back and re-evaluable. Chip away at the idols.
Descartes was a supreme rationalist, and reason is what we need. We debate tailpipe regulation, clean air zones and air quality largely with facts and figures, and logical arguments. Move onto climate change – a closely related issue – and calm, rational debate gets suspended in favour of polemics. This changes the nature of the debate in a way that destroys the debate. For many, doubt cannot be tolerated. Fear should used to keep order.
The “climate emergency”, as fearsomely styled, is serious. It is scientifically highly certain that climate change will have bad effects on humanity, possibly very bad. However, none of the standard models say that life and our planet will end, yet the challenge is being presented as an emergency, of existential significance. Of ontological significance.
But climate change is something to fear. There are many uncertainties as to what exactly will happen. Applying critical doubt is essential to working out the optimal response. So, let’s embrace FUD. Better than blind faith. There will always be strongly opposing views – centrist, European technocracy is an illusion – so rather than demonising the traditional energy sector or the environmental NGOs, let’s hammer it out as humans in the human realm.
One of the other more likely health risks in the garage experiment was from asphyxiation due to high CO2 levels, arising from the engine combustion. The parallel in the vehicle cabin is elevated CO2 due to respiration of the occupants. Human harm tends to occur when concentrations exceed 15,000 ppm, although cognitive impairment can occur well below that, which might lead to reduced reaction times and increased accident risk. While the garage concentration reached 8,509 ppm after half an hour, concentrations inside the vehicle when tested on the road reached just 1,564 ppm after the same time, even with the ventilation system on the ‘recirculation’ mode. On fresh air mode, concentrations rose by an average of just 13% above the 417 ppm background. As with PN concentrations, there were big variations between vehicle models as to how fresh the air was kept on recirculation: CO2 increased by 103% in the best case and 275% in the worst.
Overall, therefore, the particle exposure inside the cabin is a bigger risk than when locked in a garage with an idling ICE vehicle of the current generation. While CO2 concentrations in the garage were higher than in the cabin, driving a vehicle is operating a complex, mobile machine and, therefore, even a modestly elevated level of CO2 could compromise safety. It should be noted that some relevant pollutants have not been studied here. Particle mass was not chosen due to the relatively low levels being emitted from modern tailpipes and entering the cabin even with low-quality filters and ventilation systems. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions are extremely low from gasoline vehicles – the dominant powertrain now – and concentrations in the cabin are also very low. A major area of focus in our future work is the role of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These tend to be low from tailpipes, although some species can be highly toxic even in low concentrations. Inside the cabin, these VOCs arise mainly from interior materials, especially in hot conditions. Some mix of compounds, of varying potential toxicity, evaporate from seats, carpets, dashboards and other plastics. In short, the greatest risks in the cabin are PN, CO2 and VOCs, while in the garage it is PN, CO2 plus carbon monoxide (CO) for gasoline vehicles and NO2 for diesels.
Taking this complex area and turning into something that vehicle owners and buyers can use practically, the AIR Alliance this month is launching its Cabin AIR Index, based on CWA17934. The most immediate action that can be taken, rather than changing the vehicle itself, is to swap the filter in the ventilation system. Changing the filter regularly is important to avoid degradation, and then the choice of filter brand is important. The initial test results – comparing six different filters on the same vehicle – show that the best filter reduced the interior pollution almost three times more than the worst filter. Therefore, this simple component of typically around $40 in value, can make a significant difference in chronic pollution exposure in the cabin.
For the truth is that there is much common understanding as to our environmental challenges. There are arguments as to the best solutions, and who should benefit and who should pay the price. And what is that largely common understanding? Decarbonisation of transport is vital, and electrification is the key. However, electrification is very different from “full electrification”, and electrification can manifest itself in many ways, including non-battery forms of storage. The real question is not whether battery electric vehicles will take off, but whether they will reduce total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as much as implied. Air quality continues to improve in most places, and new internal combustion engine vehicles are not the cause, but rather it is from older vehicles and non-tailpipe sources from a wide range of vehicles. Energy efficiency is one important aspect of emissions reduction, but cost efficiency is more important if maintaining our standard of living is the priority. ‘Net zero’ is nothing magical or sacrosanct. If we can get to net-minus-80% for half the cost, might that not be better for society in the round?
Or perhaps: cogito ergo sum hybrida.
With the profound importance of these matters, Emissions Analytics will be redoubling its efforts to bring independent, real-world data to the debate. We will chip away persistently to reveal the facts, and to analyse, recognising uncertainties where they exist. We have for many years supported the work of the not-for-profit AIR Alliance in publishing free-access ratings for real-world nitrogen oxide (NOx) and CO2 emissions. In July, a rating for vehicle interior air quality was added, showing how drivers can reduce their exposures to ultrafine particles in the cabin. Early this year, we launched the Tyre Emissions Research Consortium, with the aim of bringing together researchers and interested parties from around the world to foster and accelerate understanding of how emissions from tyres affect air, water and the food we eat. Remarkably, it already has over 800 participants.
We are continuing to expand our in-house EQUA testing programme, which takes vehicles from the marketplace and subjects them to testing for their tailpipe emissions, tyre emissions, and materials off-gassing fumes as part of vehicle interior air quality. We offer access to the full data as part of our subscription products, but from this autumn we will also launch Emissions Intelligence, which will present a monthly webcast with the very latest results and interpretation in the context of market and regulatory developments. It will allow any market player to have their finger on the pulse of emerging problems and solutions, and will be free for all existing clients and collaborators.
The first webinar in the series will take place on Tuesday 19 September 2023, and will look at the latest developments in tyre emissions testing and regulation, and sharing highlights from our EQUA testing. Please sign up on our website.
Finally, in 2024 we will be launching a series of conferences, including a European conference on the decarbonisation and pollutant emissions reduction in the non-road mobile machinery, with a particular focus on renewable fuels. This is a classic area where electrification is valuable but cannot solve all problems – a multi-pronged approach is necessary. The programme will be published soon. Do sign up and attend if you are working in this area.
We invite you all to participate in these efforts. Please get in touch.
We embrace discussion and creative, fact-based disagreement. We are technology neutral, open to any approaches that can address global environmental problems while preserving standards of living. We don’t know all the answers. But we have a good instinct as to where to look.