Ran across this site in random browsing about unrelated material:
http://www.terrapass.com/index.html
Sure, sounds like "tree-hugging hippie ", at first. Using your purchase/donation/whatever money to offset the emissions your car puts out by funding reducing pollution sources elsewhere.. probably to appease the guilty consciences of car-using hippie wanna-bes everywhere. Then a thought occured to me:
What if, instead of the current emissions procedures in those areas that test, they tested you and figured out roughly what you put out in a year based on mileage and that test and billed you accordingly with a similar program? Would you take such an option as an alternative to being failed for emissions, IF the program money proved to be effective, and IF it pretty much allowed you to do whatever you wanted with your car(s)?
This place's rates aren't ridiculous.. I think even at twice the mileage per year I normally run or more (I figured 6000 on the truck and 6000 on the car, and that's far more driving than I ever do) it estimated my "cost" at around $70.
It's all hypothetical to me, personally. A) I don't live in a testing area.. and B) I feel my occasional gardening work plus my limited driving appeases any notions I might have that my vehicles are much of a problem. :p I'm just curious as to what others think.
wow man...interesting find.....being the total sceptic i am i instinctly call bs and mis use of your money. i honestly would feel dooped if i got involved in that. its interesting though. i just cant quite wrap my small brain around it right now i guess:p
thats all good and well but it doesnt physically help reduce polution in a direct manner. maybe in the grander scale of things i suppose.
slightly off topic but its kind of like those support out troops magnets and stickers. you see them everywhere but id bet just about anything almost none of the money goes into supporting our troops in any way. i honestly have too snicker too myself and shake my head whenever i see one. theres better ways too support the troops.
They claim they can verify their work. I didn't read it, because I'm just not having much luck concentrating on anything tonight.
What exactly is the point of this??
For $80 a year I get:
* TerraPass window decal
* TerraPass bumper sticker
* TerraPass convenience sticker
* A warm fuzzy feeling inside
All for the price of a month and a halfs worth of gas?? unless they actually follow my car around for a year everywhere I go removing the co2 as it leaves my tailpipe i'm basically paying to clean up another persons mess! :p why not plant a tree instead?
It supposedly cleans up something.. industrial polluters, etc. Really, as long as something besides our wallets gets cleaned up, does it matter much? Also, let's not forget that the point of the thread was to discuss implementing this as an alternative to current emissions procedures. This particular company does not have to be involved with that. I'm using their pricing model as a starting point.
dude.. both my LSC and my truck together, even with an optimistic figure of 6k miles per year, don't add up to that quote of yours. :p
haha kay I went back and fixed it ;) I was thinking kilometers but the computer was thinking miles.
Kind of a reversal of those "crush your gross-polluter driven-10-miles-a-year Classic car" programs that supposedly reduce overall emissions so those "here's a nice big campaign contribution, Mr. Governor" factories don't have to clean themselves up?
That part I highlighted would be awesome. I put less than 2,500 miles on my Cougar this year. I spent a good bit of miles driving back and forth to emissions (the station is a good 20 miles from my home). All they see is that my car failed,
NOT that I rarely drive it. MD has a waiver for handicapped people and those over 70 years who don't drive their car over 5,000 miles per year. Well my car drove half as much but I'm still treated as though it's driven every day. According to this website, the Cougar ( I used a Thunderbird in the search) would put out roughly 3,913lb of CO2 per year. My new car that I drive every day would put out roughly 18,821lbs of CO2 per year. That would cost me about $110 per year which doesn't sound too pleasant.
Now as far as this type of testing, it would depend on the car and how individual states are handling their emissions programs. In MD '96 or newer get the OBD test which is sweet. However, '84-'95 get a treadmill test which blows and '77-'83 gets an idle test which is okay but still a pain. I wouldn't mind seeing this take effect here for cars '77-'95 but keep the OBD test for the '96 and newer cars.
But as with everything, there are many things that would have to be worked out that I'm not even thinking about.
i suppose it would be a nice deal for certain cars. it wouldnt make sence to use that system fo ror everybodys daily driven cars, or daily driven cars for that matter. im not a tree hugger by any stretch but i do care. a system like that would say "who cares about how much polutants you put in the air as long as you can pay us for it" and doesnt realy necesitate cleaning up how cars run. its like the industries. they dump their waste right into the ocean because its easier and cheeper too pay the fines than it is too properly dispose of their waste.
now for specialty cars i can see working out some sort of deal. cars that arent daily drivers and only see so many miles like 3-5k a year or less could pay a regulated fee and have (more flexible) emissions limits. i dont think you should be ablo too blow whatever you want out of the tailpipe but have a larger grey area for testing.
man, thats a weeks worth of gas for me :( a also drive a good 25k a year.
43 mpg last I calculated :grinno: Not bad for a 16 year old rustbucket with over 300000km. Might expriment with water injection and a few other things once it warms up, wana try for 60mpg city just for shiznits and giggles.
Even fixed, that's more than the listing for my truck at 6,000 miles a year. (although with my truck lacking cats and running rich and losing about half a quart of oil every 130 miles, I'd say their numbers are a wee bit low for me.. heh)
Here's what I get when I put in 4000 miles for the truck and 6000 miles for the Mark. With my woman driving the Mark to work, as well as any driving I do with it, I figure I can leave it at 6000. However, both numbers are probably still higher than actual use. My uncle drove that truck to work every day for 9 years and probably put 5,000 miles a year on it. We do a lot less driving than he did.
ill trade ya...
eh..first of, i dont drive the bird. i do 20-25k a year with my ranger. it gets about 20-23 mpg if im lucky and i spend a good 60-80 a week on gas. 13 gallon tank.
usually costs 28-34 too fiil the tank from empty at least 2-3 times a week. work is on average 65 miles away each way.
This kind of thing only takes care of CO2 emissions. NOx (aka smog )can't be cured by planting trees and has a far worse direct effect on humans than CO2. Smog particles are small enough to get by your nasal defenses and thus enter your lungs unhidered, which is why it does an efficient job of killing the elderly and asthmatics when the smog gets bad enough.
Hydrocarbon emissions are also not addressed.
I'm open to suggestions as to how to address those emissions as well.. even if it is a bit harder than just shooting down the idea.
There isn't any feasible way to "offset" NOx and Hydrocarbon emissions once they leave the tailpipe.
Then how about some ideas to alter the program idea (alternative to current emissions procedure) to account for them?
What are your ideas? :)
I'm just trying to keep this discussion going despite your attempts to all over it and despite a particularly rotten mood. So if you would please, instead of just posting dead-end negative posts about it, how about thinking of some alternatives to keep things going?
It is more injecting a dose of reality than ping up the thread.
Ok. Since current emission protocols are done at the state level, this example will be to.
Install a GPS-based "black box" to calculate the miles driven the car. Odometer based readings can't be used because they can be tampered with too easily. The "black box" records the miles driven by the car. When the car is tested, the NOx and hydrocarbon levels are multiplied by the miles driven. This would give the state a rough idea of the pollutants generated during the year. If this amount exceeded the state's maximum set amount, the user would pay a fine/tax.
If you do this, you're still left with a program that doesn't "reward" those who don't drive much.
Since you can't offset Hydrocarbon and NOx emissions, the only way I see to handle it is to reward those who emit less than what the state deems as average, and punish those who go over.
Does it need to be a GPS unit? Couldn't it be something that reads the number of hours the engine has run, and adds up the time spent at certain load values on the computer, or something like that?
Also, while the other two emissions types may not be offset with a program like this, what about collecting the money in a similar manner to the first one and using that money for other types of improvements/benefits/whatever? Road improvements, improvements to more efficient form of transportation, subsidies for people wishing to move to more efficient forms of transportation or people wanting to develop them, etc. (I'm just throwing out random ideas, don't take any of these as an endorsp00get)
I don't know how to directly reward people who drive less.. but then again, do we get rewarded now as it is? I'm pretty sure I don't, for example, and I drive far less than most of you. (except I don't have to hit the gas stations as often.. heh)