The Arizona Republic ran this USA Today story under the better-named  headline “Gulf spill can’t rival oil seepage from cities: Over time, tiny drips add major pollution to oceans”.

“Human-caused spills send more than 300 million gallons of oil into North American waters every decade, an amount roughly double the highest estimate of the BP spill”… “the largest human-caused source of oil into the environment is the byproduct of millions of autos and other oil-powered devices.”

Land-based oil spills add up, too

USA Today, 6/30/2010

Human-caused spills send more than 300 million gallons of oil into North American waters every decade, an amount roughly double the highest estimate of the BP spill, according to studies by some of the world’s top scientists.

Worldwide, the numbers are even starker, according to Oil in the Sea III, a 2003 report from the National Academy of Sciences that several top scientists say remains the best estimate of oil’s impact on oceans. The estimated 4 billion gallons leaking into oceans each decade from all sources is more than 25 times the highest estimates of what has spewed into the Gulf.

“Wherever I am, I always go down to the beach — and I always find tar balls,” says Merv Fingas, a Canadian researcher who co-authored the study. “That was probably completely untrue even 30 years ago.”

Scientists cannot compare the damage from the routine discharges into oceans and estuaries with that of the Gulf spill because there has been so little study of the issue. The report called for additional study, but Fingas told Congress this month that little has been done to research and monitor spills.

“There is a very serious knowledge gap on discharges,” Fingas said.

Another factor that has not been thoroughly studied: natural seepage of oil from under the sea. The study estimates that 493 million gallons a decade enters the waters off North America, mostly in the Gulf and off California. Worldwide, an estimated 1.8 billion gallons of oil seeps out per decade.

“The amount of natural seeps is just horrendous,” says James Coleman, head of Louisiana State University’s Coastal Studies Institute and chairman of the 2003 study. “Every time we go down in a submarine or do a side-scan sonar, we find more.”

Although massive blowouts receive the most attention, the largest human-caused source of oil into the environment is the byproduct of millions of autos and other oil-powered devices.

Oil that drips from a car’s crankcase or gasoline that spills at a gas station eventually washes down gutters and storm drains into rivers that drain into the sea, the report said. Other significant sources include recreational boating, commercial ships and tankers, and oil production.

Because the government and industry do not track these spills, the totals could be much higher, the study concluded. Scientists estimated that human spills in North America could be as high as 6.3 billion gallons a decade.

Alex Horne, University of California-Berkeley professor emeritus of ecological engineering, says he has frequently encountered the smell of dumped fuel or the rainbow sheen of oil while working on wetlands pollution.

“This is something that goes on year after year,” Horne says. “And it’s going to keep on going on. There is no end in sight to land-based spills.”

Even small spills can harm the environment, according to the report and scientists. Oil products contain toxic compounds such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that are known to cause cancer in humans and can kill marine wildlife.

They aren’t, of course, actually free — thus someone else is paying, not the driver using it, it is external to the cost of driving; call it socialism for drivers. Thus leading to ever more demand for more driving and more parking spaces.

from the Arizona Republic 12/28/2009; Ahwatukee Park-and-Ride Lot Expanding.

In the example mentioned in the story, 353 spaces are being added to the existing 562 for a cost of $3M. That’s $8,500 per space. But that is only the cost of construction (or land but that is cheap); the ongoing costs aren’t listed but they are significant. A not exhaustive list would look something like; lighting, maintenance like sweeping and cleaning, and re-sealing asphalt, full-time(one employee ~ 50hrs/week) security during operating hours, cost of operating the small building (heat and cooled approximately 24×7, even though no one is usually there; didn’t these people ever hear of a programmable thermostat?).

see Doug Shoup’s book mentioned here; The High Cost of Free parking.

In the particular example of a transit park-and-ride lot it gets even more interesting because of the cross-subsidies involved in mass transit. One wonders if the best use of presumably limited transit funds is to build parking spaces for the relatively well-off remote suburban commuters. This lot serves only one bus line; a rapid/express (no intermediate stops) route between Ahwatukee and downtown Phoenix. The line only runs one way, and only in the morning and evening. Thus the parking spots have low turnover — one spot equals one round trip rider.

This was mainly a polemic against the tar sands (though the industry prefers the term oil sands) industry as practiced in Alberta, Canada, and how it connects to provicial politics there. The problems with the industry are legion: they use enormous amounts of natural gas to extract and upgrade the tar; loads of water is used; this load of water is then collected in highly toxic tailings ponds. Open pit/strip mining uses less natural gas than in situ extraction, but leaves obvious scars. And in any event, only 20% of the bitumen is available through mining — the other 80% requires in situ (referred to as SAGD,  Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage).

The biggest thing that I was surprised at was how far along the industry is: it currently produces (er, I prefer the term extracts) 1.5million barrels a day — and has serious plans to increase to 5million within a decade or so. As Nikiforuk points out, such an increase would wreak all sorts of havok, and may in fact be not feasible.

The EROEI, being quite poor; and as an alternative to natural gas, nuclear energy may be substituted.

There are a couple of dimensions to the problem, the advocacy site www.leadfreewheels.org focuses on the direct risk of lead poisoning to childred touching them. But beyond that they get ground to dust by passing traffic and they enter the ecosystem, e.g. as runoff polluting groundwater, or airborne as fine dust that can be inhaled or ingested.

Interesting question over at treehugger — do street sweepers pick these loose pieces of toxic waste up? And, if they do, then what happens to them?

The story of the use of lead additives in US fuel, and the industry’s wanton disregard for human health, is sickening and it haunts us to this day “Even though leaded gasoline is largely gone in North America, it has left high concentrations of lead in the soil adjacent to all roads that were constructed prior to its phaseout. Children are particularly at risk if they consume this”

Motor vehicles are the largest source of ozone pollution.

Here are some snippets from the LA Times story:

Environmental scientists already knew that increases in ozone during periods of heavy pollution caused short-term effects, such as asthma attacks, increased hospitalizations and deaths from heart attacks….But the 18-year study of nearly half a million people, reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first to show that long-term, low-level exposure to the pollutant can also be lethal.

The researchers found no increase in deaths from cardiovascular disease associated with ozone levels — those deaths are caused primarily by the fine particulates present in air pollution.

They also found no increase in overall mortality, suggesting that ozone is causing deaths in people who were probably going to die in another year or two anyway, according to epidemiologist Joel Schwartz of the Harvard School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study.

“We do know that ozone is particularly dangerous for people living with existing asthma or lung disease,” Jerrett said. And it didn’t matter what someone’s weight, income or education was. “It seems to affect a lot of people relatively equally.”

– Low-level ozone exposure found to be lethal over time, 3/12/2009, The Los Angeles Times.

Here we are in the midst of a big brown-cloud and ozone non-attainment season, and our two senators are endorsing a plan to increase the amount to gasoline and diesel consumed. Vehicle emissions in Maricopa county (the Phoenix metropolitan area) are the primary contributor to smog.

As if that’s not bad enough, the shortfall — the amount that would have been collected during the “holiday” — will be made up from general revenue. Which is to say, car use will be (further) subsidized by taxes unrelated to driving, like the income tax, or will simply make the federal deficit larger. This sets up exactly the wrong incentives– you will get more driving and less useful economic activity.

From a economic policy perspective, a much better stimulus would be to have some sort of “holiday” on payroll taxes. These taxes are a direct tax on labor, and hit lower-wage earners particularly hard.

“…John McCain proposed a ‘gas tax holiday’ that would suspend federal levies between Memorial Day and Labor Day… His Arizona colleague, Jon Kyl, promptly introduced it as Senate legislation”

“The 18.4 cent tax per gallon of gas (24.4 cents for diesel) funds interstate highway repairs and other transit needs, though general revenue would offset losses from the moratorium.”

– Global Warming Holiday, WSJ April 25, 2008. (emphasis added)

…

A new National Academy of Sciences report confirms (reconfirms?) the link between elevated ozone air pollution and increased risk of premature death was released. See, e.g. Panel Confirms That Ozone Kills, US News & World Report April 23, 2008. Ozone is an unavoidable byproduct any combustion, e.g. automobile use.

On the fuel-economy front, presumably to coincide with earth day, Bush Administration released accelerated CAFE standards. See e.g. Government to release proposed fuel economy rules, Associated Press April 22, 2008.

Holman Jenkins’ WSJ Business World column, A Volt out of the Red, gave his usual analysis of CAFE, which I believe is right, and I tend to agree with. My complain is his sin of omission — does he not know about toxic pollution? He continues to berate the Prius, as in this dig “…GM intends to beat Toyota at its own game of selling bogus green symbolism to Washington and Hollywood”.

Does toxic pollution not count? Since apparently Jenkins doesn’t “believe in” global warming, does that also mean he doesn’t believe in air pollution either?.

The Toyota Prius (note 1) puts out only about one-half the ozone-forming pollutants per mile of the average new car (average is defined as being bin 5). An absurd vehicle like the Hummer H2, bin 8, emits between two and ten TIMES as much ozone-forming pollutants (note 2). How much more are H2 drivers paying to pollute the air, say, compared to Prius driver? Nothing. Drivers pay nothing. And if you can believe it, the H2 situation now is much better than it was a few years ago, in 2004 model year the H2 emitted between five and 30 times the pollution of a Prius.

And it’s not like Toyota is “green” and Hummer (owned by GM) is dirty — Toyota produces their own dirty cars, e.g. in 2008 the Scion XD bin 8, just like the H2. Though it looks like Toyota never produces a bin 11 car.

What’s the point? I don’t own a Prius. The point isn’t for everyone to run out and buy a low-emissions vehicle — that actually wouldn’t work because the regulations work on a fleet average. A constructive start would be to price pollution appropriately. This simple market-based solution would reduce the total amounts of smog and result in better health for all. The polluter, that is to say the driver, should pay.

Notes:

1) See EPA GreenVehicle Guide, About Ratings. Pdfs for vehicle emissions standards, and summary/history (the glossary is particularly useful). This explains the Tier 1, and Tier 2 “bins”. This is all terribly confusing because the bin number (1 through 11) goes up as pollution goes up — whereas the EPA’s “Air Pollution Score” (10 downto 0) goes down.

2) Retrieved from the 2008 model year EPA Green Vehicle Guide.

-) Another explanation of Tiers and Bins at hybridcars.com

-) Excellent article at Edmunds: Untangling U.S. Vehicle Emissions Regulations

“…Auto Mania explores developments that touched the environment”. Written by Naval Academy history professor Tom McCarty. The book examines all aspects of how the auto industry effects the environment through its whole life cycle of raw materials, production, use, and finally disposal.

The emphasis is on toxic problems, and less is said about carbon emissions or global warming. Very little is said about traffic safety.

The whole book is very even-handed as you would expect from a historian. His treatment of the National City Lines affair where GM bought up electric streetcar lines and shut them down illustrates this: “…(the) tale rapidly passed into American folklore as the principal reason for America’s automobile dependence. there is no question that GM worked hard and successfully to destroy electric streetcar systems, but this perspective needs to be tempered by the recognition that streetcar systems were unpopular with the riding public and in long-term decline before GM helped the process along”.

On tailpipe pollution, he details how automakers first denied there was any problem and then stalled as long as possible, resisting regulation at every turn. He points out that it is primarily the American automaker tha have this reflexive disdain for regulation: “The Japanese automakers although not in favor of government regulation per se, took the regulations in their stride, tried to anticipate future requirements, and strove to meet them. The American automaker, by contrast, screamed bloody murder. The American tendency to view business and government as natural adversaries and to treat the question of government regulation as part of a life-or-death struggle over sacred principles rather than as a matter-of-fact attempt to reduce unwelcome side-effects [i.e. externalities] ill served the American people“. (emphasis added)

He also points out that consumers will brook no inconvenience or limits on their activities — e.g. driving less. In their minds the problem rests solely with auto manufacturer, not it’s use or user. Technological fixes, as was forced by regulations ~ 1970 were the only acceptable solutions.

There is a chapter about the SUVs fad of the 1980s and 90s “The Riddle of the Sport Utility Vehicle”. It is based heavily on Keith Bradsher’s book High and Mighty. Though he discusses car CAFE, and that SUVs were initially exempted, then later given their own, laxer, standard — he doesn’t draw a connection between the squeeze on cars from CAFE. He does point out, with little comment, the (toxic) problem: “…regulatory exceptions permitted them to emit more hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides [two toxics that form smog/ozone]. As a consequence, some SUVs emitted as much as five and a half times more somg-causing pollutants per mile than cars. By 1997…the emissions from the sixty-five million light trucks already on the road equaled those from 125million cars”. I might add that someday, 2009 according to current regulations but with the auto industry who knows?, light trucks are supposedly going to get to (toxic) emission parity with cars (see so-called tier 2 emission standards). What about the decades and tens of millions of these vehicles emitting excessive pollution?

On toxic tailpipe pollution he refers to the oft-cited and highly-regarded study “Ozone and Short-termn Mortality in 94 US Urban Communities, 1987-2000″ (Phoenix was one of them!) published in JAMA 17, Nov 2004, “…for some of these people , the exposure to elevated ozone levels pushed them over the edge and killed them”. His criticism is scathing: “When most people chose to continue to drive, especially on those days when temperature and weather condition made the formation of ozone from automobile emissions more likely, they also chose that some people in their community would die sooner than otherwise”.

The story of leaded gasoline is truely sickening. GM had a big role in this, and even moreso ongoing through it’s ownership in Ethyl. Was GM’s role in adopting the catalytic converter, necessitating the elimantion of leaded fuel, in the early 1970′s some sort of redemption?

The role of UAW at joining management in obstructing regulations beginning in the 1970s also bugs me. But may be some sort of karmic payback for their now anemic union that the things they wanted like higher toxic emissions and no fuel economy improvements eventually drove GM and Ford practically bankrupt in the mid 2000′s. Whatever, companies like Honda have nothing to fear form fuel economy and emissions standards are thriving.

Echoing the fears of industry lobbyists, they worry for example that electricity will become more expensive. And why shouldn’t it? Why shouldn’t the polluter (ultimately the consumer of energy, be it an electricity customer, or car driver) pay for what is now a freebie — an externality.

The existing standard is 0.080 ppm, with allowances for occasional 0.084 readings, (why not just call it 80 or 84 ppb?) is to be reduced to 0.075 ppm, about a 10% reduction.

Maricopa county is likely to be pushed into the “unhealthful” range with the new standard, since it has been just barely passing the less stringent standard for several years.

A major source of ozone pollution is automobile engines (cite?), so a modest reduction in their use would easily allow Maricopa county to attain the standard. The air would be cleaner, everyone would be healthier, costs on the medical care system would decrease, and we would all be better off. But then why would drivers do that? Pollution is free — free to the polluter at least.

The deleterious effects of ozone exposure on human health are well known. See Health Effects of Ozone an Particulate Pollution, from the American Lung Association. In the Association’s “State of the Air: 2007″ scorecard, Maricopa country rates letter grades of F (for high ozone) and D (for particulates).

In search of more specific info for Phoenix, I went to the Maricopa County Air Quality Department (MCAQD) website. They have a somewhat vague ozone facts. So I asked for more info and got this nice response:

As you may know, ozone is formed from a chemical reaction between nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the presence of heat and sunlight.

Tailpipe emissions are a source of VOCs. Other pollution sources that help form ozone (in the presence of heat and sunlight) are power plants, industrial boilers, refineries, chemical plants, gasoline vapors, chemical solvents, etc.

For quantitative results on what pollution sources form ozone, I am attaching a PDF document. The first page is on PM10 or dust pollution so please disregard that. The other three pages are specifically regarding what you’re looking for. Since ozone is formed from a number of pollutants, we needed to look at each pollutant individually which is why there are three pages. Please make note of which pollutant is being measured on each page (CO, NOx, VOCs). These stats are the latest ones available. It often takes at least three years to compile the data which is why you see 2005 at the top of the document.

I hope this helps,
Erin Bruno
Maricopa County Air Quality Department

Anyway the attachment is a pie chart for each of the three precursors — and as expected “on-road vehicle” produced the majority of NOx, the largest (after biogenic sources) of VOC, and the largest (after “fire”, which I took to mean uncontrolled fires) source of CO.

The gang there that deals with such things is apparently called Planning &Analysis, Emissions Inventory Unit.

I found inventories for PM10 but not for ozone precursors(strange). Anyway, the PM10 inventory includes NOx, so there is lots of detail on that particular pollutant, including some interesting details about on-road (i.e. vehicle) exhaust. The “type” of vehicle, implies certain emission standards that vary wildly, between e.g. a LDGV and an LDDV (a Light Duty Gasoline/Diesel Vehicle, i.e. a car. Other LDxxx are suv’s and whatnot. Presumably HDxxx are heavy trucks), both apparently just plain cars is a factor of two or 3 depending on which particular toxic pollutant. This is all fed into an EPA computer model called MOBILE6.2, which takes into account VMT, vehicle speed, etc. The bottom line is the PM10 inventory says that on-road vehicles produce well over half the NOx (63 of 102 total tons/yr), and the next biggest category is a distant second.