Water vapor

[Cogswel_Cogs]

People are always talking about engines that only emissions are water vapor. Wouldn't water vapor be a worse pollutant than carbon dioxide?

 

[rastahomie]

No. Water vapor is all around you. In the sky it takes the form of clouds.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

Yeah but wouldn't a whole bunch of it cause flooding, and tides to rise etc.

 

[rastahomie]

Yeah but wouldn't a whole bunch of it cause flooding, and tides to rise etc.

No. The worst you're going to get is a few drops out of any one car. Multiply that by all of the cars in a city the size of, say, Los Angeles, and the total amount of water vapor added to the atmosphere on any one day might be in the neighborhood of 20-30 gallons, tops.

Whereas CO2 emissions from cars in the course of a day would be in the tons.

 

[bcla]

It's not really that much of an issue unlike CO2. Once the water reaches the carrying capacity as vapor, it condenses back into liquid water. It's not going to be enough to causing flooding or other disasters. There is a concern with warmer temps creating a feedback loop where a higher amount of water vapor is in the air.

 

[Klayfish]

Yeah...instead of a giant smog cloud over L.A., it would just rain all the time. If people still continued to drive, it would become a hurricane over L.A..

I think you're referring to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles like the Honda Clarity and Toyota Mirai. That technology is in it's infancy, so there are very, very few of those cars around. No guarantees that they will catch on. The infrastructure would need to be built up around the country. And yes, they just emit a little water vapor. Harmless.

 

[bcla]

No. The worst you're going to get is a few drops out of any one car. Multiply that by all of the cars in a city the size of, say, Los Angeles, and the total amount of water vapor added to the atmosphere on any one day might be in the neighborhood of 20-30 gallons, tops.

Where as CO2 emissions from cars in the course of a day would be in the tons.

Burning a gallon of gasoline produces 18 lbs of CO2 and 7 lbs of H2O. However, the H2O converts back to liquid water fairly rapidly.

 

[bcla]

Yeah...instead of a giant smog cloud over L.A., it would just rain all the time. If people still continued to drive, it would become a hurricane over L.A..

I think you're referring to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles like the Honda Clarity and Toyota Mirai. That technology is in it's infancy, so there are very, very few of those cars around. No guarantees that they will catch on. The infrastructure would need to be built up around the country. And yes, they just emit a little water vapor. Harmless.

While water vapor is a greenhouse gas, it's not as if adding it to the atmosphere affects much.

We actually have hydrogen fuel stations around here. Our local bus company uses fuel cell buses and I've seen signs of their filling stations.

 

[rastahomie]

Burning a gallon of gasoline produces 18 lbs of CO2 and 7 lbs of H2O. However, the H2O converts back to liquid water fairly rapidly.

OK, so if one million cars each burned ten gallons of gas in a day, that means that 70 million pounds of water vapor are produced. Round it up to 80 million pounds because I suck at math. A gallon of water weights eight pounds, give or take, so we're looking at ten million gallons.

That's about 12-15 Olympic-regulation swimming pools.

A literal drop in the bucket.

 

[DLgal]

Those cars actually emit water DROPS. They produce water vapor which almost immediately condenses and drips from the car. Literally talking a few drops at a time. Hardly enough to cause flooding..

You can literally hear a sort of water gurgling sound when you are riding in these cars. I got a chance to test drive a Honda Clarity Fuel Cell vehicle here in southern California.

 

[Squirlz]

They are not producing any new water. They just change its form yet again.

 

[bcla]

OK, so if one million cars each burned ten gallons of gas in a day, that means that 70 million pounds of water vapor are produced. Round it up to 80 million pounds because I suck at math. A gallon of water weights eight pounds, give or take, so we're looking at ten million gallons.

That's about 12-15 Olympic-regulation swimming pools.

A literal drop in the bucket.

I'm just saying it's not necessarily drops per vehicle. And for the most part it just becomes part of the humidity before it condenses back into liquid water again. It's not like CO2, which stays in that form until it's removed by plants.

 

[rastahomie]

I'm just saying it's not necessarily drops per vehicle. And for the most part it just becomes part of the humidity before it condenses back into liquid water again. It's not like CO2, which stays in that form until it's removed by plants.

Oh I'm not disputing you, fam. I just wanted to go through this mental exercise for myself more than anything else.

 

[bcla]

They are not producing any new water. They just change its form yet again.

Well, it's the hydrogen in hydrocarbons. It could remain as a hydrogen "sink" for millions of years until it gets burned.

Most industrial hydrogen is made from separating hydrogen from fossil fuels, so the hydrogen has been stuck in a solid form for a while. Only a little is made from electrolysis.

I remember making a hydrogen generator (zinc added to hydrochloric acid) in high school chemistry class. We had a hard time making gas without lots of oxygen. It's supposed to just go poof when burned without lots of oxygen in the mixture, but ours would make a pop sound. So our teacher gave handful of zinc to add and it just overflowed through the drying pellets.

I did see a hydrogen balloon explode at a local science museum. It was a program about fire and explosions. The demonstrator took a lighter to a rubber ballon. He advised covering the ears because it was very loud.

 

[rastahomie]

Well, it's the hydrogen in hydrocarbons. It could remain as a hydrogen "sink" for millions of years until it gets burned.

Most industrial hydrogen is made from separating hydrogen from fossil fuels, so the hydrogen has been stuck in a solid form for a while. Only a little is made from electrolysis.

I remember making a hydrogen generator (zinc added to hydrochloric acid) in high school chemistry class. We had a hard time making gas without lots of oxygen. It's supposed to just go poof when burned without lots of oxygen in the mixture, but ours would make a pop sound. So our teacher gave handful of zinc to add and it just overflowed through the drying pellets.

I did see a hydrogen balloon explode at a local science museum. It was a program about fire and explosions. The demonstrator took a lighter to a rubber ballon. He advised covering the ears because it was very loud.

Isn't science awesome? I don't understand most of it, but it's awesome nonetheless.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

OK, so if one million cars each burned ten gallons of gas in a day, that means that 70 million pounds of water vapor are produced. Round it up to 80 million pounds because I suck at math. A gallon of water weights eight pounds, give or take, so we're looking at ten million gallons.

That's about 12-15 Olympic-regulation swimming pools.

A literal drop in the bucket.

I actually understood this. Why couldn't you have been my science teacher.
Still 15 pools a day on about 1 million cars a day seems like it could be problematic if all cars were running that way over st period of time.
Was just wondering.
Also to me it seems to me the biggest problem with fossil fuel is were going to run out of it.
Am I wrong but when we do we can't make plastic. That out of everything to me seems the reason why we need to conserve on using fossil fuel. I mean we go back to the early 1900s if we can't make plastic. Every single advancement made seems to rely on it in some way.

 

[rastahomie]

I actually understood this. Why couldn't you have been my science teacher.
Still 15 pools a day on about 1 million cars a day seems like it could be problematic if all cars were running that way over st period of time.
Was just wondering.
Also to me it seems to me the biggest problem with fossil fuel is were going to run out of it.
Am I wrong but when we do we can't make plastic. That out of everything to me seems the reason why we need to conserve on using fossil fuel. I mean we go back to the early 1900s if we can't make plastic. Every single advancement made seems to rely on it in some way.

The difference between 12-15 Olympic pools and, say, the Pacific Ocean, or even your average lake, is on the order of hundreds of billions of degrees of magnitude. Like I said, it's an almost literal drop in the bucket.

As to plastic: as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. When we can't make plastic any more, we'll come up with something else. In fact, the very reason plastic was invented was because it became uncool to use ivory; fashionable Brits of the time used ivory balls on their billiard tables. When it became too expensive to use elephant tusks (to say nothing of the environmental issues), someone came up with billiard balls made of plastic.

Same with fossil fuels. When it becomes too expensive, or too unfashionable, to use fossil fuels, they'll come up with something else.

 

[rastahomie]

Also, by my math, that's 12-15 Olympic pools' worth of water for all the cars in Los Angeles in a day. Not one car.

 

[Klayfish]

I actually understood this. Why couldn't you have been my science teacher.
Still 15 pools a day on about 1 million cars a day seems like it could be problematic if all cars were running that way over st period of time.
Was just wondering.
Also to me it seems to me the biggest problem with fossil fuel is were going to run out of it.
Am I wrong but when we do we can't make plastic. That out of everything to me seems the reason why we need to conserve on using fossil fuel. I mean we go back to the early 1900s if we can't make plastic. Every single advancement made seems to rely on it in some way.

There are a lot of technologies out there for powering vehicles using sources other than conventional gasoline. It's just going to take more time to figure out which ones are most viable, develop them, build the infrastructure, etc... Electric cars are coming back into favor. They're nothing new, they were common place 100 years ago, but then were taken over by internal combustion engines.

Personally, I think the Flinstones had it right.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

Also, by my math, that's 12-15 Olympic pools' worth of water for all the cars in Los Angeles in a day. Not one car.

Yeah but you're talking just LA.
So that'd be 4380 to 5475 Olympic pools of water in LA alone a year if the vapor levels remained constant in the air..