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Comment by ouid | Hacker News Reader

I'm a little skeptical of all of the "actually car pollution isn't caused by combustion" articles that have been coming out recently.

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When you drive, the tread of your tires becomes more and more shallow, and at some point, it's so shallow that they need to be replaced. It happens, because the tires get abraded as you drive, shedding some of their surface. Where do you think the surface goes? Tire pollution is very real. Nobody says that the pollution isn't caused by combustion: it's another major source of pollution.

Tire pollution is in some ways worse than combustion pollution these days. Modern gasoline-burning engines (and modern, properly maintained diesel ones) mostly emit volatile, gaseous pollution. However, tire pollution consists of solid microparticles, that contribute to significantly to airborne dust, which can be measured through PM2.5 and PM10.

I’ve thought about how bad this must be for years.

It’s hard to imagine all of the tyre dust that’s been lost into the environment over the years.

Not just from cars, also commercial airliner tyres

Airline tire deposition is almost entirely witin the threshold / toucchdown zone portion of airport runways. The skid marks from sudden wheel spin-up and loading are highly evident:

https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/burbank-california-usa-april...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=DFOynlRYT54

There's effectively no wear during flight

That "gaseous pollution" is mostly CO2, a gas responsible for global warming and perhaps the biggest environmental threat we are facing right now. You can't limit yourself to comparing the amount released of both pollutants and not consider the scale of things. CO2 spreads all over the planet and remains in the atmosphere basically forever, until it is taken away, and particulate pollution is local and does not remain in the air for very long. Both should be addressed but they are not interchangeable.

Another thing related to tire pollution is asphalt dust. Road surface gets used up, too, especially in places where studded winter tires are popular, and it's a significant source of airborne particulate matter: https://grapevine.is/news/2020/11/30/winter-tires-have-huge-...

My state just banned studied winter tires because it was tearing up the streets too much and it really hasn't snowed and quite a long time as the climate changes

Which state is this?

Unsure of OP, but snow tyres are banned in Alabama, Texas, Florida, Maryland (exception five mountain counties), Louisiana, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, Mississippi and Wisconsin, according to thi (undated, though possibly from Sept 2020 by IA WBM: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://itstillruns.com/states...) article:

https://itstillruns.com/states-not-allow-studded-tires-54686...

Snow tires are not banned there, studded tires are.

That's what I'd meant, as the link makes clear.

Particulate pollution does not stay suspended in the air indefinitely. When wind blows in the desert, dust is kicked up and the particulate pollution is temporarily quite high. Then time passes or it rains and everything is clean again. The world is made of particulate that has come to rest.

When it rains those particles run off in to the streams, where they can leach chemicals out, especially as the materials degrade in uv light and oxygen with their massively increased surface area as particles vs being part of a tire.

And brake pad nanoparticles make up air pollution around freeways. Nanoparticles easily stay suspended and disperse, and can be resuspended.

A lot of the surface of the tire gets turned into gas particulate

You should interpret them as "actually, just getting rid of the combustion alone doesn't solve all the problems caused by cars" articles, which is imo rather uncontroversial.

You’re right to be skeptical, as some bad actors try to push the idea that electric cars are worse polluters than ICE cars.

Still this seems to be a problem both for electrical and ICE cars, that needs to be taken seriously and maybe can be fixed or at least reduced in impact by changing materials.

What I’m missing in the discussion is trucks. Usually they have a far greater impact than cars because of their higher weight.

Where I live we mostly only have public coal electricity still tons of Teslas around here so yes all the electric cars I see throughout my life are worse polluters and for some reason they all want to drag race me in my BMW because they think their cars are faster (they're not)

Did you actually do the math on efficiencies?

You can select your state here to see https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html

Remember your bmw doesn’t have regen braking.

Apparently Evs are even better in Kentucky, although hybrids are better. But also once the energy mix shifts, because it will not be coal forever even in ky, the pure ice will become even worse. I.e your bmw.

https://www.epsilontheory.com/why-am-i-reading-this-now/

What is possible is that some company came up with a non-rubber alternative and is using PR budget to fund research like this.

"The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twister pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities — all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The role is easy; there is none easier, save only the role of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance."

https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/04/30/theodore-roosevelt-...

Let me introduce you to the concept of projection. We cannot other peoples minds. When we think we're don't that we're reading our own.

Since you're doing this, I'm guessing that you have been a cynic before, and you can see it in others very clearly... and now that you've seen the light, you want others in the position you were in before, see the light too? That's great. I may be misreading it, because, again, I can only read my own mind. So, you may want to correct me.

Anyways, here's the thing. I'm not coming from the cynical position at all. I love how the PR industry works. It is fascinating to me that they are very meticulous and elaborate. I'm a fan of Edward Bernays, the father of PR. I have physical copies of all his books, even the ones that he didn't finish writing and were posthumously published. He didn't start it, but he formalized it as a discipline so anyone can use it and now everyone does.

I have also worked for a company which has their own PR department. The PR representatives wrote articles (sometimes on the behalf of the CEO or CTO and sometimes handed pre-written information to journalists which they could publish with minor modifications). The articles are published everywhere, from local newspapers to forbes, businessinsider, ft, nyt, cnn... you name it. It's fascinating. The information is often times two or three steps removed from the product and reads like any informative news article or some strong opinions from experts or take on other products or reviews of related ones.

So, when I see these patterns, it makes sense that is exactly what is happening.

Also, obligatory link to Paul Graham article on the subject: http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

I grew up fishing for salmon and live near streams where this issue is happening. Some bright and young researchers worked very hard to identify this root cause. Yes, I felt annoyed by the snark and dismissiveness in your comment. It rings of cynicism and tears down their hard work as a corporate PR scheme.

If you cared to read a little bit about the study, you could find the funding sources. If you want to connect the dots to this mystical tire manufacturer waiting to take over the market please share your sources.

"This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington State Governors Funds and the Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality in San Francisco Bay."

https://www.washington.edu/news/2020/12/03/tire-related-chem...

I see. I read that article. It was interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Having said that, I wouldn't be very surprised if say the president of Regional Monitoring Program for Water Quality has stocks in a company which has come up with a material which could replace rubber in tires.

Again, it is you who see corporate PR schemes as inherently bad. I think a lot of good things happen because of hard work of people working in corporate PR. People having economic incentive in what they are doing makes capitalism work.

Why is that?

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