Asphalt-related emissions are a major missing source of air pollution (2020) | Hacker News Reader

Asphalt-related emissions are a major missing source of air pollution (2020)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

48 pointsdmbche9 comments

Look up Chinese cancer villages, this is the real scary pollution. Thankfully we have the EPA in America (and unions, and many other things) that have defended the US population from mass poisonings.

This is evidence that our laws and regulations are working well here in the US.

As it seems it's getting harder and harder to find "cancer causing something" in the US. Which is why maybe we are now finally getting around to finding "nontraditional source of secondary organic aerosol precursors".

Are these asphalt emissions bad for me? I live by a busy road. Diesel is a constant annoyance in odor and the sneaking feeling that I'm being poisoned through my lungs. I only notice asphalt aerosols for a few days after they lay it down.

The diesel is bad enough. Hope you've got a great air filter, or the ability to move.

What about the recycling of asphalt? It's my understanding that asphalt is the easiest to recycle material used for roads and highways; is the recycling process emissions-intense as well?

Certainly energy intensive since the asphalt needs to be broken/ground up, moved back to an asphalt plant, then heated back to molten.

Not back to a plant: there are road resurfacing machines that tear up the existing surface, run it through a dirt and dust separator, recombine it with tar[1] at temperature, and then put it right back down. Yes, there is thermal, chemical, and mechanical energy being used to do all of that but it's a fraction of resurfacing a cement-based road.

[1] I'm not a road engineer so I'm not 100% sure what substance is used to stick the parts of the asphalt back together when it's put back down but it looks and smells like hot tar.

It's bitumen which is a form of petroleum

Crap. So asphalt's emissions actually exceed the gasoline burned by motor vehicles? Maybe making petroleum a major ingredient in our roadways was a dumb idea all along....

There’s about 1 gallon of asphalt in every 42-gallon barrel of crude oil. Were it not used to pave roads, asphalt would be a waste product of crude oil refining.

I don’t think there are any good substitutes to asphalt concrete for paving roads. Railroad tracks only need crushed rock - if we fully transition away from crude oil, we might have no choice but to switch to rail for all our ground-based transportation needs.

https://mercercapital.com/energyvaluationinsights/a-bright-s...

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