This is taken from the Motoring page of the ELectronic Telegraph
(www.telegraph.co.uk):
Air cut
AN interesting story in Feb 12 edition of New Scientist reported that new
cars cause more pollution than old, partly through "specification creep". I
deplore the virtually universal fitting of power steering, even on small
cars that don't need it, because this inevitably absorbs power and leads to
more pollution.
A.K., Oxford
REPLY:
The National Institute of Public Health and the Environment at Utrecht
University in Holland has produced figures which show that building a new
car and recycling an old one creates more CO2 than continuing to run the old
car. This is compounded by the specification creep" of which A.K. writes.
The Institute's figures show that reducing the average age of cars in the
Netherlands by three years would actually increase CO2 emissions by four per
cent overall, although the effect would be lessened if people replaced
large, inefficient old cars with small, efficient new ones. J. T. of
Standlake adds that, during a 10-12 year lifespan,
the average car will never use as much energy as was taken to build it.
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