Fuming Highways

Growing concern with air pollution has called forth new efforts to reduce the more than 100 million tons of pollutants automobiles pump into the atmosphere each year. Of those taking the technological route some are aimed at improving the internal combustion engine and its fuel; others, at perfecting alternatives. In the legislative and regulatory arena some proposals entail establishment and enforcement of emission standards far stricter than those already incorporated into federal legislation; others attempt to provide incentives for the development of emission-reducing technologies by private industry.

Perhaps the most extreme legislative approach was an amendment to the Clean Air Act offered by Congressman Farbstein of New York. His proposal, which was defeated, would have prohibited after January 1, 1977 the manufacture or sale of any motor vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine and not meeting strict emission standards. This effort paralleled a move in California where, by a vote of 26 to 5, the state Senate passed a bill to ban the sale of gasoline- and diesel-powered internal combustion engines beginning January 1, 1975. While it failed to pass the California Assembly, the bill did serve to alert automobile and petroleum companies of the seriousness of public concern.

A recent proposal that takes advantage of the fact that the government is a major buyer and operator of motor vehicles was incorporated into a bill presented to the Senate in October by Senator Warren Magnuson of Washington. This bill, known as the Federal Low-Emission Vehicle Procurement Act of 1969, aims at providing a ready market for motor vehicles that meet specified emission standards by requiring federal government agencies to purchase any vehicle meeting these standards if its costs are less than 125% of comparable vehicles with higher emissions. A five-member board would be established to certify vehicles that meet the rigorous standards stipulated in the bill. Such vehicles would be guaranteed the federal government market, estimated at about 400,000 vehicles.

This legislative proposal is clearly based on the expectation that alternatives to the high-emission internal combustion engine will emerge in the foreseeable future; but there is wide divergence on what kind of engine or vehicle this will be and when it might be available.

By year's end it remained as uncertain as ever what would come first—an improved conventional engine or fuel, a commercially acceptable steam engine, an electric car, or perhaps some hitherto unexplored alternative. Each side has its protagonists. Thus, a March 1969 staff report of the Senate Commerce Committee (of which Senator Magnuson is chairman), entitled The Search for a Low-Emission Vehicle, saw great merit in the development of Rankine-cycle steam-engine-powered vehicles, and was critical of the low-level effort in advancing it; but it refrained from putting a target date on it.

In any event, most of 1969 was consumed in raising the necessary funds and recruiting both appropriate vehicles and willing entrepreneurs to advance a three-pronged effort: (1) following a vote by the California Assembly, to equip six highway patrol cars with steam engines and have them on the road by end of 1969; (2) to convert four buses in the San Francisco Bay area steam engine propulsion; and (3) in Dallas, Texas, to install in a bus steam engine using freon rather than water.

By the end of the year, the patrol car test had shrunk to two cars, of which one was being readied by the Lear organization and appears unaffected by the earlier withdrawal of a steam car from the Indianapolis race or by Mr. Lear's reported disenchantment with the steam engine for use in all-purpose automobiles. The cars were expected to be on the road late this year. The second proposal resulted in the selection of one vendor. This would exhaust the $750,000 so far obligated for the bus demonstration project by the Department of Transportation, but additional funding was being discussed for two or three more buses using different steam engine systems. Funds for the Dallas experiment remained unassigned, but its sponsors were hoping that the project would get underway in 1970. Altogether, it was doubtful that any steam engine bus would be ready before 1971. Less drastic is a project, revealed in December, in which General Motors will test new noise-and odor-reducing devices on a number of buses in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco.

A promising occurrence during the year was development by the Los Angeles based Pacific Lighting Companies of a natural gas fuel system, which is said to reduce the emission of air pollutants from internal combustion engines by up to 90%. An interesting feature is that the driver is able to switch from natural gas to gasoline, depending upon his location. In mid-December Governor Reagan announced that the state's own automobile fleet would gradually be converted to this system, notwithstanding a concomitant reduction in horsepower and driving range.

San Diego Gas and Electric Co. has experimented for some time with liquid natural gas as the sole vehicle fuel, and reports emissions of hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide as about one-sixth of emissions from gasoline-burning cars equipped with current control devices.

There is optimism, too, among those engaged in research to reduce the emissions from internal combustion engines burning conventional fuels. Many among them, especially automotive and oil companies, now anticipate that exhaust manifold and catalytic reactors can be developed to increase the combustion of gasoline, hence reducing the residuals contained in the exhaust. It is asserted that over 90% of the un-desirable emissions can be eliminated by installation of these new and as yet experimental systems. In support of similar efforts, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, has been authorized to spend over $18 million in fiscal 1970 for research and development programs on new techniques to control emissions from all types of fossil fuel combustion.

On the debit side, development of a commercial fuel cell has not advanced. Indeed, when expenditures for fuel cell research were curtailed by the National Space Program, most private businesses reduced or pulled out of fuel cell research and development.

As agitation mounts for action to reduce automotive emissions, the newly established environmental quality agencies will be expected to come up with answers. The Environmental Quality Council has already indicated that automotive emissions will receive high priority. Lee DuBridge, its executive secretary, stated in August that the government intends "to provoke competition for a low-pollution vehicle by funding research on advanced types of gasoline and other internal combustion engines with better pollution reduction devices and on unconventional steam, electric, and gas turbine engines." Mr. DuBridge noted that the Department of Transportation would spend $2.2 million on research into these areas in fiscal 1970 and hopes to triple that amount in the next year or two.

The total level of government and industry expenditures can only be approximated. Estimated governmental R&D expenditures for control of air pollution in fiscal years 1969 and 1970 were $47 million and $61 million, but perhaps half of this is used to combat pollution from stationary sources. These expenditures are restricted to R&D sponsored by the National Air Pollution Control Administration, but since this agency controls the bulk of such funds they indicate well enough the size of the total governmental effort.

Industry's expenditures are not made public. But some idea may be gained from such current undertakings as a $7 million program on emission control, carried out over two and a half years jointly by six petroleum firms and one automobile manufacturer, or a three-year $10 million research program jointly undertaken by the Automobile Manufacturers Association and the American Petroleum Institute and funded through the Coordinating Research Council. In addition, companies are conducting individual research. There are indications that efforts and expenditures will increase. For example, Henry Ford 2d in December announced that his company would spend $31 million on vehicle pollution control in 1970.

Suppose, then, that government and industry expenditures specifically devoted to research and development on air pollution from non-stationary sources should rise to $75-$100 million a year—probably an optimistic guess. This would still represent only a fraction of 1% of the $25 billion or so spent each year on wholesale purchases of new motor vehicles.

What about likely cost to the consumer? In his June 1969 report to Congress the Secretary of HEW estimated control device costs at $36 per car under 1970 national emission standards, rising to $48 per car under 1971 standards, and annual expense to the consumer of $5.80 per car. These costs, however, apply only to control of hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions and are bound to rise to perhaps $100 or more per control system as other emissions, such as nitrogen oxides, are brought under control.

Even such costs are still in striking contrast to the magnitude of other costs associated with automobiles. To take one familiar example: conditioning the air inside a car costs far more than would conditioning the air outside. At a high rate of effectiveness, fume cost to the consumer—including maintenance, inspection, interest forgone, depreciation, but adjusted for better fuel economy—might rise to $30 per year. This is hardly an intolerable burden in relation to annual average expenses of more than $300 per capita—and a multiple thereof per family—associated with user-operated transportation.

In 1969, as in every year before; the number of cars per person and the total number of vehicle-miles in the United States rose. So did popular concern over air pollution. Something will have to give. Stricter federal regulations, new legislative ventures, both in Congress and in the states, and greatly increased R&D expenditures are among the possibilities. Their reach and reception will test just how serious we are about air pollution.