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Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

theguardian.com

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Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#41

Post by giraffe_lady »

josephcsible wrote: post #36
epistasis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly right, tire and brake dust are still awful with EVs, though contra the slight implication in the headline, it's no worse than the current situation with ICE vehicles. And the brake dust aspect may slightly reduce due to regenerative braking.

EVs hardly generate any brake dust due to regenerative braking. It's not just a "slight" reduction and certainly not "awful" with them.

The source says 5-19% reduction which is solid but pretty far off from "hardly any" in my view.

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#42

Post by giraffe_lady »

dilyevsky wrote: post #33
epistasis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly right, tire and brake dust are still awful with EVs, though contra the slight implication in the headline, it's no worse than the current situation with ICE vehicles. And the brake dust aspect may slightly reduce due to regenerative braking.

Slightly? I barely use the brakes ever. Whoever is out braking in their EV all the time should have their DL revoked

Where I live residential neighborhoods have 4-way stops at every intersection so preferably everyone would be braking all the time, yes.

They obviously are not and cruising through stop signs (and sometimes killing children!) is the norm. If EVs encourage this driving style that is another strong point in favor of "electric cars can't solve the problem of cars."

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#43

Post by hellohowareu »

hammock wrote: post #27
hackerlight wrote: post #22

Will wearing N95 masks when near busy roads help at all?

Yes. When I lived in a drafty street level apartment in SF on Oak St (busy artery) I would have to wipe my inside window sills 1-2x a week of the brake dust and black rubber particles that would accumulate

Same here— in the east bay (Milpitas). I was alarmed by how much silt built up on any outdoor surface. I assumed it was due to nearby highways and busy roads. Left that living situation after 2-3 months due to the concern.

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#44

Post by bryanlarsen »

epistasis wrote: post #39
dilyevsky wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly? I barely use the brakes ever. Whoever is out braking in their EV all the time should have their DL revoked

I would like to see the numbers on this to quantify it. Because the places where EVs still do use brake pads is when they come to full stops at lights and stop signs, which tend to be far closer to people.

Brakes aren't necessary to stop an EV nor to hold a car at a stop on an incline.

The only time a Tesla needs to use brake pads are for emergency stops and for the parking brake.

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#45

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #9

Didn’t we know this in the 1970’s?

Yes, but only the older people who have good memory, or the young people who bothered to keep themselves informed by reading some 'history' or talking to smart older people.

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#46

Post by jfim »

capitainenemo wrote: post #26
epistasis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but these are all less than 20%, a change which is likely indistinguishable for any sort of risk factors, and likely well within the measurement error for something difficult to measure like this. The true change we need to make is drastically reduce car use, to a tiny fraction of its current use. This is a hard social problem, however, particularly for the older generations who tend to wield power in most gove…

Interestingly the first article flagged ebikes as particularly problematic, which are a pretty common way to extend bike range. Although, they must surely be better than cars just due to mass. Anyway. Cautiously in agreement with you, but it depends a lot on where you live. Western Europe, at least at present, is blessed with a fairly mild climate. Less so than North America which seems to alternate between harsh win…

> Interestingly the first article flagged ebikes as particularly problematic, which are a pretty common way to extend bike range. Although, they must surely be better than cars just due to mass.

Only tangentially related, but I'd assume that most of the emissions from ebikes would be related to brakes, as stopping from higher velocity would wear down brake pads faster.

One interesting thing that hybrid and electric vehicles do is that they do regenerative braking, which ends up with less wear on brake pads (and emissions) from slowing down. Justin from Grin Technologies (an ebike part shop focusing on DIYers) has done a presentation on how that works on ebikes, and mentions that he's barely using brake pads now that he's using regenerative braking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYCj4asp9pE&t=970s

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#47

Post by josephcsible »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #41
josephcsible wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EVs hardly generate any brake dust due to regenerative braking. It's not just a "slight" reduction and certainly not "awful" with them.

The source says 5-19% reduction which is solid but pretty far off from "hardly any" in my view.

Isn't that number for the total particle emissions, rather than just for emissions from the brakes?

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#48

Post by josephcsible »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #42
dilyevsky wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly? I barely use the brakes ever. Whoever is out braking in their EV all the time should have their DL revoked

Where I live residential neighborhoods have 4-way stops at every intersection so preferably everyone would be braking all the time, yes. They obviously are not and cruising through stop signs (and sometimes killing children!) is the norm. If EVs encourage this driving style that is another strong point in favor of "electric cars can't solve the problem of cars."

EVs can regenerate almost all the way to a stop, and only need to apply the brakes to hold the vehicle stopped.

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#49

Post by krallja »

epistasis wrote: post #40
jwineinger wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some air filters with air quality sensors on them, and we have an electric range so there's no natural gas combustion happening. Often when cooking (pan frying especially), those sensors will max out and send the air filters into turbo mode for a good while.

Yes, hot oils trigger the formaldehyde sensor every time for me. For doing wok frying, I got an outdoor propane burner so that it's far more dilute, and that delicious cancer-causing wok hei is delivered only to our stomachs rather than lungs and stomachs. The outdoor wok burner is also far superior to any indoor residential gas stove too for this purpose.

The actors at Conner Prairie, an 1836 "living museum" in central Indiana, explain that some of the nicer houses have a separate out-building just for cooking, to keep the heat away from the main living space, and reduce the risk of burning down the whole house too. Maybe we'll move back to that design, to keep the pollution in the main space down.

Re: Cancer breakthrough is a ‘wake-up’ call on danger of air pollution

#50

Post by briefcomment »

hammock wrote: post #27
hackerlight wrote: post #22

Will wearing N95 masks when near busy roads help at all?

Yes. When I lived in a drafty street level apartment in SF on Oak St (busy artery) I would have to wipe my inside window sills 1-2x a week of the brake dust and black rubber particles that would accumulate

Wow. Did you feel any ill effects? Did you recover when you moved?
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