Lose some, save some: Obesity, automobile demand, and gasoline consumption

This paper examines the unexplored link between the prevalence of overweight and obesity and vehicle demand in the United States. Exploring annual sales data of new passenger vehicles at the model level in 48 U.S. counties from 1999 to 2005, we find that new vehicles demanded by consumers are less fuel-efficient on average as a larger share of people become overweight or obese. The OLS results show that a 10 percentage point increase in obesity and overweight reduces the average MPG of new vehicles demanded by 1.4 percent, an effect requiring a 12 cent increase in gasoline prices to counteract. The 2SLS results after controlling for possible endogeneity in overweight and obesity prevalence put those two numbers at 5 percent and 54 cent, respectively. These findings, robust to a variety of specifications, suggest that policies to reduce overweight and obesity can have additional benefits for energy security and the environment.     

Impacts of methanol fuel on vehicular emissions: A review

● Methanol effectively reduces CO, HC, CO₂, PM, and PN emissions of gasoline vehicles. ● Elemental composition of methanol directly affects the reduction of emissions. ● Several physicochemical properties of methanol help reduce vehicle emissions. The transport sector is a significant energy consumer and a major contributor to urban air pollution. At present, the substitution of cleaner fuel is one feasible way to deal with the growing energy demand and environmental pollution. Methanol has been recognized as a good alternative to gasoline due to its good combustion performance. In the past decades, many studies have investigated exhaust emissions using methanol-gasoline blends. However, the conclusions derived from different studies vary significantly, and the explanations for the effects of methanol blending on exhaust emissions are also inconsistent. This review summarizes the characteristics of CO, HC, NO_x, CO₂, and particulate emissions from methanol-gasoline blended fuels and pure methanol fuel. CO, HC, CO₂, particle mass (PM), and particle number (PN) emissions decrease when methanol-blended fuel is used in place of gasoline fuel. NO_x emission either decreases or increases depending on the test conditions, i.e., methanol content. Furthermore, this review synthesizes the mechanisms by which methanol-blended fuel influences pollutant emissions. This review provides insight into the pollutant emissions from methanol-blended fuel, which will aid policymakers in making energy strategy decisions that take urban air pollution, climate change, and energy security into account.     

Salience of carbon taxes in the gasoline market

We demonstrate that the carbon tax imposed by the Canadian province of British Columbia caused a decline in short-run gasoline demand that is significantly greater than would be expected from an equivalent increase in the market price of gasoline. That the carbon tax is more salient, or yields a larger change in demand than equivalent market price movements, is robust to a range of specifications. As a result of the large consumer response to the tax, we calculate that during its first four years, the tax reduced carbon dioxide emissions from gasoline consumption by 2.4 million tonnes.     

Optimal policy instruments for externality-producing durable goods under present bias

When consumers exhibit present bias, the standard solution to market failures caused by externalities—Pigouvian pricing—is suboptimal. I investigate policies aimed at externalities for present-biased consumers. Optimal policy includes an instrument to correct the externality and an instrument to correct the present bias. Either instrument can be an incentive-based policy (e.g. a tax on fuel economy) or a command-and-control policy (e.g. a fuel economy mandate). Under consumer heterogeneity, a command-and-control policy may dominate an incentive-based policy. Calibrated to the US automobile market, simulation results suggest that the second-best gasoline tax is 3–30% higher than marginal external damages. The optimal price policy includes a gasoline tax set about equal to marginal external damages and a fuel economy tax that increases the price of an average non-hybrid car by about $550–$2200 relative to the price of an average hybrid car.     

Explosions of gasoline–air mixture in the tunnels containing branch configuration

In order to investigate the effects of branch tunnels on explosion propagation, experiments were performed in five different configuration tunnels (straight configuration and configurations with 1 branch, 2 branches, 3 branches and 4 branches). Pressure and flame transducers were used to record the history of the pressure development and track the velocity of the flame front. It was shown that the branch tunnels had ability to enhance the maximum overpressure, rate of overpressure rise, and deflagration index (K_G) of the gasoline–air mixture explosion due to the turbulence induced by the branch tunnels. The overpressure rise rate and K_G of the explosion increased as a function of the number of branch tunnels. Experiments also showed that the maximum flame speed increased as the branch number increasing from 0 to 3 due to the enlargement of turbulence induced by the branch tunnels. However, an increase of branch number did not always lead to an enhancement of flame speed because the heat loss was intensified resulting from the increase of flame surface caused by the branch tunnels. When the number of branch tunnels exceeded 3, the maximum flame speed dropped.     

从汽柴油标准发展看清洁生产

通过分析目前国内外汽油、柴油标准发展情况，提出清洁工艺方案建议     

保护环境 使用汽油清净剂

概述了汽油清净剂的发展及作用机理，测算了汽油清净剂的使用效果，指出了在我国推广的必要性和紧迫性。     

全球车用汽油与中国无铅汽油指标的比较

介绍了１９９８年１２月公众的全球燃油宪章中所确定的车用汽油分类指标和指标制定的技术背景，并将中国现有无铅汽油指标与其进行了对比分析，结果表明，中国目前的无铅汽油指标在指示在项数和限值严格程度上都与全球车用汽车油指标在一定的差距。     

机动车实用路况法的研究

提出1种检测在用轻型汽油车尾气排放的新方法——机动车实用路况法（Vehicle Road Available Method,VRAM）,它采用 AVL Digas4000五气分析仪测量尾气各成份浓度,根据具体车型设定充量系数和时间差等参数,所得计算结果与汽车排放总量分析系统（Vehicle Mass Analysis System,VMAS）测量结果具有良好的相关性。作为对该方法可行性的验证,将在用轻型汽油车分类后,选取6种代表性车型进行了试验验证。指出人为因素、环境因素对实用路况法（VRAM）的相关性影响较大,但成本和便利性上的优势使得这种方法仍具有极强的实用价值。     

Influences of accumulated mileage and technological changes on emissions of regulated pollutants from gasoline passenger vehicles

In this study, the influences of accumulated mileage(deterioration) and technological changes(emission standards) on emission factors(EFs) of regulated pollutants(CO, HC, and NO_x) from gasoline passenger vehicles were investigated based on Inspection and Maintenance(I/M) data using the chassis dynamometer method. The accumulated mileage of passenger vehicles was significantly linearly correlated with vehicle age. For most cases,the average EFs of CO, HC and NO_x were significantly linearly correlated with accumulated mileage, indicating that emission deterioration had a significant impact on pollutant EFs.Implemented emission standards markedly influenced the EFs of regulated pollutants, and EFs markedly decreased with progressing emission standards. The present study also compared EFs of regulated pollutants between this study and the International vehicle emission(IVE) model, and marked differences in EFs were seen with variations in emission standards, vehicle types and accumulated mileage; NO_x EFs in this study were higher than in the IVE model. The results provide new insight into estimating regulated pollutant emissions using the IVE model.