dissident wrote:@Subjectivist
Thank you for the link. I totally missed that one.
I will put on my tin foil hat and conclude that the oil industry is a mafia that has the parasite politicians in its pocket. But I really do not need to wear a tin foil hat. This is a fact just as solid as the action of gravity keeping us attached to the surface of the planet. GM bought out the electric urban rail systems (tramways) back in the 1950s and shut them down so as to have its diesel buses take over. This was a clear racket in collusion with the oil industry. And the oil industry is run by the criminals like the ones at Exxon who have been a prime sponsor of global warming denial for decades. These people are freaks who do not tolerate any competition even if it means saving humanity.
The downside with NH3 internal combustion is that it generates NOx. The CBC piece did not cover this aspect but it is a big deal as we saw with the whole fiasco with Volkswagen diesel engines. In terms of health, my professional opinion is that spazzing over NOx and ignoring nanoparticle emissions is criminally retarded. GDI engines have lower NOx emissions but higher sub 100 nm particulate emissions. The regulators who fixate on NOx and O3 as regulatory pollutants ignore the impact of nanoparticle emissions. The often used PM2.5 metric is worthless since it measures the mass load. And most of the mass is in coarser particles. But those coarse particles are more easily filtered by the mucous membrane in the lungs than the ultra fine mode particulate which behaves almost like a gas and reaches unhindered into the alveoli and enters the blood stream. Thanks to the Kelvin curvature effect, very small particles shred through any cell wall. Once inside the blood stream these nanoparticles can pass the blood-brain barrier and also damage arterial walls.
You are welcome.
No need to call it a conspiracy theory, not far from here there were two inter urban electric tram lines, one connecting Toledo, Ohio to Detroit, Michigan and a second connecting Toledo to Cleveland, Ohio. For the price of a ticket you could ride the two legs each about 70 miles in about 4 hours with IIRC 12 stops total counting Toledo as one stop where you switched lines. Around 1952 the lines were bought, the tram cars were scrapped and the rails were pulled up and sold for scrap steel. Later Detroit Edison (DTE) purchased the right of way that used to be the tracks and used it to install high tension lines extending 60 of the 70 miles from Detroit to the south. That was where their 'zone' ends and Consumers Power franchise zone takes over for the last 10 miles between the state line and the DTE zone. That last ten miles of right of way got merged into a highway widening project by the state of Michigan around the same time in 1974. One of the old rail bridges is still used for fishing by locals where it crosses Otter Creek about 6 miles north of the state line, it makes a nice lazy fishing spot if you don't have a boat to get to the deepest part of the creek in the middle.
If you don't know Toledo was a major ship yard for bulk freighters in the 10,000-27,000 class and is a major port for shipping Ohio grain out via the Saint Lawrence seaway even in 2020. Cleveland would take in iron ore from Wisconsin or the UP of Michigan plus Michigan limestone and Ohio coal and make steel which would then ship to Akron and Detroit for major manufacturers. Toledo was sort of the half way point between the major markets of Cleveland and Detroit and a lot of merchant marine sailors lived in this area until the crash around 1979 when iron production dropped and a lot of the mills and manufacturers went bankrupt. At one time there were over 1000 freighters working the Great lakes hauling raw materials to manufacturers and finished goods back out to distribution. Now almost all the shipping you see is from the big granaries at the Nabisco complex in Toledo. One of the ship yards did stay in business and does refits on freighters during the slack winter months. About 15 years ago a freighter set their course for the Monroe lighthouse on the GPS system and started reading their mail. The computer drove the freighter right where the GPS said hitting the concrete foundation of the light house bow on and doing a couple million dollars damage to the ship. It limped into the Toledo shipyard where it was repaired, made a big story hereabouts for a while.
Of course the lakes do not freeze nearly as often as they used to, up until about 1985 you could often find thick enough ice to drive snowmobiles all the way across the lack 50 miles or so to Canada which shut down shipping pretty hard. In 2020 this is the end of December and there is not a speck of ice on Lake Erie yet and the grass in most places is still green though not actively growing. In the 60's and 70's snow started falling in late November and by now all the rivers and creeks would have enough ice to safely go ice fishing. It took longer for the lake to freeze hard but by now it would have at least a skim of thin ice over vast patches of the surface and in a cold year like 1977 the lake ice would be the worlds biggest skating rink between Christmas and New Years when all the kids were on winter break and playing outside.