Which is a greater source of pollutant emmisions, individually owned automobiles, or container ships and tractor trailers?
Depends on what you consider pollutants. In the overall scheme of things, individually owned automobiles do us more damage than freight vehicles but on a more invisible scale. Particulate emissions from gasoline powered light vehicles are particularly insidious as they’re the ones that are more carcinogenic and penetrate much deeper in your lungs than what comes out of the exhaust stacks of ships, trains & trucks. As far as CO2 and NOx goes, I’m still sticking with passenger autos. Freight vehicles typically run on diesel (trains & trucks) or heavy bunker fuel (ships) and their engines are designed to take advantage of these particular fuels. They don’t have to worry with being perceived as being underpowered by fickle consumers. Freight vehicle engines are typically tuned for maximum efficiency at their steady-state operating output or use the internal combustion engine to generate power for electric motors – full torque at zero RPM is a beautiful thing. Passenger vehicles are grossly
