Quoting link for easier reference for others lurking and reading.
It's in the article originally quoted in this thread.
California has more than 16.7 million of these small engines in the state, about 3 million more than the number of passenger cars on the road. California was the first government in the world to adopt emission standards for these small engines in 1990. But since then, emissions in cars have vastly improved compared with smaller engines.
Now, state officials say running a gas-powered leaf blower for one hour emits the same amount of pollution as driving a 2017 Toyota Camry from Los Angeles to Denver, a distance of about 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers).
Nitpicking points:
1. Gas powered leaf blower is still a fairly wide range and no info on 2 stroke vs 4 stroke vs size etc.
2.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new law on Saturday that orders state regulators to ban the sale of new gas-powered equipment using small off-road engines, a broad category that includes generators, lawn equipment and pressure washers.
Key words in red. We're not just talking about 50cc 2-strokes here.
3. They, too, show no source for their claim. I'd like to see the source data.
Fossil fuels are very heavily subsidized, on their own those subsidies skew a comparison unfairly in favor of fossil fuel based engines. Even more of a problem, the cost of dealing with the pollution is pressed onto the public, not the user. A heavy tax on the pollution wouldn't skew a comparison, it would make the comparison more fair.
(
https://www.vtpi.org/tca/tca0510.pdf)
To clarify on this, this study is only looking at air pollution costs. By 'non climate change costs' they are talking about the other effects of the pollution, public health, and the like.
Fair point on fossil subsidies, but I still draw issue with continuing a bad habit just because someone else is doing it.
If we were to put a fair tax on the pollutants from these tools, that would mean at the lower bound, about a $15 tax per hour of use for these tools. Just to make up for the cost of the public dealing with that pollution. If that were charged to the user instead of eaten up by the public, how long before everyone transitions to the option that does not pollute.
$15 / hr tax...for a piece of a equipment being used by someone probably making around that wage or less. And per your own words that's the lower bound.
Scale has been mentioned in the thread here.
OP's link above said:
California has more than 16.7 million of these small engines in the state, about 3 million more than the number of passenger cars on the road.
Per
Statista:
In 2019, California had the most automobile registrations: almost 15 million such vehicles were registered in the most populous U.S. federal state. California also had the highest number of registered motor vehicles overall: more than 30 million registrations.
So, at scale...we already have significant discrepancies in the data.
If there are 16 million "small off road engines" and that includes go-karts, dirt bikes, supermotos, scooters, etc, and only 500,000 gas powered leaf blowers, power washers, chainsaws, hedge trimmers, etc, do you not think that's an important distinction here?
Each of those individually 1v1 may account for more pollution than a 2017 Camry, but in the aggregate if there are 10 million Camrys / similar vs 500,000 leaf blowers, well, I know which ones are polluting more (and that's not even getting into their example of driving to Denver vs sitting in traffic on 101 for 4 hours a day).
In summary : I'd like to see the data sources and how they came up with these numbers, because I already feel like I'm being significantly misled with this article. Not that that should be any surprise.
You speak the truth.
