Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics, Study Finds
Tire Dust Makes Up the Majority of Ocean Microplastics, Study Finds
Recent studies have shown tire emissions to be a larger threat to global health than anyone realized—and EVs could make the problem worse.
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Do you/ humanity/ clever folk have a plan for this. Evs are slowly creeping up but I don't think there's a plan for tire dust
Trains
What about all of the train dust?
Planes
Plane dust?
Automobiles? Well shit...
Submarines! No dust there! Checkmate!
Angel’s?
Wait until you learn about brakes.
Zero emission car? Ha! Depends on what you classify as an emission.
EVs are also a major improvement for the microdust emitted by breaks, as they mainly use the motor for breaking.
as they mainly use the motor for breaking.
For moderate braking at higher speeds sure, but not for your causal stoppages at intersections or heavier braking events.
I rarely ever use the brakes, even in the city -- I've become accustomed to letting off the gas at the correct distance for the regenerative braking to bring the car to a stop at the line. There's a good chance I might not replace the brakes for 10+ years.
Even more to this, regen breaking is only really limited by amount of current the battery pack can charge at (hence why regen sucks on plug-in hybrids with their little battery). As battery chemistry gets faster charging, regen breaking will get more and more powerful. With those solid state batteries some manufacturers are working on, you might not even need friction breaks on the car at all.
Tire dust though, evs solve nothing and are actually somewhat worse. They tend to have a lot more torque, and are currently somewhat heavier than an equivalent ICE car. Materials science will probably be able to give us incrementally less toxic tire dust, but only if there's pressure to invest in R&D.
Yea, obviously breaks aren't gone, but they have FAR lower usage. Even on casual stops it mainly uses the motor. Only for very heavy breaking they mainly are engaged. Like I said, it's a major improvement.zzz
@Mojojojo1993 I know that at least Goodyear already presented a tire made of 70% sustainable materials. Combine that with their ideas for airless tires and we might be on a good way. I guess other tire manufacturers are researching in this fields already as well.
Producing tires with sustainable materials is a bit of a different problem from producing tires that release less toxic dust. They will need to be pressured into spending money on the later.
@Jason2357 My understanding is that if the base materials of the tire are taken from rice and soy, they should be compostable when abrasion sets them apart from the tire and releases them into nature. But I might be mistaken here.