[oldnemesis]

(11-07-2012 08:25 AM)Hades Wrote:  

Isn't this kind of nitpicky?

No, it is not. I was just curious whether the OP did his due diligence and knows what he is talking about (and therefore should be taken seriously), or he's a typical hysterical smoker screaming about the world collapse because he lost his "right" to poison everyone around them. Unfortunately considering that he didn't reply and just "liked" those post, this seems to be the case.

Quote:

Now supposing that the gaseous emission to solid emission ratio between coal and cigarettes is roughly the same

Well, no. We're not talking about the environmental impact here. You need to take into account what is emitted, and its health effects as the original post specially mentioned "public health" as the main cause.

Burning clean coal produces only C+O2=CO2 which is harmless to humans. Of course they do not burn the clean coal (too expensive), and I doubt they have the catalyst exhausts or high temperature burners (like those they have on coal plants), so there is some CO, NO, NO2, some sulfur oxides and other complex solids and gases. Except the sulfur part none of them is carcinogenic, and whether the sulfur is carcinogenic is still being debated. Therefore the effect of the train on human health should not be significant.

The most important point here, however, is that the train is not running indoors. I guess it doesn't smell in town either - I haven't been there, but I rode a coal train two weeks ago, and there was no smell at all. So the health impact of the train might be significantly lower than the health impact of smokers.

Quote:

Given that, the train releases 6.2 times as much environmental waste as the net consumption of cigarettes. Seems low though.

So not 100,000x. That's a good starting point.

Now if you want to compare the environmental impact - which again wasn't the point here - you need to compare it with the other travel options, because the train doesn't run back and forth empty (and seem to be heavily booked). People travel between those destinations, and they wouldn't stop doing so just because there is no steam train anymore. A diesel train would produce less carbon dioxide, but more complex gases and might end up being more carcinogenic. People driving their cars would definitely have larger environmental impact than both trains. This is fairly complex issue, but unfortunately there is no published environmental study so we can only speculate here.