Finding the Engines of Climate Change
Activists have put a lot of attention on pipelines, and the extraction of oil from the ground. Divestment activists have worked to demonize the fossil fuel industry. Yet, it seems less attention has been given to the machines which actually emit fossil fuels into the air. I began to wonder just who makes these engines.
If you look on the EPA website, they break down emissions by sector of the economy. Industry, transportation, buildings, agriculture, and electricity all seem to be disparate things, but what is actually converting the fossil fuels into a form that gets emitted into the atmosphere? Are these engines often made by the same company?
I started by Googling, and came upon a Wikipedia article for gas engines. They list a bunch of manufacturers: Hyundai Heavy Industries, Rolls-Royce with the Bergen-Engines AS, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Liebherr, MTU Friedrichshafen, GE Jenbacher, Caterpillar Inc., Perkins Engines, MWM, Cummins, Wärtsilä, GE Energy Waukesha, Guascor Power, Deutz, MTU, MAN, Fairbanks-Morse, Doosan, and Yanmar. These are familiar names.
We can also look at engines, and see our familiar car makers at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Engine_manufacturers including companies like Toyota, Volkswagen, GM, Ford, Chrysler, and more. Many of these are the familiar automakers along with truck manufacturers, and tractor makers. Many of these companies make other types of engines that burn fossil fuels as well.
When I see all of this, it gives a different perspective on what it takes to address climate change. I imagine all of these companies switching from making gas to electric motors. Perhaps, some just go out of business. Can we push them to switch faster?
Still, it seems that isn’t enough. The electric motors need other equipment that is compatible, we need the charging infrastructure, and consumers need to overcome the inertia to change. Yet, looking at things this way allows us to look at the base of the industrial infrastructure.
I’d like to say we should just stop making all new engines, but maybe the new ones are more efficient. So long as the old ones stop getting used, it may be worth it, but it does at some point soon, we will need to stop making these fossil-fuel burning engines. Are these companies prepared to stop making engines? I’ve seen some sustainability reports, but not sure what to believe.
Once these engines are made, it seems likely they will be used for at least a while. Perhaps, they last 10–15 years, and in that time they can burn a lot of fossil fuels. They are part of a technological system which causes climate change. We need to really be thinking about how to transform these systems.
Nonetheless, moving away from fossil-fuel burning cars seems a heavy lift, and they are only thing that uses these engines. California’s governor said California will stop selling these vehicles by 2035. Still, a lot can be sold before then, and what about other parts of the world that are slower?
