Based on a 2003 study on vehicle emissions by the Office of Energy Efficiency, Natural Resources Canada, the Government of Canada does recommend that, whenever possible, light-duty motorists should not allow their vehicle to idle for more 60 seconds at a time, unless they are in traffic.
Ten seconds was the determined amount of time when an idling vehicle starts burning more fuel and emitting more CO2 than if you would have simple turned it off and restarted it.
Bow Valley High School (BVHS) students presented some of these very concerns to council on Monday.
They were looking to convince council to amend its idling bylaw from a 20-minute maximum to five minutes.
That seems reasonable enough, especially when you take into consideration that after five minutes, an idling vehicle has burned around 30 times more fuel and let out 30 times more CO2 than if you had just cut the engine and restarted it. And idling for 20 minutes; well that burns and spews out around 120 times more fuel and CO2.
CO2 emissions are the main benefit to the ‘stop idling’ movement, but, based on the same 2003 study, there is little to no benefit to turning your vehicle off to reduce other vehicle emission – such as volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide and nitrogen – between 10 seconds and 10 minutes. Letting your vehicle idle for 10 minutes produces the same amount of these emissions as does the process of restarting your engine.
All this being said, there are certain circumstances when stopping your vehicle from idling makes sense, while other times do not.
For example, if you are stopped by a train, why not go ahead and cut the engine? Or, if you run into the store to buy something, or your friend’s house for a visit (yes, some in the Eagle’s editorial office can attest to seeing vehicles running for some time left by those visiting a friend). Do everyone a favour, including your own wallet, and turn it off.
There are other times, however, when cutting your engine just doesn’t appeal to most of us: stopped at a red light, going through a drive-thru, or when it’s overly cold and you want to warm your vehicle up and not freeze on your drive to work. What if it’s really hot and you’re running into your house to grab something and leaving the kid or the dog in the vehicle for one minute with the air conditioning on?
There are many scenarios when turning your vehicle off for 10-20 seconds just seems silly (or when it’s -30C outside). But this is not what BVHS students were addressing to council. Letting your vehicle run for 20 minutes is just not necessary.
Each litre of gasoline emits around 2.3 kg of CO2 into the atmosphere. A small car, like a Mazda 3, has a 45-litre tank…that’s 103.5 kg of CO2 in just one tank.
The Canadian government says that if each driver in Canada would stop idling for three minutes each day, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.4 million tonnes each year, save 630 million litres of fuel and would be the equivalent of taking 320,000 cars off the road entirely.
That’s fairly significant…and that’s just in Canada.
There have been tremendous advancements with the quality of engines in the past 40 years, with today’s vehicles producing 99 per cent less air contaminants than those made in the ‘70s, according to the government.
Letting your vehicle idle is a habit, and one that is hard to break. For some, it’s strange to turn your vehicle off just because you’ll be at a train for two minutes. What’s the point? Unless everyone does it, is there really any benefit?
With the BVHS proposition, at the very least, it would stop those people who just leave their vehicle running, and running, and running, and running, and running…
