Whatever happened to the WW2 German idea?

If I could add this to the discussion- Did you know that one of the main causes of air pollution is a device foisted on car manufacturers in the late 70's/early 80's by government beauracrats- yes, the infamous catylitic converter. Notice how there were really no reports of "acid rain" until they started using these things? A catylitic converter produces sulfer dioxide,(creating sulfuric acid rain) as well as nitrous oxide, not naturally produced by the gasoline internal combustion engine. For those people who live in states where emission inspections are required- read that report, it plainly states the amount of sulfer dioxide and nitrous oxide produced by your car. Sure, there is less carbon monoxide in the air these days, but the tradeoff is more of other chemicals that are probably worse. And even more shocking is that used catyltic converters are considered toxic waste, because of the metal(beryllium) that is used in them.

That's the kind of thing which caused California to try to dump teh "special low emission fuels". They cleaned up on one problem and produced another. There are times when the trade off is worth it, because you gain more on one side than you lose on the other. But, these knee jerk reactions to problems without testing until the actually do make an improvement are no good.

As far as acid rain, there has always been acid rain. Volcanic eruptions produce it in large quantities (depending on the type of volcano, of course). The ones I can see from my window (Mt Lassen and Mt Shasta) both produce sulfur dioxides gasses and more while just sitting there. It emits from the sulfur springs. Yellowstone National Park is that way, too.