A quick google search found this article with numbers pulled from a 2012 US Energy Information Administration (eia.gov) report: https://www.c2es.org/energy/source/oil
Transportation is the main consumer of petroleum, accounting for 70% of usage, of which 58% is light vehicles alone - so that's 40% of total - that's still far higher than "industrial" use of 25%. Tack on medium/heavy trucks which I assume includes F-150 trucks and giant off-road dump-trucks alike and it's more than half of total petroleum consumption.
So no - eliminating fossil-fuels from personal transport alone, while leaving industry alone, will still have a huge beneficial impact on greenhouse gas production.
But you forget the halo and knock-on effects: as the market adapts to service non-petrol consumers (e.g. fast EV chargers, battery-swap stations, etc) then industries will adapt to take advantage of them too - it wouldn't surprise me this meant the introduction of an EV John Deere tractor powered the same hot-swappable EV battery pack that might power a hypothetical Ford truck.
Calling 250s and 350s Heavy Duty is mostly marketing, although, the current 3/4 and 1 Ton trucks are more capable than ever, so the marketing inflation does have some basis.
Is this true though? Does it matter on the grade of fuel, or petrol vs diesel? I think I read that leaded fuel emits less CO2 than unleaded fuel, but I'd definitely choose more CO2 than lead in the air, tyvm.
So one could say yes to your question, depending on what you call "major".
We can electrify land mobility while also moving ocean going vessels to ultra low sulfur diesel or compressed natural gas. All of the above are cost effective today.
That's something that should be taken up with the dozens of reputable newspapers from whom I have drawn that information (e.g. the Guardian, quoted above).
They produce a lot Air pollution of a very specific type because their fuel includes a lot of sulfur. In terms of total pollution ships are actually a small fraction.
Further, releasing sulfur over the ocean does not impact human or animal heath significantly.
- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping...
> One giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50m cars, study finds
> Confidential data from maritime industry insiders based on engine size and the quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars shows that just 15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760m cars.
The shipping industry needs to get its act together too but it isn't _that_ significant when it comes to climate change. In terms of sulphur based pollutants it's pretty horrifying, though.
Thanks, that certainly clarifies.
Each passebger jet flight you take likely puts out more pollution than you will do in your car in years, as will a campfire. The hippies are a bit backward these days.
If you look at pollution-per-passenger-mile then jet transport is now more efficient and less polluting than light cars: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_juice/2014/07/dri... and https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/09/evolving-clim...
With the ability to travel from JFK to LAX in 6 hours, significantly more people are traveling far distances that they wouldn't have bothered to travel if the only option was train/cars.
Speaking as someone who likes to fly to remote places, planes may be more efficient per mile, but people travel significantly further in them and likely end up contributing quite a bit more to global warming than people who don't fly and just drive to a lake a few hours away instead.