London's Deputy Mayor On Ditching Diesel 188
dkatana writes: During an interview in Barcelona last week, at the Smart Cities Congress, London's Deputy Mayor Matthew Pencharz said that he doesn't believe diesel cars belong in cities. He said, "I don't believe that for the urban setting, for light vehicles, diesel is the right thing," He added, "I don't think it is the right thing if you are an urban driver, stopping-starting in traffic all day, not going very far, not zipping along at 50 mph on the motorway. [I think] diesel is not the right technology." He also blamed the European Commission for being too lenient with emission standards and conformity factors. "The conformity factors the Commission [has recently approved] are not as good as we would like, clearly, because we are going to have the same problem again," he said. "The VW scandal has focused attention on a problem we hardly knew about, and it has raised to the top the public policy of failure of dieselization across the European Union, and the UK too, combined with the spectacular failure of the Euro engine standards," he said. "[The scandal] has focused our minds on the fact that we need to accelerate the way out of diesel."
Or just make the diesels hybrids (Score:5, Insightful)
urban driver, stopping-starting in traffic all day, not going very far
Kinda the sweet spot for hybrid-electric drives, no?
Re:Or just make the diesels hybrids (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or just make the diesels hybrids (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, city centers are specific places where cars and similar vehicles have very little reason to be in if your public transportation works well. Note that that requirement does include the need for easy access "park and ride" for switching between public transit and cars.
Re:Or just make the diesels hybrids (Score:4, Interesting)
Works well and is cost-effective. If my other half and I go into London from where we live in the suburbs, it's invariably cheaper to drive and pay out the nose for parking than it is to get the train. Not a few pence cheaper - around double the cost. And we're not far from London at all; we're in the commuter belt.
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That's what people often fail to consider, the car costs about the same for between 1 and 5 people, or more if you have a 7 seater etc whereas the train ticket costs increase linearly.
Carrying goods is impractical on public transport too, so going on a shopping trip is painful without a car.
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And even the best public transport system generally isnt going to start and stop *exactly* where you need it, so there still is going to be *some* walking. Which some people with disabilities or health problems simply can't manage. And to achieve a good public transport system - with frequent stops, densely placed stops, relatively direct routes and affordable prices - is entirely dependent on population density far more than it is on "will". In places with high density, it's a relatively straightforward
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Having been raised in a place with crap public transport, then having the opportunity to live in Hong Kong for a couple of years and never once not needing a car, I feel this is the only model that really works in a large city.
Re:Or just make the diesels hybrids (Score:5, Insightful)
But too many people forget a large number of journeys need to be made by vans - workmen with tools, deliveries and so on. All something public transport can't really help much with.
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Aren't most public transport buses diesel powered? I know the ones in Baltimore are Natural Gas powered, but not all cities have ready access to methane like we do in Baltimore.
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You're either a troll or you have never experienced the pollution from diesel vehicles in a city centre - walking beside certain roads is intolerable thanks to the choking emissions of diesel busses, cars and taxis. Hybrids or, better yet, electric vehicles are ideal but a reasonably modern, catalysed petrol car is a dream compared to even the latest diesels.
Re:Or just make the diesels hybrids (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Or just make the diesels hybrids (Score:5, Insightful)
You ARE a troll supreme. I had one of those Mercedes and it was a dirty bastard. It would just about suffocate anyone behind me at a red light.
That's because you're an ignorant and/or careless piece of shit who doesn't do maintenance. If you keep the valves adjusted properly (yes, how baroque) and if your ALDA is in proper working order, then that won't happen. You may have needed to clean, adjust and/or replace your ALDA, or simply clean the pressure line from the intake manifold to the ALDA.
The exhaust from my modern gasoline car is barely detectable unless you run a hose from the exhaust pipe up your nose or something.
Just like the cars of the nineties, until the car enters closed loop mode it has to run rich so that it doesn't cause damage. Contrast diesel, which runs lean all the time, and if you inject less fuel you just get less power. Unburned hydrocarbons are the most harmful emission, and gasoline vehicles pass more of them out of the tailpipe than diesels do. But in fact, you are absolutely correct, you simply came to an ass-backwards conclusion based on this fact. The exhaust from your modern gasoline car is barely detectable, but it contains just as much soot as diesel exhaust [slashdot.org] and that soot is of the most hazardous, barely detectable type — what we call PM2.5, or particles below 2.5 microns in size. These particles are too small to be swept out of your lungs by cilia, so they are the most hazardous type of soot.
But, let me return to the unburned hydrocarbons; while you are wringing your hands over soot, the HCs are actually the most harmful emission. Gasoline vehicles run rich at startup, and they run rich at wide open throttle. Diesels run lean all the time. That's why they produce more NOx than gasoline engines, which is what DEF is for; urea injection solves that problem neatly, and it neither costs very much nor adds dramatic cost to the vehicle as a package, nor does it take up much space in the vehicle. And if you don't believe that gasoline is more volatile than diesel fuel, you can try this one simple trick that will either have you convinced, or dead trying; get two glass jars and half-fill each one with fuel, one diesel and one gasoline. Now, put your head twelve inches over the diesel jar and breathe normally for five minutes. Take notes. Now, repeat the experiment with the gasoline, and if you are still alive and conscious at the end of the five minutes, record your comparative experience and get back to me. Diesel fuel breaks down faster in the soil than gasoline, it's less harmful to get on your hands, it's less harmful to breathe the fumes, it costs less energy to produce, and it produces no more pollution than gasoline. Its crime is having visible soot and fumes which you can smell. We pretend gasoline is harmless because we can't see it, but it is by far the more harmful fuel overall.
Now, what's even more ridiculous than wringing your hands over soot is the fact that we can have 100% carbon-neutral and lower-polluting fuels from non-fossil feedstocks right now if we just put the boot into the oil companies. BP and DuPont's company ButaMax has been abusing the courts [bizjournals.com] to prevent GE Energy Ventures' subsidiary GEVO from selling butanol [wikipedia.org], a 1:1 replacement for gasoline which can be made by bacteria from literally any organic matter, and which reduces emissions. Likewise, lipids from algae can be used to make green diesel, which is the euphemistic name for the result of fractional column distillation of lipids into diesel fuel. It suffers from none of the drawbacks of trans-esterified biodiesel, like high acidity and ge
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Love the quality of the debates here on Slashdot.
Come on, you two haven't called each other poopy-heads yet!
Re:Or just make the diesels hybrids (Score:5, Interesting)
Come on, you two haven't called each other poopy-heads yet!
You just have to read between the lines... pretty sure I did the equivalent in my closing paragraph. People who won't maintain their OM61x when all it takes is a little berryman's and some funky wrenches [mercedessource.com] (and feelers) are half the reason why people think that diesels are stinky. Those jackholes who modify their trucks to overfuel so that they can "roll coal" are the other half. When it's running, my 1992 F250 7.3 with a turbo kit can ONLY make that kind of smoke if it's cold and if I stick my foot in it from a stop, and it doesn't even have any kind of smoke compensation hardware! I can get an aneroid compensator, but it's some $200 and not really necessary except on significantly modified vehicles with notably more than original fueling levels. My pump is just turned up slightly, to match the turbocharger. If you add more fuel, you just add more heat, and that can lead to melting the fancy forged aluminum pistons. I've had EGTs of 1100*F sustained while pulling a grade, and the pistons are supposed to melt around 1300...
If you don't maintain anything, or if you excessively modify anything, it will have poor emissions. You know who really needs a smack upside the head after those coal rollers? The kids who put a $20 "performance chip" in their rice burner. Those trick the PCM into thinking that there is more intake air, so they increase fuel and maybe timing. The end result is usually that it sounds a little better because you're overfueling, it runs a little hotter, it makes little if no more power, and the people behind them have to suck a lot of unburned gasoline which as already discussed is the worst thing that comes out of a tailpipe.
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are half the reason why people think that diesels are stinky
The other two halves of the reason is because burned Diesel actually does smell. An unhealthy diesel is about the worst thing you can smell on the road (marginally beaten by the smell of an unhealthy LPG engine).
"Rolling coal" isn't really a thing here in Oz but I can still smell a diesel long before I see it (or hear it, but I usually have my music up pretty loud).
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"Rolling coal" isn't really a thing here in Oz but I can still smell a diesel long before I see it (or hear it, but I usually have my music up pretty loud).
Here in California, where people can call in gross polluters and have them removed from the roads, most of the stinky old diesels have gone away. As well, most of the old diesels are reaching the age where if you don't maintain them, they don't run. Yeah, the OM617 in that 300SD might keep going to a million miles, but the rest of the car won't and replacing all the stuff that wears out is getting to be a hobby. I've had to replace rear springs, I need to replace driver's seat springs, the upholstery is fin
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Kinda the sweet spot for hybrid-electric drives, no?
Well trains aren't hybrid electric, but they're diesel driven electric. A few companies like Freightliner and Mack have been messing around with it for a few years, but there's problems mainly to do with the raw torque requirements for trucks, especially on heavy grade pulls. One of the solutions(can't remember if it was Mack or Freightliner), went with both. Diesel-electric for long cruising and diesel drive only for startup pulling and grades.
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Never heard of a hybrid train. Diesel-electric usually means diesel engine with electric transmission.
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It's been done in Britain before. The Gatwick Express used to be hauled by electrodiesel locomotives for a good couple of decades.
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Wrong. That's a diesel-electric. And wrong again before you even start, they aren't the same thing.
"Russian diesel-electric locomotive ... The prime mover was an MAN submarine-type diesel engine, weighing 26 tonnes, and there were five traction motors."
Protip: when trying to use google to appear smart, actually read the links it throws you *before* posting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"For locomotives powered by both external electricity and diesel fuel, see electro-diesel below.
In a diesel-electric lo
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Very old idea, been around and in daily use since the 60s. And not a hybrid.
Add another 40 years. Being around and in daily use since the 1920ies.
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In the US, where the rail lines don't have electric, the trains are diesel electric serial hybrids. The diesel engine directly runs a generator, which provides power to an electric motor. They have electric braking too, but the power is dumped into a resistor bank, not reused.
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Kinda the sweet spot for hybrid-electric drives, no?
Well trains aren't hybrid electric, but they're diesel driven electric.
Uhm... normally, they're purely electric [wikipedia.org]
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Depends on where in the world you are, but diesel locomotives usually have a generator that produces electricity to electric motors for traction. It allows for a smoother transition of power since the electric converters acts as a gearbox. In western Europe most trains are electric but on some tracks there's no overhead lines and then the diesel-electric locomotives are used.
A hybrid is essentially just having both overhead lines and diesel engine/generators to feed the traction engines.
However when it come
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Most (but not all) inter-city lines are powered by overhead wires.
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Almost right, but the third rail system is mostly south of the river. North of the Thames you will find overhead electric on almost all routes (including commuter routes, London Overground etc).
Electric motors have max torque at zero rpm (Score:2)
So your argument is rubbish. ALL modern locomotives have electric traction motors whether powered by an onboard diesel engine or from overhead wires. Ok, in some cases thats due to it being simpler and more reliable than having a mechanical drivetrain from the engine to the wheels, but the point is those electric motors can start an X thousand ton train so they won't have much problem with a 30 ton truck.
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"The DBAG Class 612 is a two car, tilting, diesel multiple unit "
Now which part of Diesel Multiple Unit means Locomotive?
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Need more?
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If you don't know the different between a locomotive and a DMU then I suggest you stay out of the discussion until your clue arrives in the post.
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That the best putdown you think of sonny? Try harder.
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This is probably the least informed comment I've seen on Slashdot for a while: Diesel hybrids are on the market today, from e.g. Volvo and Citroen.
There is a single reason why Diesel-electric hydrids are rare today: Cost. Modern Diesel engines are significantly more expensive than gasoline. Combine that with an electric drive, and you have a really expensive system.
But apart from that, a Diesel-electric hybrid is the best technological solution: The electric drive can make sure the Diesel engine is at a goo
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Diesel is better at a single speed, like you say, charging for a long, steady trip without much stop and go. But read the topic. Cars in London. There's lots of stop and go in London. The smaller gasoline hybrids dominate in that space.
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A diesel engine may not show its strengths so much for stop-and-go driving as it does for prolonged motorway cruising, but it is still more efficient than a petrol engine under those conditions.
No, it is not. Unless it's used solely as a generator for a pure-EV, it's worse. Diesel is less efficient.
There are very few small hybrid cars, for the simple reason that a battery pack takes up lots of space.
Yeah, the Prius C (selling more in a month than all hybrid Diesels do it a year world wide). One single model from one single maker outselling the entire class of car you are defending from all makers across the world. That's the irrelevancy of Diesel hybrid.
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The Prius C is sold as the Yaris hybrid in Europe, and the Yaris is not a D-segment car. You should learn what you are talking about before wrongly lecturing others on it.
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Re: Imbicycles (Score:3, Interesting)
If you got the damn bikes of the road, the diesel vehicles would pollute far less.
And, as for public transport - sure, take your desktop computer, server or laser printer (or even your weekly supermarket shopping) under your arm on London transport in the rush hour. You can post the
Re: Imbicycles (Score:5, Insightful)
In London, bicycles effectively use about 2MPG of diesel by slowing large numbers of buses and trucks to the position where they are unable to get out of low gear. They are one of the biggest causes of pollution from diesel.
If you got the damn bikes of the road, the diesel vehicles would pollute far less.
Yeah. Damn those bikes. We'll ignore the effect of the pedestrians, lights, junctions, general congestion and all the other factors that contribute to stop/start traffic.
And, as for public transport - sure, take your desktop computer, server or laser printer (or even your weekly supermarket shopping) under your arm on London transport in the rush hour. You can post the video on Youtube afterwards.
You know, the number of times I've taken my desktop computer to work, along with my weekly shopping, makes me glad my town barely has public transport. It would be a daily grind for me to lug all that around.
And I can testify that most of the single occupancy cars blocking the roads have a similarly burdensome commuter load.
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Well, you decided it was a good idea to treat Bikers as non pedestrians ages ago, before standard bike frames was even introduced.
Now you have to live with that.
It didn't have to be like that at all.
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... assuming that if the bicycles weren't there that their riders would just disappear, rather than switch to cars.
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Why the fuck are you traveling with your desktop and printer on the train?
Because you want them to use public transportation, and they just bought a new PC and printer.
As for shopping, go to the store around the corner.
The last time I lived in a city, I had a good paying job compared to the median, so I was easily able to live in a part of town where I could literally walk to anything I wanted in ten minutes or less — restaurants, movie theater, various shopping outlets, and work. The first time I lived in a city, I was barely making it. The only things in my neighborhood were two bars, a library (that was nice anyway) and
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Yes, but you would still have to come up with a method for people to move large packages around if you eliminated all the cars.
Given that wikipedia shows a London-specific freight tricycle [wikipedia.org], that should not be much of a problem.
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Given that wikipedia shows a London-specific freight tricycle, that should not be much of a problem.
That will work in London, but it won't in San Francisco or Seattle. Well, naturally, it will in parts. Point is, bicycles are not a complete solution. You will need some kind of vehicle. I note that your link shows a power-assist tricycle for moving stuff bigger than a microwave oven. That's just back to vehicles. My preference would be to install PRT, and have cars which can carry freight. You still need a to-the-door solution, though. Maybe customers could rent a motorized pallet, and send it back to the
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Now, that's just silly. You usually don't buy a new PC and printer any more frequently than it is justifiable to rent a car for the occasion, if you can't just simply have it delivered to your doorstep.
We already have! It was a solved problem ages ago. When my parents were young, every resp
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Yes, but you would still have to come up with a method for people to move large packages around if you eliminated all the cars.
You'd still have cabs and delivery vans in London.
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Yes, but you would still have to come up with a method for people to move large packages around if you eliminated all the cars.
Cut the large packages into smaller packages and distribute them among multiple cyclists! Job done!
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Because you want them to use public transportation, and they just bought a new PC and printer.
Can't they get them delivered? (Yes I realise delivery drivers will need a car/van, but we're not talking complete elimnation of vehicles here, just mass reduction of private use in the city)
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Petrol-electric hybrids would be better. Diesel is just dirty, even if the MPG is a bit better. Or just go fully electric. When you look at the number of expensive BMWs, Mercs, Audis, Land Rover tractors and the like in London it's obvious that they could afford a Tesla too. For businesses operating within London a Leaf or eNV-200 van would be fine.
There are taxi companies that use Leafs. Very cheap to run, range is no problem as they have their own rapid chargers that only take 30 minutes to add 80 miles.
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Kinda the sweet spot for hybrid-electric drives, no?
It is, but not with diesels, because they don't start-stop as gracefully as gassers, and probably never will — at least, not until gasoline engines eliminate their startup advantage by becoming just as high-compression as diesels. And in fact, the trend we are seeing in gasoline engines is to move towards higher-compression direct-injected designs, or to moderate-compression DI engines with turbochargers. In the bargain they are becoming just as expensive as diesel engines, because now just like the d
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Gasoline engines hit their torque peak at mid-RPM (torque is basically how much energy is generated per cylinder firing), and their power peak at high RPM (horsepower is how much energy is generated per second, so torque * RPM
Does he have the data to support his "beliefs"? (Score:2)
IIRC diesel engines are extremely efficient when idle. So much so, that unlike with gas engines, it doesn't make sense to shut them down if they are going to be idling for a few minutes.
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Diesel engines take shitton of time to warm up because they are efficient. And during the warm up they emit shitton of PM. Then the efficiency of an engine doesn't mean it is clean. While it's true for CO2 it is NOT for NOx. It's actually a trade off: either you're efficient and have low mpg but produce lots of NOx, or you run LESS efficient but produce less NOx and more CO2. Gasoline engine doesn't have this problem because they're not running at an over lean mixture (lambda>>1).
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Basically, petrol car manufacturers are getting desperate as the oil price continues to fall. How VW gave them this
Re: Does he have the data to support his "beliefs" (Score:1)
Not quite right (Score:2)
Gasoline engines are prohibited at a lot of industrial sites not because of the exhaust but because the fuel itself - unlike diesel - its highly volatile and highly flammable. So not only can it poison in a confined space, its also highly likely to cause an explosion if there's a spark.
"Diesel produce larger particles which are easier to filter."
Wrong. As well as large soot particles it produces particles 2.5 um in size which are almost impossible to filter and need to be burned away.
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Twice as much is still FAR less than what a diesel produces. Besides which , NOx is far more of a problem than particulates wrt health.
"Instead, the soot is burned in the trap... and turns into PM2.5"
So burning carbon gives carbon does it? ITYF almost all of it disappears as CO2.
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Well, there is all that smog in London [telegraph.co.uk] that is mainly caused by diesel by-products. Last year practically the entire country was under a smog alert at one point.
Yes but he doesn't propose banning the main source of diesel polution: Heavy vehicles. He is only proposing banning an insignificant source of diesel polution, the source that already has the strictest rules and best filters.
Hating on Diesel (Score:4, Interesting)
Err, petrol is currently cheaper that diesel (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK anyway.
And diesel IS a filthy fuel. Even most new cars don't meet the limits set outside the test lab and once the car is 2nd or 3rd hand and isn't being maintained properly or if its a van thats been thrashed all its life it'll start belching black shit out of its exhaust on acceleration (which is barely tested in the MOT). I see these vehicles every day on the road.
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Gassers put out just as much soot as diesels [acs.org], but it's the more dangerous kind of soot that you can't see. The fuel is also more volatile and all gassers spit unburned fuel until they enter closed-loop mode. They do that a lot faster these days, but it's still true. Diesels always run lean, they don't have that problem. They have the problem that since they run lean, they produce more NOx. You're upset because you can see the soot, but breathing gasoline does more damage to your lungs.
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"it's the more dangerous kind of soot that you can't see"
Diesels also release invisible soot - PM 2.5, far more so than petrol engines.
"but breathing gasoline does more damage to your lungs."
Maybe so, but the total released by a petrol driven car will be far less than the soot and NO2 released by a diesel going the same distance.
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Diesels also release invisible soot - PM 2.5, far more so than petrol engines.
Hey, here's an idea, why don't you try reading the link I posted which points out that this isn't actually true because the soot that gassers produce is so fine we could not even measure it until recently? That will help you waste less time making erroneous statements.
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No matter how many times you post it it won't make it true. In your link, they don't even test petrol cars for soot, just assume that the discrepancy in their models is due to them. Hardly overwhelming evidence.
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People and the industry desperately trying to big up gasoline/petrol are backing the horse and cart. Its days are over. The emissions card is all there is left to pl
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I'm afraid it does. There is an awful lot of NOx and soot that has appeared from somewhere, and the uncomfortable truth is that it isn't all down to diesel vehicles.
I'm more familiar with pollution in cities in Europe, but we've got a good idea of where the NOx comes from, as it can be measured easily from different vehicles. And those measurements show that diesels don't perform nearly as well on the road as they do in the lab (not just VW ones either), whereas the petrol ones do much better http://www.theicct.org/blogs/staff/laboratory-versus-real-world-discrepancies-nox-emissions-eu
Modern petrol/gasoline engines have essentially had to run hotter and become more like diesels to keep up with efficiency. More thorough burning of the fuel means more emissions.
The measurements show the opposite, with NOx for petrol engines going down and down.
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I'm more familiar with pollution in cities in Europe, but we've got a good idea of where the NOx comes from, as it can be measured easily from different vehicles. And those measurements show that diesels don't perform nearly as well on the road as they do in the lab (not just VW ones either), whereas the petrol ones do much better http://www.theicct.org/blogs/s... [theicct.org]
Yes, it's been so easy to measure that it took years for anyone to realise what VW were doing. In fact, in London most of it comes from about 400,000 exempt large diesel vehicles like buses and trucks so that's one easy win. However, we're not going to suddenly run those on petrol because it's uneconomic and would produce far more emissions by burning through more petrol per volume. Like diesels, petrols aren't nearly as 'clean' as anyone would like them to be, not to mention being less efficient. They are
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Yes, it's been so easy to measure that it took years for anyone to realise what VW were doing... I'm afraid after VW none of these studies are really credible in any way.
People realised the basic problem for ages, they just thought it was due to the tests being unrepresentative of real-world driving - which they are, and is the correct explanation for most car manufacturers as far as we know. The studies are as valid as they ever were in terms of the effects they describe, which is that NOx from diesels in the real world is higher than the official test figures say.
Like diesels, petrols aren't nearly as 'clean' as anyone would like them to be,
No, but they're cleaner than diesel, and they're the most readily available alternative for cars. Heavy vehicl
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Posting the same link over and over to support your fallacious conclusion doesn't make it true.
Posting asinine FUD from behind cowardly anonymity doesn't give your comment validity. It does, however, validate me; when the only arguments against my argument come from cowards like you, I come out looking beautiful. Now, drop the ad hominem and explain what's wrong with the citation, or shut your piehole.
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van thats been thrashed all its life it'll start belching black shit out of its exhaust on acceleration (which is barely tested in the MOT)
I always assumed white van man considered this a feature, not a bug and paid their dodgy mate to tune it up to be just-so when it comes to belching black smoke. It's like the thick yet incredibly uniform layer of grime which is so good for writing witty slogans on. I have a working theory that it's actually impossible to curate that by natural means and there's a small
Errr, No (Score:3)
There are many explanations for petrol being less expensive than diesel on the UK. None add up. As the oil price falls that puts ever greater pressure on the fuel that is most costly to produce. No surprise that in the UK a lot of disdain has been thrown diesel's way, along with the no
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Heavily subsidised? LOL - most of the cost of a litre of petrol (and even the hateful diesel) in the UK and Europe is tax that goes straight to the exchequer.
Yes - subsidised. As the oil price goes down, and the price of fuels, it puts far more pressure on the fuel more expensive to produce. Guess who's been squealing recently?
Thankfully there never has been and never will be a 'diesel stage' to our personal transport system.
I'm afraid there already has been and there is. Most of Europe is diesel and a significant proportion of the UK, despite artificial diesel prices.
I'm happy to move from petrol to electric (or hydrogen) powered cars and to leave it to future generations to laugh at the stupidity of burning diesel fuel.
They're going to have to laugh at the last gasp of the petrol burners first. Combustion engines, sadly, are going to be around for some time until a way of producing enough electricity is found w
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The relative price differences between diesel and gasoline vary by country based on which one and how much they tax.
I'm not surprised. (Score:3)
The problem with diesel engines is that to make them just as clean as gasoline engines, they require a combination of diesel particulate filters and a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system to make it easier to remove NOx gases--the combination of the two is NOT cheap, as anyone notes from a US-legal Mercedes-Benz or BMW turbodiesel car. And how well will those systems stand up to the type of demanding usage on a taxicab with its heavy stop and go driving.
I wonder why London Mayor Boris Johnson didn't announce a plan as far back as 2010 to phase out the use of diesel engines on London taxicabs and buses in favor of using compressed natural gas (CNG). Here in the USA, many cities are now mandating buses and taxicabs switch to CNG, and in Asia, CNG have been used for buses and taxicabs for many years.
Attention (Score:2)
The VW scandal has focused attention on a problem we hardly knew about,
Because, prior to the VW news breaking, nobody was looking for some source of excessive NOx emissions that couldn't be accounted for.
Diesel lobby in France (Score:2)
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It would be even nicer if we could just run them on farts and rainbows. After all, that's about as likely to work as suggesting water should be used as a fuel source.
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It would be even nicer if we could just run them on farts and rainbows. After all, that's about as likely to work as suggesting water should be used as a fuel source.
You actually CAN use water as a partial fuel in your diesels... in a way. When the engine is very hot you can inject water mist into the intake. This not only cools the combustion chamber, but as a natural result of the same process it makes power as the water becomes steam and its volume increases. Large-displacement diesels can allegedly make as much as 100HP additional when wide-open and under heavy load, but 50HP is a better estimate for a typical diesel V8. Water injection systems are fairly common on
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Not really. Most rockets these days use solid fuels, kerosene/LOx, hydrazine or other fuels. H2/O2 isn't the most common rocket fuel by a long way.
Re:The real answer... (Score:4, Informative)
What does that mean, kind of like trains. You mean steam locomotives? Here's a hint - steam locomotives weren't powered by steam, they were powered by coal. Kinda like saying I'm driving a piston-driven car.
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What's SI?
Re:Doesn't sound very credible to me (Score:4, Informative)
You have to understand that it is a politician speaking. they open their mouth and out comes random sounds that make good sound bites but often have no bearing on real facts.
That being said, he is half correct in that diesel vehicles should not really be driving in most city centers, the other half is that petrol vehicles should not either.
The distances in such are so short that fully electric or plug in hybrids that will mostly run on electricity in such places are a much better solution.
Further really in tightly built places like London public transportation should be built to cover most travel needs.
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No, it's to with the fact that diesel engines emit a much higher level of particulates which is having a negative impact on health in very high density urban areas like Paris and London.
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No, it's to with the fact that diesel engines emit a much higher level of particulates which is having a negative impact on health in very high density urban areas like Paris and London.
No, no they do not [acs.org], and if you cannot keep up with the news (which we discussed here on slashdot! [slashdot.org]) then you should not make declarative statements. Gasoline engines produce more PM2.5 than diesels, and that's the stuff that cilia can't sweep out of your lungs and thus what's really harmful.
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So, despite that "particulate emissions from petrol cars are so low that they are not routinely measured" [air-quality.org.uk] and can "emit 25 to 400 times more mass of particulate black carbon and associated organic matter ("soot") per kilometer" [stanford.edu] the fact that petrol cars may release twice as much particulate means that they've suddenly caught up?
Pull the other one, it's got bells on. Twice "barely measureable" makes "less barely measureable" and even in the worst case that means that diesel emits 12 to 200 times more. That's
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So, despite that "particulate emissions from petrol cars are so low that they are not routinely measured" and can "emit 25 to 400 times more mass of particulate black carbon and associated organic matter ("soot") per kilometer" the fact that petrol cars may release twice as much particulate means that they've suddenly caught up?
Your ideas are based on outdated conclusions which do not take into effect the linked study.
Anecdotally, the rise of diesel is making buildings grimier than they have been since the smogs of London and Paris were beaten into submission.
That's nothing compared to what gasoline engines are doing to your lungs.
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The linked study explicitly says that potentially petrol cars "must have been" emitting twice as much particulate as previously measured/estimated. As you seem to have forgotten it
Once thought to be minor players, gasoline-burning engines could put out twice as much black carbon as was previously measured, according to new field methods
I pulled the previously measured estimated numbers, doubled them, and they're still far behind the measured diesel ones. Double the gas ones again and they're still behind based on the current measurements although now it's close. How is this difficult to understand?
That's nothing compared to what gasoline engines are doing to your lungs.
That is not a conclusion that you can take from the study you lin
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Whether or not it's true is irrelevant (although it is true by any rational measurement. That petrol is worse than thought does not make it worse than diesel). It's politicians so we expect them to be using 10 year old research to justify decisions that make their constituents happy. It does not require some worldwide conspiracy.
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That's because diesels don't produce Carbon Monoxide, the famous odorless, colourless poison that can build up in confined spaces. But diesels do produce high levels of nitrogen oxides and soot particulates, which while smog-causing do not immediately kill a person unless there is enough of them that they displace all the oxygen.
Diesel emissions can be cleaned up though, and we already have the technology to to it: Urea. This allows the engine to be run very lean, burning the fuel as completely as possib
Any vehicle can (Score:2)
It just depends on how large the tank is. Airliners can fly to australia on a single tank despite being the most fuel guzzling vehicles on the planet after large ships.
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Problem is, he's only one of a number of politicians in a position to push through bans on driving diesel cars in cities.
The city near me is considering this too. I need to write to them and let them know that if my efficient relatively clean diesel gets banned then I can only afford a very old petrol engined car, and since a second car needs to have practical value I'll go for a 4x4. Lets see them argue a 12 year old 4 litre SUV is better for the environment than my existing vehicle..
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diesel was reclassified as Category 1 carcinogen which means definitely causing cancer
Shit. I'd better stop frying my sausages in it.