Exhaust emissions

[forddeliveryboy]

Three questions/points.

 

Who thinks measuring these is a big con, part of a bigger 'Green' method to extract more tax through a variety of means, not least by making existing products redundant before they're worn. And ensuring the new ones last even less well, to aid new sales.

 

I see there's a £10 levy for diesels entering London due to come in soon, so presumably those struggling on a tight budget with an old 106 will be hit pretty hard and have to sell cherished old mota for new unknown shite, which will cost to put right, Whereas those who can afford to beat the system will simply swap their massive diesel for a massive petrol.

 

Once most of London has electric transport, they'll have washed their hands of pollution, in their heads, casually passing it on to the rest of the country. Given only around 10% of leccy is the safe stuff - solar, wind, hydro - and the rest either filthy coal, Russian gas or nuclear, are EVs really the answer?

[DSdriver]

Yep, once again we've been conned proper. In the old days the only diesels were trucks, buses and taxis and they were slow and dirty. So why did everyone believe them when they said diesel cars were the way to go? I have never owned (or driven) a diesel but am yet to kill my first nun or kitten unlike all youn social pariahs out there with your filthy stinking diesels*.

Never believe anything you are told by anyone in Parliament, banking or pensions.

/rant.

 

*I may have exaggerated slightly

[Asimo]

 are EVs really the answer?

 

They are an answer to exhaust emissions. Running a spark ignition engine on Hydrogen is another. 

 

The worst pollution won't change at all however, having large heavy objects wizzing about at ground level, that is what ruins cities.

[dollywobbler]

DS Driver - blame Citroen. They made good diesels that were actually pleasant to drive - more so than some of the petrol-engined equivalents. 

 

EV does have a future, but I do share concerns about where the electricity comes from. That said, if more people had photovoltaic solar panels at home to charge their cars, or if they had access to solar charging stations for city folk, that'd be a good thing surely?

 

Bring back the trolley bus I reckon as well. Combustion engines are just hugely wasteful in a city environment and buses must surely account for a lot of in-city polution.

[jonny69]

Three questions/points.

 

Who thinks measuring these is a big con, part of a bigger 'Green' method to extract more tax through a variety of means, not least by making existing products redundant before they're worn. And ensuring the new ones last even less well, to aid new sales.

No. Because otherwise all cars would be kicking out overly rich blue spoke like a worn out Escort in the 1980s. The air was shit to breathe then and it's not actually too bad now, despite there being a LOT more cars on the road.

 

I see there's a £10 levy for diesels entering London due to come in soon, so presumably those struggling on a tight budget with an old 106 will be hit pretty hard and have to sell cherished old mota for new unknown shite, which will cost to put right, Whereas those who can afford to beat the system will simply swap their massive diesel for a massive petrol.

Seen the crap that comes out of most diesels? I was only thinking the other morning, while I was repeatedly being engulfed in black smoke in the stop-start traffic, that I was surprised that nobody had picked up on the fact that cars have been emissions tested for years now, but yet diesels are able to get away with producing a LOT of air pollution.

 

Now, I'm not against diesels, I'm just very surprised that there is so little pollution control on them. Almost all diesels kick out a load of soot and PM10 and PM5 particulate matter, even new brand ones. Part of my work is categorising the health effects of nano particles which have some pretty major cumulative health implications. PM5 is a nano particle and it's kicked out in huge quantities by diesel motors.

 

Walk down Oxford Street where it's 99% buses and taxis and you'll see why London is doing it. It's even been noticeably improved by just having the hybrid buses which don't sit there idling.

[forddeliveryboy]

They are an answer to exhaust emissions. Running a spark ignition engine on Hydrogen is another. 

 

The worst pollution won't change at all however, having large heavy objects wizzing about at ground level, that is what ruins cities.

 

Only those creating the problem would benefit, simply passing the pollution on elsewhere, for so long as 80%+ of our grid's electricity is produced using filthy and dangerous means. I completely agree regarding the air travel problem, but it's possible that the UK's economy will come to rely on this even more in the future as tourism from distsant wealthy nations becomes a mainstay of our economy.

 

 

No. Because otherwise all cars would be kicking out overly rich blue spoke like a worn out Escort in the 1980s. The air was shit to breathe then and it's not actually too bad now, despite there being a LOT more cars on the road.

 

Seen the crap that comes out of most diesels? I was only thinking the other morning, while I was repeatedly being engulfed in black smoke in the stop-start traffic, that I was surprised that nobody had picked up on the fact that cars have been emissions tested for years now, but yet diesels are able to get away with producing a LOT of air pollution.

 

Now, I'm not against diesels, I'm just very surprised that there is so little pollution control on them. Almost all diesels kick out a load of soot and PM10 and PM5 particulate matter, even new brand ones. Part of my work is categorising the health effects of nano particles which have some pretty major cumulative health implications. PM5 is a nano particle and it's kicked out in huge quantities by diesel motors.

 

Walk down Oxford Street where it's 99% buses and taxis and you'll see why London is doing it. It's even been noticeably improved by just having the hybrid buses which don't sit there idling.

 

In the 80s, there were far fewer diesels. Petrol engines with rudimentary control of injection and ignition caused terrible pollution, as did all those brands with nasty engines which wore far too easily and spewed engine oil smoke beyond 80,000 miles. 

 

Am I right or wrong to think that the nano-particle is a result of the much greater control of diesel exhaust emissions? Isn't the anti-foaming and flow-enabling additive silicone a rather nasty thing once burned and spewed out of an exhaust, too? I'd be interested to hear more of your research, jonny69.

 

Personally speaking, I'd choose to progressively discourage road-going diesels from an air quality perspective (especially big 4x4s and buses), stop-start public services could easily run on spark-ign engines tuned for low-down torque and with regen braking. The two engines have merged their technologies and it's the SI which is now the simpler and cleaner of the two. Back in the 80s and 90s where we all live with our cars, good diesels were often better than the petrol equivalent.

 

If we had a thought-through transport policy, then much more freight would be by rail and car makers ought to be 'encouraged' (ie forced) to produce ever-more frugal machines over the next twenty years. We have gone backwards, engineering-wise, over the last 35 years. Unless your only experience is of Fords and Vauxhalls.

 

 

Having said all that, it would be the ultimate hypocrisy to carry on building new nuclear power stations, burning coal and biomass (ie chopping down forests the size of Wales every year, all over the world, simply to please the EU) and allowing diesel buses, trains and coaches while penalising/preventing private users from burning oil. But of course, the motorist has proved himself to be a very easy target.

 

I'd like to see a return of steam power generators alongside hydrostatic propulsion and storage for larger vehicles, tiny ICE generators and capacitor/battery storage for smaller ones. If nothing else, something needs to be done about the ridiculously overweight, unnecessary powerful, clumsy, rubbery leviathons which clutter up our roads at the moment. As well as being massively polluting, they're bloody awful to use.

[Guest Lord Sward]

Now they've got us all into diesels and ratcheted up the cost of the filthy fuel, they're going to sting us to use them on the basis that diesel fumes and both vile and cancerous.  No kidding?  Who didn't know that?  Its yet another so called 'green' inventive/con.  Like lowering speed limits on motorways for 'air quality'.  The only thing that is 'green' is the gullible public for tolerating this shit.

[PiperCub]

Sadly that's it in a nutshell! If you found a way of running our engines on grass then they'd encourage us initally ('cos it's green - no pun intended) to make lots of good press for them then after a couple of years fuck us with a tax on grass once we've started to depend on it.

 

There's a school of thought which says one of the reasons the tax keeps going up is it's to compensate for the lower revenues generated by fuel sales overall as cars get more efficient and use less. Hard to say if this is the case or not, more likely motorists are the easy target as they are a captive audience and have no choice since public transport  (outside the independent colony of London) is utterly dismal & useless - thanks to the government.....

[forddeliveryboy]

Well, I heat the house with grass from our garden and a couple of neighbours'. There's not much which grows which doesn't burn, when dried. I know a couple of guys on the vegoilforum considered wood gas when used veg prices went silly a few years ago.

 

The (current) law regarding fuel taxes only relate to fuel which is liquid at ambient. So even a mineral fuel would theoretically be tax free for use in your car, on the road. Steam cars are the way forward!

[catsinthewelder]

How would you suggest that the govenment convinces people to drive around less?  The roads are congested and the fuel is running out so they need to try something.

 

London is always going to be hit hardest as it's residents have the most alternatives (and it would grind to a halt very quickly if they all tried to drive at once).  I realise that it's tricky to carry a weeks shopping on the bus but compare that to the fun of getting a bus anywhere in the sticks after 6pm or even booking a taxi at short notice round here (you often can't).

[Guest Lord Sward]

How would you suggest that the govenment convinces people to drive around less?  

 

Why should we drive around less?  

 

Maybe the Government should lead by example and abolish all cars & vans for public departments & officials?

 

As for oil running out, congestion increasing, air quality falling, its all lies/spin/bullshit to invoke fear, increase taxes and ultimately reduce scum mobility.   

 

Get out there and revolt for your life.

[Squire_Dawson]

The sooner stinking diesel cars and vans are removed from our cities the better. The diesel engine is held to be economical on longer journeys and for those who do higher mileages. In the city, whether petrol or diesel, the roads are clogged with cars (often carrying only one or two people) and vans which under the conditions rarely exceed 20 MPH. There are several motor-free alternatives for city travel: walk, cycle, electric vehicle or even a return to the horse and cart.

 

Electric cars have been around since the internal combustion engine if not before; the only problem now is the price and complexity of them which in part is due to them being choked with unnecessary shit as standard that the moronic general public has become accustomed to and now 'demands'.

[dollywobbler]

Horse and cart? I think you'll find that London has had emission problems to deal with before the motor car had even been invented. They were literally in it.

[Squire_Dawson]

But we could harness the methane for power generation and spread the manure on our fields instead of harmful soil-depleting fertiliser. It's a win-win scenario.

[Jim Bell]

Don't go to London.

Environmentalism begins at home.

[New POD]

As an Ex-employee of Garrett (Now Honeywell Engine Boosting), who developed the BEST variable nozzle Turbo for diesels, and having spent 2 years putting in assembly lines to cope with the MASSIVE demand, across Europe, with help from sister sites in France, Italy, and Romania, I can safely say that putting a fuckoff big turbo on a 16V diesel, giving it direct injection, at very high pressures, and getting rid of the lag, with massive amounts of mid range torque was probably an interesting technical dead end, which car buyers, and users all loved, because it got them decent fuel economy, and unheard of driving experience. 

Now Ford have lead the way with the Petrol Eco-boost, dumping Garrett's Turbos for Continental, who had never before made a turbo, which offers users, turbo diesel type torque from a smaller lighter package, it might be the start of another 15 years of going in another direction. Eventually when they develop instant charging for EV's we'll go in another direction, but eventually, it'll be electric self drive individual pod's

[forddeliveryboy]

I think the ICE will be around for ages and ages, it'll just continue to get smaller and increasingly in spark ignition form with turbo(s) as necessary. Eventually decoupled from the power-train, working just as a generator as in the Volt, just smaller.

[Dave_Q]

It's basically down to euro emissions targets. 



The last few Euro emission targets have been mainly decreasing NOx with particulate matter staying at the same level.

 

A diesel with EGR and a catalyst has low NOx emissions so these have been promoted by governments and car makers in order to meet targets.

Car tax by CO2 emissions will always favour the dizzler due to their increased volumetric efiiciency.

 

Now with the onset of Euro 6 particulate matter is being targeted. In a diesel increased use of EGR to reduce combustion temps and decrease NOx increases particulate matter.....

 

The aftertreatment for dizzlers is getting so complicated that it can make up 30% of the engine cost. This will probably end up making diesels in passenger cars uneconomical and we'll all be back in petrol cars again.

 

 

Until some sort of serious advancement in energy storage makes electric vehicles worthwhile.

[forddeliveryboy]

It's basically down to euro emissions targets. 

 

 

The last few Euro emission targets have been mainly decreasing NOx with particulate matter staying at the same level.

 

 

So am I getting this graph right... in 1993 diesels polluted most of Europe, whereas now it's just a little bit of Spain?

[Guest Lord Sward]

Specifically DAF 95 DayCabs I think the chart is saying.

[Inspector Morose]

We're slowly getting euro 6 machines in the bus world. I was over at Alexander Dennis in Gilford last year while they were developing their euro 6 double deck. The after treatment filled about two thirds of the rear wall of the bus. The heat generated was a major problem for them too and the bus had to have grilles and fans everywhere just to stop it from setting fire to itself.

 

Trolleybuses are the answer for urban areas where there isn't enough traffic for a tram line. For longer routes bi mode Trolleybuses used to work well in Europe where in towns they run under the wires but out of town they switch to an on board Diesel engine. Of course this would mean spending money on an infrastructure. We're British. It's not the done thing to do that.

[forddeliveryboy]

Agree on the Trolleybuses. Decent onboard energy recovery and storage could make an ICE for emergencies only. Bloody minimal infrastructure costs, compared with railways and trams.

 

Although I'm all for clean air, isn't there a danger all we're doing is sweeping the real pollution further and further under the carpet. The smogs in the 50s promoted electric fires, but few consider how the electricity is made or how inefficient the process is, in the UK. It's going the same way with transport - and debates over on renewable energy forums have often made it clear that something like an Octavia diesel is no more polluting than a Nissan Leaf, no matter how enthusuastic Robert Llewellyn is. And there is massive scope for improving efficiency.

 

Use less (or use solar, wind, tide and invest in energy storage) rather than make the pollution go further away, or less visible. Which is the beauty of nuclear power - nobody can see radiation or prove their cancer was prompted by it. Not when there's already so many other causes of cancer in other forms of pollution. Perfect result for government - the public doesn't see any pollution in the air, so believes it's clean. And they have total control over your energy supply, for home and transport.

[Inspector Morose]

Stupid fact no 967. Trolleybuses are not buses in the eyes of the law in this country. They are light rail and need an act of parliament for any routes to be implemented. Ask me how I know?! As for being minimal costs? It's still bloody expensive stuff, Trolleybus systems although you can still buy off the shelf in this country nearly all the line equipment needed for a route.

 

In bus tems, batteries cannot provide enough storage for any great length of running without major compromises with weight/passenger capacity. Capacitors are even worse, they are only good for providing short bursts of high power not a prolonged output. Hybrids are being developed by Scania using capacitors but they're the only manufacturer to do so as yet and they still haven't got one to work reliably yet.

[jonny69]

I'd be interested to hear more of your research, jonny69.

We're writing the European CEN standard for how to apply life cycle assessment (LCA) to nano materials. I am an environmental life cycle assessment specialist, I have a MSc in the subject and I've spent most of my scientific career specialising in it. I also work on the next generation of LCA type assessments which is LCSA. So when I read the incorrect environmental tripe you tend to find on car forums, I often find it quite hard to bite my tongue; however, I learned a long time ago to keep my mouth shut about it. I bit this time.

 

So let's put a few things straight...

 

Lifetime CO2 emissions for an electric car are lower than those for a petrol or diesel. This includes ALL life cycle stages from raw materials to end of life and it's based on the current UK energy mix for the electricity. I have never seen a correctly put together LCA that disagrees with this. Even if you do it on the most basic level full of assumptions, it still agrees. If it doesn't, there is fundamentally something wrong or the author has deliberately set out to mislead the reader.

 

Lifetime CO2 emissions for a diesel are lower than a petrol. Emissions to air are higher for diesel than petrol.

 

Environmental impact in the use phase of a car is roughly 10x higher than what it took to build the car in the first place. Across a 100k mile lifetime, an improvement of 3-5mpg in a new model is enough to completely offset the build costs of the earlier model. So if you drive the old one further you merely stretch that figure out further to 12x, 15x etc.

 

Emissions from coal, oil and gas power stations are orders of magnitude lower than the equivalent from cars. For a start they run at the limit of what is possible in terms of efficiency. Additionally, the controls on emissions are unbelievably strict and they run soot traps and exhaust scrubbers to remove almost all polluting emissions. These are not practical on vehicles, hence they pollute. So you don't simply move pollution by electrifying a fleet, even after you take into account transmission losses.

 

Why the big interest in CO2 and not other pollutants? It's quite simple: the overwhelming global environmental impact is from energy related activities. Everything we do requires energy, and therefore there is an associated CO2 emission. If you calculate the CO2, you have also calculated a proxy to many other emissions including but not restricted to NOx, SOx and soot.

[DSdriver]

We used to have a log fire in the inglenook to keep us warm in winter. Nowadays we are much more environmentally friendly because we use a biomass converter.

I like this because it didn't cost us anything to make the change and it still uses the same fuel.

[DS20]

Transport is a big contributor to our carbon dioxide emissions, but very little is heard about the huge deforestation problem that makes up about 30% of our carbon dioxide emissions. It's such a big problem that the petrol-diesel-coal powered car debate is a sideshow.

[willswitchengage]

Three questions/points.

 

Who thinks measuring these is a big con, part of a bigger 'Green' method to extract more tax through a variety of means, not least by making existing products redundant before they're worn. And ensuring the new ones last even less well, to aid new sales.

 

I see there's a £10 levy for diesels entering London due to come in soon, so presumably those struggling on a tight budget with an old 106 will be hit pretty hard and have to sell cherished old mota for new unknown shite, which will cost to put right, Whereas those who can afford to beat the system will simply swap their massive diesel for a massive petrol.

 

Once most of London has electric transport, they'll have washed their hands of pollution, in their heads, casually passing it on to the rest of the country. Given only around 10% of leccy is the safe stuff - solar, wind, hydro - and the rest either filthy coal, Russian gas or nuclear, are EVs really the answer?

 

We've lost the war against global warming, but as someone who does live in the town centre I can totally agree with this new tax.

 

Don't really care who does and doesn't use a gas guzzler but I do very much dislike breathing in soot and Nitrogen Oxides, unless I'm at a festival and fancy doing some laughing gas.

 

Nuclear is clean for human purposes, regardless of what Greenpeace say, and together which natural gas (we only began importing Russian gas in tiny quantities last year, and that's only because it's marginally cheaper than North Sea gas - we could in theory turn the taps there on a bit more if push came to shove) which only produces harmless CO2 and water, and renewables, 80% of the UK's electricity mix is clean. Unlike your diesel engine, which is not.

[dollywobbler]

Wow, very interesting reading Jonny, especially about total life emissions for electric cars. I'd assumed the battery nasties counted very much against them, though I guess the action emissions element of that isn't that high. Of course, an electric car might well need a new battery after ten years, but how much oil (engine and fuel) would a car get through in that time?

 

Sadly, it appears to me that what you're saying is that actually we should all get rid of our old chod and buy clean, new things. Should I also remove my Extended Life Vehicle stickers?!

[Asimo]

" Lifetime CO2 emissions for an electric car are lower than those for a petrol or diesel. "

 

I cannot see where the data would come from to lead to the above conclusion since there are so few electric cars and so little experience with those now available.

The cynic in me wants to suggest that they are going to be able to do such small lifetime mileages (because of their range limitation) they won't cause much CO2 from power stations.

 

Don't get me wrong, I would like an electric car; if batteries could approach the energy storage density of liquid hydrocarbons and there was sufficient generating capacity........

[dollywobbler]

It'd be interesting to know what the average lifetime mileage is for a petrol/diesel too. Some cars do astonishing mileage, and like you say, that's only really possible if you're driving something that munches liquid dinosaurs. But how many dino-slurpers do less than 10,000 miles a year? I'm willing to bet quite a lot, especially when you consider how we seem to have an ageing population.