Dirty, smelly, deathly diesels - illegal soon? (picture of female Royal family members)

[forddeliveryboy]

OK, so diesels chuck out more NOx than saintly-clean* petrols and human-powered vehicles (according to govt tests), but for me it's the modern ones which are most dangerous due to them spewing nano-particle emissions which pass through the lung lining instead of making you cough like good old-fashioned soot particles did. I use old diesels because they're tough, economical and long-lasting, I use petrol engines for revviness (which is awful for emissions). The exhaust aroma is chosen according to the local hotel clientele's food preferences or I can add castor, grapeseed and other exotic oils to enhance or reduce the smell (only noticeable with the six-pot Merc). I've wondered about twin-tanking with primrose oil, for when some 64-plate Audi or BMW-driving youngish female doesn't appreciate being overtaken by a car worth many times less than hers. I wonder if it would have a calming influence? Anyway, this is turning into thread drift before I've begun my rant.

 

I'm seeing loads of examples in journalists' bilge which has the words 'illegal' and 'diesel' close together. The BBC is topping the charts in carefully and subconciously altering the general public perception of anything with the slightest clatter coming from under the bonnet. Word association based on print (and picture) juxtaposition can be an effective way of adjusting public perception, I first noticed it when the BBC reported on anything to do with veg oil being used as road fuel - there were always a couple of 'illegals' in the article. But I don't think the DT was intending this: 

 

 

 

 

Yep, I know Rudolf's engine is lethal, but it's only marginally more so (and sometimes much less so) than the petrol when used appropriately rather than as a form of jewellry or status symbol in a huge city, where surely bikes and/or pubic transport make most sense. Living where I do in the remote North where poverty and isolation are big problems (according to the BBC), you're as likely to be rattled to A&E because of inhaling the NOxes (and other worse stuff) from open fires, woodstoves, pellet boilers (cranked up to max on the RHI), oil boilers and Drax/Ferrybridge as you are from passing farm pickups belching plumes of unburnt cherryade or tourists with Webastos.

 

I use diesel cars because in carefully controlled (well, I use a car and engage my brain) tests, they go up to twice as far on a gallon of fuel as a similar petrol car does. Which has to be good for the air, especially when it's mainly waste veg they're burning (massively less HC and SO2, not to mention the lack of chemical cocktail which is added to pump diesel). Sure, there's an anti-diesel brigade on this forum - but many of us use what works best so old diesels are much loved if there's something heavy in the back or on the trailer, like half a tree or a fatcat dressed like the country Lord who's got stuck in his new Range Rover at the end of a day's killing.

 

So is VW's almighty exposure going to expose the rest of the industry and bring about the demise of the diesel car and in turn make life hard for those who live in the sticks and rely on old diesels, especially veg-able ones? After all, we're forced to breathe the colossal levels of emissions from burning things in Northern power stations which light up and power our vast cities in the genteel South.

 

Sales should return to early 90s levels for sure, diesels should be sturdy workhorses once more rather than fragile racehorses but what concerns me is that government rarely stops once the ball is rolling - will the two words 'old' and 'diesel' add together to make 'illegal' and conjure up rusting piles of smoke-emitting clunkers, bringing about punitive tax so that only farmers and the landed gentry can afford them?

 

Perhaps the future for those of us who are self-sufficient, fuel-wise, means buying an EV and an old Lister, running the thing on oil to charge up the car overnight. Or prove the manufacturers wrong by fixing a towbar and trailering the old Lister behind me. It would be several times more green than any grid-powered EV. And I wonder what emissions are like from a petrol engine running on woodgas...  hmmm, surely they can't be as bad as a wood-stove? Can you MoT a car with a trailer attached?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw7rJMNqk4o

[mercrocker]

This is what happens when engineering is taken over by pseudo-eco political stupidity.  It won't stop with diesel engine vehicles.   I suggest that if anybody has anything they enjoy driving or doing for fucks sake do it Now.  Lots.

[PiperCub]

I'd agree with your point that the future is likely to be rather more carthorse rather than racehorse. You can't keep getting something for nothing, ie: increased performance etc without a payback somewhere else.

 

The ever increasing 'Euro' standards driven by headline seeking governments isn't helping here, it makes it worse as manufacturers have to keep up with these increasingly unobtainable demands while also making sure their cars perform well enough so people'll want to buy them. That's the problem, I'm sure they could make diesels very clean but they'd probably be really dull and awful to drive and your average Audi/Beemer etc type wouldn't be interested so they'd never sell in the same numbers - like it was up to the start of the 90's.

 

Like you, I use an older diesel, a 406 with it's simple 1.9TD XUD motor for hack work with two petrols (205GTi & MX5 NA) for enjoyment. Ironically, both of these barely register on the MoT emissions test meters, esp. the 5. This is the best of both worlds for me, I appreciate the power etc of modern super diesels on the rare occasion I get to drive one, but would be scared of the impending/potential costs, like old saying goes -  it's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.

[Pete-M]

Check out 3-nitrobenzanthrone.

[anonymous user]

 

 

The ever increasing 'Euro' standards driven by headline seeking governments isn't helping here, it makes it worse as manufacturers have to keep up with these increasingly unobtainable demands while also making sure their cars perform well enough so people'll want to buy them.

The other side of this is the new super regs mean those who run commercial vehicles have to "upgrade" to be allowed to use them in certain cities. Presumably having to build all these new vehicles that comply is the point of it all. Can you still pay the fine if it doesn't comply? Although I have never understood how that then makes it alright, unless for every fine they get someone to go around spraying some sort of particulate eating fabreeze to clean it up.

[garethj]

Look on the bright side - if the bad press for diesels continues it will drive down prices so those who fancy 40mpg from an old Volvo can knock themselves out, it'll be those who pay company car tax based on emissions that have to change first.  Probably to something like this

[colnerov]

NOx is a product of direct injection, petrol or diesel. So sticking with indirect diesel engines is better, but they produce more CO2 unless you keep on top of maintenance. VED bands are based on CO2 emissions. But NOx is going to become the bogeyman soon.

[forddeliveryboy]

Until the grid is >95% renewable energy powered and ICEs run on synthesised methane made from surplus RE then anything energy hungry is poisoning us one way or another. Not least the politicians who trouser brown envelopes for promoting nuclear power and 'investing' in more and more (foreign) gas power. Which helps our balance of payments deficit no end. Still, tcmits always pays - on time with his bills and in time with his health.

 

I make sure I enjoy every bit of forecourt fuel as much as possible, given only around 10% of the cost goes on making you move. Braking is particularly expensive. Those buying EVs have a lot of sense - around 7 or 8 times that goes into motion. Shame they're so polluting.

[lisbon_road]

That film of the old Audi running on wood is fantastic.

 

This is burning wood in a shortage of oxygen, right?  I think so.  Leads to carbon monoxide and hydrogen, I think.  So if much of that gets out, the emissions are going to be incredible.

 

Is that right?

[Bren]

I have owned a vauxhall Royale with an absolutely knackered solex carb that returned mpg in single figures.

 

The exhaust fumes had to be seen to be believed - it was like a smokestack at a Ukrainian steelworks.

 

Who knows if there will be a diesel scrappage scheme in future? The way this government is heading nobody will be able to afford a car, never mind a new one.

[Pillock]

I assume the government want people to get into crippling debt, I don't know why but they seem to.

1990s. Diesel is great! Yay! Everyone buy a diesel, let's make diesel cheaper

2000s. Encourage the sale of diesel cars. Don't say anything but watch 8 out of 10 Audis leave the dealer with a TDI badge on the back.

2015. Potential for a diesel scrappage scheme?

 

If they're so bad, they should have been taxing them higher for new registrations, slowly weaning the public off them without penalising those who have already bought into them. 

[Vin]

You'll never get rid of the diesel engine though, it's indespensible.

 

I posted this in the News 24 thread when it was on.

 

It's a good watch.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06csy8c/timeshift-series-15-3-the-engine-that-powers-the-world

 

[Junkman]

I assume the government want people to get into crippling debt, I don't know why but they seem to.

 

That shouldn't be too difficult to figure out, no?

Hint: It's called "Social Engineering". The end game is to have everyone inside the invisible prison.

And that's what this "green" horseshit is all about, nothing else.

They give as much about The Planet as VW or any other NWO corporation who's in bed with them.

What they want is us being the slaves, and them ruling us.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I'm all in favour of swapping my modern diesel for an old Lister

Never let it be said I'm not willing to do my bit for the planet

[forddeliveryboy]

Govts are promoting EVs (tax free fuel and £5k of taxpayer's money if you've a spare five figures to blow on one) not because they're green (they're not) but because they're worried there's not enough inexpensive liquid fossil fuel left for Big Pharma and Big Ag to use (they're linked and often under one big corporate roof, you eat food and drink water laced with their chemicals and increase your chances of need another sort of chemical to keep you 'healthy'). As far as government thinking goes, it also makes the individual even more reliant on centralised services - no more bobbing down to a small service station to pop a tenner of petrol in to keep you mobile till payday, it's pay-in-advance by direct debit to a massive corporation, thankyouverymuch.

 

The whole green thing is proving more and more to be utter horseshit as JM says - the premium we're all paying on our utility bills has been going to farmers to plant solar panels on productive land (farmers who are already massively subsidised by the taxpayer) and most recently to large houses in the sticks which can afford £20k+ of central heating installation, which through the RHI (renewable heat initiative) will be payed for the whole caboodle and then some including the cost of all the fuel - it's cash for every kWh used. Rather than insulate, Hugo and Sophie are turning up the heating as high as possible. For 20 years. It's not even renewable or sustainable energy - woodchips require a lot of electricity to make. They used to pay £100 per trailerload of logs from a local woodman. That is sustainable.

 

The best* argument/policy is to build new nuclear power stations and employ the Chinese to build them, having accepted their industrial espionage is so good that rather than have them looking in from the outside, we'll have them within. It does make independent nuclear warheads look a little unneccesary, though, if China builds our nuclear power.

[dieselnutjob]

I wasn't convinced about EV cars, but having read this (it's a long read) I think that I might have been wrong

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-change-your-life.html

The interesting thing about this article actually the economics of the car industry and how Tesla are against huge odds being really disruptive.

[UltraWomble]

EV would be fine if they can get the range sorted - then you have people who want to tow caravans... 

 

Its not perfect, like many things in life its a compromise. Battery tech still has a long way to go before it will have the flexibility of dino powered tech. I dare say it will get there at some point.

 

Bit pissed off that the Picasso has landed me with a box of neutrals as I was hoping that if they did do a DERV scrappage scheme Mother Womble could chop that in for a new whatevermachine.

[fred]

[UltraWomble]

Probably.

 

Diesel gets hammered - eventually people buy petrol /LPG or EV cars....

 

Petrol then gets hammered... Cycle repeats.

 

EV - at some point someone is probably going to come up with a new battery tech that is more efficient and less polluting to make, so existing EV get hammered for being less than eco-friendly...Cycle repeats.

 

We all buy horses.... People bemoan the increase in methane output contributing to global warming and the need for more crop growth to feed horses - we get told to trade them in for walking boots and glue production goes mad....Cycle repeats.

 

What's the answer? Fucked if I know, but Im ready for global warming

September 23rd by Marty Hopkirk, on Flickr

[fred]

I find it all quite the oxymoron - Governments up in arms about emissions - But kinda forget the amount of diesel being chundered about sending fecking battleships here there and everywhere

dropping bombs here there and everywhere - and generally spending money willy nilly on silly wars here there and everywhere - sorry

Get off me box now

[forddeliveryboy]

I wasn't convinced about EV cars, but having read this (it's a long read) I think that I might have been wrong

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-change-your-life.html

The interesting thing about this article actually the economics of the car industry and how Tesla are against huge odds being really disruptive.

 

Well-worded article even if it does read like a mega-sales-pitch, but it's written for America where 15-20 mpg is quite acceptable and commonplace, so even any EV running on grid electricity is likely to be more efficient than gasoline transport. In the UK/Europe where something like an Octavia will easily average 55mpg, things are different. The author is so taken with EVs he seems convinced that a grid → 95%+ RE will happen sooner than later - which is wishful thinking, no more. But most of his reasoning is based around this false hope.

 

A BMW i3 (best EV, imo) can go about 85 miles on 18.8kWh. (One bar of an electric fire is 1kW, so a 3 bar fire on for 6 hours is 18kWh of energy used). 1 litre of diesel contains about 10kWh of energy, so a gallon = 45.46kWh.

 

The maths. Grid electricity generation efficiency is around 50%, see the images below. There's also the ~75% energy efficiency in the battery charger and the battery itself. I'll ignore (in)efficiencies of extracting the fuel and distributing the electrical energy, in the same way as we ignore energies required to extract and distribute oil, diesel and petrol.

 

85 miles in the i3 consumes 18.8kWh which is 18.8/10 = 1.88 litres of fuel. 1.88 litres * 1/(0.5*0.75) = an equivalent of 5 litres of fuel used.

 

85 miles in the 55mpg Octavia means 85/55 = 1.54galls or 7 litres of fuel.

 

71% (5/7) of the energy is required by the traditional car, which uses no energy recovery and apart from the electronics running the engine, uses tech which hasn't been revised much since before WW2. An Octavia will sit at motorway speeds for hours without refueling, travel at 120mph+, carry twice the luggage with a full load of passengers and tow over a tonne.

 

With the same engine working as a generator and an electric motor transmission (like an Ampera/Volt), the economy would be around 10-20% better even without braking energy recovery and storage, for which supercapacitors are well suited. So then you'd have a diesel-fuelled (no range anxiety) car which was faster, bigger and probably more economical than an i3. Why aren't they being made? Probably because taxation is skewed towards battery cars with 'zero emissions' - because govts want petrol and diesel to be conserved, not because battery EVs are more efficient or any less harmful to the environment, as things are.

 

 

[Des]

I've never been exactly a fan of diesels, but in recent years have come to especially loathe the fuckers as the fumes have become so very foul. The point of diesel used to be a longevity and economy thing, sadly the economy seems to have been squandered on enabling the unworthy masses to run evermore oversized bloated great monsters. I worry that LPG might become the new diesel, at the moment I enjoy a cheap and good fuel along with a small clique of weirdos, not popular enough to be supported, any normals trying it cop scorched digits, if the great unwashed switch on to it all at once, in their special sheeplike fuck it up like they fuck everything up way, the price will go silly wank and I'll have to move on, up my compression ratio to run on printer ink / Don Perignon or something.