[Watsey]

Producing fuel (including food), the means to capture/store it, and transforming the energy it contains into an output always produces some form of waste. It's a question of which waste or impact is less/least damaging.

Electric vehicles are politically and publicly convenient because the pollution and damage are hidden from view.

Here's a picture of a non-polluting, non-damaging, lithium mine that produces raw materials for lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles like the Prius. I think the supertankers used for transporting the raw materials to the factories (quite often on the other side of the world), and the heavy fuel oil that powers their engines, are tucked away just over the horizon.

[335dJa]

As highlandpete says, burning any fossil fuel is absurd. We are 100+ years on from its discovery and we still use this archaic method for transport and power. There are other means, we're just not allowed it yet....

[....,,,,..,,..]

Originally Posted by 335dJa

As highlandpete says, burning any fossil fuel is absurd. We are 100+ years on from its discovery and we still use this archaic method for transport and power. There are other means, we're just not allowed it yet....

eH?

What other means and not allowed it yet?

[dazzapb]

Originally Posted by TouringPleb

A surprising number of people get them removed especially when the cars out of warranty. If they only do short urban journeys the filter clog up as they don't generate enough heat.

Rather than take their car for a good 30 min blast and clear it, some people in their wisdom just have the filters removed..

I understand at last this would now be a MOT failure

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/n...iculate-filter

[dazzapb]

Originally Posted by Brigand

eH?

What other means and not allowed it yet?

I would agree and say there are other power sources such as nitrogen that haven't been pursued - its the TPTB and lobbying in govt as black gold makes too much money. And the associated 'green' economy.

[Bricktrix]

Originally Posted by Brigand

eH?

What other means and not allowed it yet?

Mr Fusion?? BTTF

[Sussex_G20]

Black gold helps me afford a nice car , please everyone go fill up and drive very up economicallyy

[Rich9600]

Did I get this wrong? The article seems to imply that Diesel engined vehicles actually produce as much CO2, on average, as petrol engined ones.

Following on from this it also seems to imply that as diesel offers greater fuel efficiency (lower CO2), we are driving large diesel cars instead of smaller petrol powered cars with comparable emissions.

It seems to completely ignore the owners ability to make a rational choice on their vehicle class and fuel type. The result being that emissions linked taxation has encouraged people to drive a large diesel car when it is not suited to their usage. To some extent some low mileage consumers will have bought an unsuitable diesel. The article even states that pollution and filter effect is worse on short runs.

I personally think diesel still has a place in the fuel system, as long as we use fossil fuels. However, I think consumer education is required.

Members on here have generally made an informed choice. Though, the general motoring public is not as engaged or aware of the advantages.

I'm a boundary case, so the chances are that likely EU and UK legislation and taxation will take me back to petrol, unless my usage changes.

340i, 330i or 330e...

Now, do I change in March 2017 to avoid the premium car tax, or wait and see what they do to fuel types and combinations taxation?

Will there be a 330e touring?...

[335dJa]

Originally Posted by Brigand

eH?

What other means and not allowed it yet?

I don't know, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
If you believe we still run on 100 year old tech because we haven't found a better viable alternative, you'll believe anything.
As I said, we're just not allowed it yet. Too much money involved.

Originally Posted by dazzapb

I would agree and say there are other power sources such as nitrogen that haven't been pursued - its the TPTB and lobbying in govt as black gold makes too much money. And the associated 'green' economy.

Exactly

[SkyJawa]

Make a petrol car with the co2, 0-60 and mpg of a diesel and there's no longer a need for the Devils fuel!

[vigalent]

I have a Dutch friend that works for Shell and they're working on a direct diesel fuel replacement derived from natural gas.

It reduces the pollutants significantly and needs no additives. Aimed directly at the transport market.

You heard it here first

[Consett Mag]

Originally Posted by vigalent

I have a Dutch friend that works for Shell and they're working on a direct diesel fuel replacement derived from natural gas.

It reduces the pollutants significantly and needs no additives. Aimed directly at the transport market.

You heard it here first

And aren't Audi working a 'green diesel' made from CO2 and water? It's not as polluting??

If the suggestion to ditch diesel came from urban hippies who want us to walk everywhere, I could at least ignore them, but for BMW owning petrolheads to ask for that, obviously tongue-in-cheek, it's just not funny

[Watsey]

Originally Posted by vigalent

I have a Dutch friend that works for Shell and they're working on a direct diesel fuel replacement derived from natural gas.

It reduces the pollutants significantly and needs no additives. Aimed directly at the transport market.

You heard it here first

...and energy in gaseous form tends to be less energy-dense than energy in liquid form, so you need more of it for the same output, = more CO2 (amongst other things), a fundamental bi-product of combustion (ignoring hydrogen, which produces water as a product of the fuel cell)...

...or, you 'convert' gaseous energy into liquid form but, as we know, changing the state of matter (gas <> liquid <> solid) requires energy to effect the change (examples : the relatively massive amounts of electricity required to produce hydrogen or turning zero Centigrade water into zero Centigrade ice) which thereby weakens the green credentials of the new technology (such as the hydrogen fuel cell)...

Wow. The consumer is so easily fooled.

What happens to the pollutants that have removed ? Are they sent to Room 101 ? Do we need to dig mines for storage ? Create new industries like CO2 carbon capture ?

I love big rumbly in-line sixes but, until solar capture technology is available on an industrial scale, increasing power density and combustion efficiency (i.e. downsizing, more efficient turbocharging) makes a lot more sense than consuming energy in the vain attempt to do a marketing job on energy itself.

Ah, that's better.

[rocketretro]

Asbestos, Leaded fuel now diesel. The writing's on the wall folks.

[TouringPleb]

Originally Posted by dazzapb

I understand at last this would now be a MOT failure

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/n...iculate-filter

As with anything if you know the right people...

[....,,,,..,,..]

Originally Posted by 335dJa

I don't know, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
If you believe we still run on 100 year old tech because we haven't found a better viable alternative, you'll believe anything.
As I said, we're just not allowed it yet. Too much money involved.


Exactly

There is actually a hell of a lot of money spent on some holy grail technology.

http://www.techworm.net/2015/07/boei...et-engine.html

You just have to read geeky magazines etc lol.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/e...ion-jet-engine



Even without diesel or petrol engines, we will still have a huge amount of rigs drilling, still be getting shale oil.

We wear the products from them, use products etc.

[Nick the Greek]

Originally Posted by Rocketretro

Asbestos, Leaded fuel now diesel. The writing's on the wall folks.

And so ends the ugly clatter of a 320d starting first thing in the morning.


And the ugly drone of a 330d accelerating. ....

[creepy coupe]

Originally Posted by Rocketretro

Asbestos, Leaded fuel now diesel. The writing's on the wall folks.

I've never owned a car than ran on asbestos.

[Tengocity]

I think it's fair that the article explores these issues with diesel but it seems crazy to talk about the modern cars as the issue and not mention all the HGVs, buses, taxis, trains, ships, which all absolutely BELCH diesel particulates in to the atmosphere. I don't think I've ever heard of trains and ships with DPFs!

And then there needs to be a debate over what has the biggest impact- increased particulates or increased CO2?

And whilst electric vehicles still need a proportion of fossil fuels to provide their electrical energy those power stations are considerably more efficient and converting the fossil fuel to energy than any car engine is. Alongside the fact that for particulates the place where the emissions takes place is a key factor, hence why a fleet of taxis and buses in London powered by electricity produced elsewhere would be much better for the 8 million people living there than what they have currently.

[HighlandPete]

Originally Posted by Tengocity

I think it's fair that the article explores these issues with diesel but it seems crazy to talk about the modern cars as the issue and not mention all the HGVs, buses, taxis, trains, ships, which all absolutely BELCH diesel particulates in to the atmosphere. I don't think I've ever heard of trains and ships with DPFs!

And then there needs to be a debate over what has the biggest impact- increased particulates or increased CO2?

And whilst electric vehicles still need a proportion of fossil fuels to provide their electrical energy those power stations are considerably more efficient and converting the fossil fuel to energy than any car engine is. Alongside the fact that for particulates the place where the emissions takes place is a key factor, hence why a fleet of taxis and buses in London powered by electricity produced elsewhere would be much better for the 8 million people living there than what they have currently.

I also see the BBC article is trying to bring some of the issues out in the open, for more folks to understand, but to be serious about particulates vs. CO2 we must go much deeper and not try and isolate one segment of transport as the demon. As you say, it is a much wider issue and why I see use of fossil fuel in any IC engine as contributing to the bigger picture.

I worked on a renewables project, a few years back, looking at turbine design for 'tidal' and 'run in the river' energy extraction. This got me into conversation with some very knowledgeable guys. One particularly interesting guy was at the Edinburgh University engineering faculty. On many of the 'energy' related committees, some of which advise the government on energy policy. He was very clear that the key way to sort many of the issues associated with energy, (including pollution) is conservation. We just use too much and waste too much energy.

Problem is, we typically see conservation for the other guy, not ourselves.

Applying energy conservation to urban pollution is a difficult problem to solve, other than simply restricting IC engine use. Idling traffic in congested towns and cities and stop-start driving is the worst way to use IC engines, totally inefficient and causes extra pollution. Makes EV much more attractive on many counts. But that is not a total solution, so easy to just move the problems to some other place.

HighlandPete

[ROCKETRON]

It should be remembered that petrol cars also produce plenty of the small (more dangerous) particulate matter PM 2.5s. The only reason diesels got singled out for particulate filters was because you could see it coming out of the exhaust as large particulate matter in the form of thick smoke and it was assumed that because you couldn't see anything coming out of a petrol exhaust they were clean, it has now been shown that they produce lots of the small PM2.5's that you cant see. The EU6 diesel standard is pretty clean for Nox/PM/CO2 it really is the older lorries and buses that are the problem. I hope we dont all go over to petrol cars,unless we want them, as we will certainly see a lot more co2 and Small PM's than we see now, not counting the large hit of Benzine as you fill up. As electric cars with batteries are still not that practical then the best the government can do is to get as many eu6 diesel/petrols on the road as possible until there is something better out there.
Sorry didn't see the second page of discussion before i wrote the above.