![PM25-LONDON[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/pm25-london1.jpg?quality=83)
London’s Dirty Secret: Pollution Worse Than Beijing’s
Reader Drew H. submits this story.
It’s the law of unintended consequences at work. European Union efforts to fight climate change favored diesel fuel over gasoline because it emits less carbon dioxide, or CO2. However, diesel’s contaminants have swamped benefits from measures that include a toll drivers pay to enter central London, a thriving bike-hire program and growing public-transport network.
Successive governments knew more than 10 years ago that diesel was producing all these harmful pollutants, but they myopically plowed on with their CO2 agenda,” said Simon Birkett, founder of Clean Air in London, a nonprofit group. “It’s been a catastrophe for air pollution, and that’s not too strong a word. It’s a public-health catastrophe.
Europe-wide policy triggered the problem. The “dieselisation” of London’s cars began with an agreement between car manufacturers and the EU in 1998 that aimed to lower the average CO2 emissions of new vehicles. Because of diesel’s greater fuel economy, it increased in favor.
To Pamela Gray:
You wrote:
That’s not funny. In African nations, a strange thing has happened due to the
Western nations devoting so much $$$ to AIDS in Africa. Nations compete for this
largesse. When someone dies, even if they were hit by a bus, the cause of death
is given as “AIDS”. I’m sure you see the parallel.
Well, at least dust masks will help with the unintended consequences while ignoring the trace gases. And they will have to burn even more of it to make up for the new taxes and fees with more work effort and hours of overtime.
I live in London. I have to wipe diesel soot from my window sills and even my hallway skirting board. It always hangs low in the air. In the winter you see it belching from exhausts (mufflers) of gridlocked vehicles and spreading across the pavement (sidewalk) in a three foot high blanket- just the right height for the toddlers being dragged to school to get a really good dose every single day. There will probably be a paper on that in 10 years’ time like the ones in the 70’s linking lead poisoning to living in close proximity to busy junctions.
Bumf.
Oh dear.
9 out of 10 plants agree. petrol over diesel.
9 out of 10 plants agree. …., petrol over diesel.
Dear Bill O’Reilly,
Take a read of this news and pull out of it. You have been hiding from your responsibility for “Looking out for us” by avoiding the whole global warming debate by pretending it is only about clean air and clean water.
Wise up pal.
I’m not sure about that, I’ve heard diesel makes good fertilizer once the light hydrocarbons evaporate.
pete ross your quote:
“The International Association for Research on Cancer (IARC), a sub-association of the World Health Organisation had declared diesel particulates as carcinogenic.”
The above is junk science you cannot live long enough for PM to be a problem. Look at any smoker it takes a smoker a lifetime of smoking to develop lung cancer. A non smoker would have to live 1500 years to take in the equivalent of a smoker’s one year PM exposure from smoking. If you take on average that cancer from smoking takes over forty years and and equivalent PM exposure for a non smoker would be 40 X 1500 = 60,000 I don’t think I going to live quite that long. Again advocacy over science. Oh as a disclaimer I am a sixty one year old asthmatic, whose father died to small cell lung cancer, he was a smoker and it took 45 years of smoking plus other risk factors to cause his cancer. My wife a non smoke whom lived in rural America most of [her] life and did not smoke had the same cancer, she survived. I attribute my wife’s problem to bad genetics both parent had cancer and one died from it, her cancer was definitely not PM exposure. My asthma bad genetics, my mother was an asthmatic also.
I doubt London’s problems are anything unusual, as far as cities go. In Australian state capitals (Sydney and Perth, that I know of, probably the others as well) state buses have been converted to run on natural gas. This is obviously an option for Australia since we have so much gas, not so for UK. Many outback power generators are also diesels converted to run on gas, which includes my new local power station.
RusQ “errrr…
I did convert to diesel coupla years ago – the most current turbos and appropriate catalyst in the exhaust stream, beats petrol (ito bad excressions (you have to drive far enough to get the catalyst at working temperature though)) by a wee bit…
kindly kill me for enjoying the driving experience of a 3l tdi…” Good for you, I’m a fan of diesels too although my current SUV is petrol (the trim level I wanted wasn’t available in diesel at the time, and wife’s allergic to diesel fumes, the smell you get when you get it on your hands- one downside of diesel in Oz is leaky service station filler handles).
That politicians have this sudden urge to limit diesels now after they made them a success, just goes to show how co2 mania leads to irrational politics. However, next year the euro 6 standard is introduced and diesels will become even cleaner, so politicians are now messing politically with a problem that has already been solved technically.
In fact, new “low co2 emission” direct injection petrol cars often emit far more ultra fine particulates than euro 5 diesel cars do: http://m.welt.de/motor/article122357438/Das-lange-verkannte-Risiko-der-sparsamen-Benziner.html
What comes out of my brand new VW diesel looks like water vapor and smells nothing at all!
Up the Smoke Go London.
Travel to capital of hot air politic.
Maggie may the tax inception.
It ain’t worse than Beijing.
http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/m/
PM2.5 is visible if the concentration is high enough as in the photo. Nano particles below PM0.1 are not. Anything below PM 4 is medically dangerous. PM5 and larger is not. The new diesels make large numbers of nanoparticles. Medical effects are still unproven despite speculation, some very reasonable.
Deaths? Show me the bodies. Diesel is cheaper to make than gasoline. It contains less energy per kilo because of lower hydrogen. Gasoline emits more water vapour which is a powerful GHG while CO2 in not.
Making and maintaining a diesel engine takes more energy. Thermo-electric generators on exhaust pipes can charge batteries and run motors. TEGs are mounted on F1 cars this year. There is a lot of room for improvement.
Hey folks, so called “diesel” can be as much as 20% ethanol, but more usually it is only 10% ethanol, and well hey so the cost of your daily bread is increased by another 40%, because the ethanol is made from breadstuffs, grains and suchlike.
……….. buy hey, it’s for the Environment,
so that’s OK then,
nothing to see here,
move along now.
Diesel fuel (or dieseleum, “diesel” is the engine process, not the fuel) does not contain ethanol in any percentage, let alone 20%, at least in Australia. We have some B20 which has 20% additive from waste oils and fats.
Chris R. says:
May 29, 2014 at 2:22 pm
“In African nations, a strange thing has happened due to the
Western nations devoting so much $$$ to AIDS in Africa. Nations compete for this
largesse. When someone dies, even if they were hit by a bus, the cause of death
is given as “AIDS”. I’m sure you see the parallel.”
——————-
And “DUH”, where do you think they get their statistics on “cigarette smoke related illnesses and deaths”?
From the Medical Records that are maintained by Doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc. They count the total number of patients that denoted on their medical questionnaire that they smoke cigarettes and the researchers use that “number” to calculate a percentage ratio of all the yearly deaths and illnesses of each particular type ….. and then claim “cigarette smoke was the cause”.
So, iffen you checked “yes” on your medical questionnaire … and then you “get hit by a bus and killed” ….. you death will surely be included in the “cigarette smoking statistics”.
The next time a Medical provider asks if you smoke cigarettes …. just look them straight in the eye and say ….. “You check me out and then you tell me, ….. you’re the Professional that’s supposed to know those things”.
Thanks for the heads-up. The Ryden battery developed by Power Japan Plus is supposed to be completely recyclable and last ten times longer than conventional lithium-ion batteries. http://www.gizmag.com/dual-carbon-fast-charging-battery/32121/
I appreciate your skepticism. The mantra used to be: There are liars, there are damned liars and then there are battery chemists.
Just because a technology works that doesn’t mean it will be viable. Remember the company that was converting turkey guts to oil. The process did work and it might even be viable if oil were a zillion dollars a barrel. We’ll see about the Ryden battery. My candidate for an important new battery technology is Aquion. It’s just coming to market and batteries have already been shipped. It does appear to be viable for large stationary battery applications like peak shaving. http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/technology-environment-batteries-aquion-katerva-landfills-recycling
How do you pronounce “dieselification” anyway. Say it three times as fast as you can.
Beijing’s AQI is currently c169,
http://aqicn.org/city/beijing/
While London’s is c46.
http://aqicn.org/map/london/
As I recall, Bejing’s AQI has soared to around 700 in the recent past.
One other problem.
London runs some ’emission free’ hydrogen busses. But – and you guessed it – the gas-reforming reaction hydrogen generator is in east London. So all the emissions pumped out by the hydrogen cycle, and therefore these hydrogen busses, is in eastern central London.
I did try to get the ’emissions free’ slogan removed, but have not succeeded. I did succeed with the Nissan Leaf adverts, which now say ‘without an exhaust pipe’.
R
Mortality stats issued by the ONS show that Life expectancy in “air polluted” London is greater than any other area of the UK.
One thing I do not understand: one of the damaging health effects of localised NOx (in particular NO2), is the creation of surface ozone which damages lungs.
But looking at maps of London NO2 at http://www.londonair.org.uk/london/asp/annualmaps.asp?species=NO2&LayerStrength=75&lat=51.5&lon=-0.1&zoom=11 and then comparing them with ozone maps from the same source http://www.londonair.org.uk/london/asp/annualmaps.asp?species=O3&LayerStrength=75&lat=51.5&lon=-0.1&zoom=11 it seems that major roads have higher NO2 levels then neighbouring areas, but that the major roads have lower ozone levels. Perhaps what is causing one to be high is also causing the other to be low.
Isn’t the WORSE “greenhouse gas” methane?
And isn’t the largest emitter of methane bovine flatulence?
What are the Utopians going to do about that? No milk for you, baby! No steak for you, daddy. No McD’s for the family outing! Gas-X for cows? Marie had it right: Let them eat cake.