Just like Volkswagen’s scandal, diesel cars perform to standards in lab testing, but not on the road. Real-word driving produces up to 16 times more emissions according to MIT study.
In September 2015, the German automaker Volkswagen was found to have illegally cheated federal emissions tests in the United States, by intentionally programming emissions control devices to turn on only during laboratory testing. The devices enabled more than 11 million passenger vehicles to meet U.S. emissions standards in the laboratory despite producing emissions up to 40 times higher than the legal limit in real-world driving conditions.
Now a new MIT study reports that Volkswagen is not the only auto manufacturer to make diesel cars that produce vastly more emissions on the road than in laboratory tests. The study, published this month in Atmospheric Environment, finds that in Europe, 10 major auto manufacturers produced diesel cars, sold between 2000 and 2015, that generate up to 16 times more emissions on the road than in regulatory tests — a level that exceeds European limits but does not violate any EU laws.
What’s more, the researchers predict these excess emissions will have a significant health impact, causing approximately 2,700 premature deaths per year across Europe. These health effects, they found, are “transboundary,” meaning that diesel emissions produced in one country can adversely affect populations in other countries, thousands of kilometers away.
“You might imagine that where the excess emissions occur is where people might die early,” says study author Steven Barrett, the Raymond L. Bisplinghoff Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. “But instead we find that 70 percent of the total [health] impacts are transboundary. It suggests coordination is needed not at the country, but at the continental scale, to try to solve this problem of excess emissions.”
The 10 manufacturers’ excess emissions may not be a result of unlawful violations, as was the case with Volkswagen. Instead, the team writes that “permissive testing procedures at the EU level and defective emissions control strategies” may be to blame.
The researchers report a silver lining: If all 10 auto manufacturers were to improve their emissions control technologies to perform at the same level as the best manufacturer in the group, this would prevent up to 1,900 premature deaths per year.
“That’s pretty significant in terms of the number of premature mortalities that would be avoided,” Barrett says.
Barrett’s co-authors at MIT are Guillaume Chossière, Robert Malina (now at Hasselt University), Florian Allroggen, Sebastian Eastham, and Raymond Speth.
Tuning the knobs
The study focuses on emissions of nitrogen oxides, or NOx, a type of gas that is produced in diesel exhaust. When the gas gets oxidized and reacts with ammonia in the atmosphere, it forms fine particles and can travel for long distances before settling. When these particles are inhaled, they can lodge deep in the lungs, causing respiratory disease, asthma, and other pulmonary and cardiac conditions. Additionally NOx emissions cause the formation of ozone, a pollutant long associated with adverse health outcomes.
“There are many times the number of diesel cars in Europe compared to the U.S., partly because the EU started pushing diesel for environmental reasons, as it produces less carbon dioxide emissions compared with [gasoline],” Barrett says. “It’s a case where diesel has probably been beneficial in terms of climate impacts, but it’s come at the cost of human health.”
Recently, the EU started tightening its standards for diesel exhaust to reduce NOx emissions and their associated health effects. However, independent investigations have found that most diesel cars on the road do not meet the new emissions standards in real driving conditions.
“Initially manufacturers were able to genuinely meet regulations, but more recently it seems they’ve almost tweaked knobs to meet the regulations on paper, even if in reality that’s not reproduced on the road,” Barrett says. “And that’s not been illegal in Europe.”
Life exposure
In this study, Barrett and his colleagues quantified the health impacts in Europe of excess NOx emissions — emissions that were not accounted for in standard vehicle testing but are produced in actual driving conditions. They also estimated specific manufacturers’ contributions to the total health impacts related to the excess emissions.
The researchers considered 10 major auto manufacturers of diesel cars sold in Europe, for which lab and on-road emissions data were available: Volkswagen, Renault, Peugeot-Citroën, Fiat, Ford, General Motors, BMW, Daimler, Toyota, and Hyundai. Together, these groups represent more than 90 percent of the total number of diesel cars sold between 2000 and 2015, in 28 member states of the EU, along with Norway and Switzerland.
For each manufacturer, the team calculated the total amount of excess emissions produced by that manufacturer’s diesel car models, based on available emissions data from laboratory testing and independent on-road tests. They found that overall, diesel cars produce up to 16 times more NOx emissions on the road than in lab tests.
They then calculated the excess emissions associated with each manufacturer’s diesel car, by accounting for the number of those cars that were sold between 2000 and 2015, for each country in which those cars were sold.
The team used GEOS-Chem, a chemistry transport model that simulates the circulation of chemicals and particles through the atmosphere, to track where each manufacturer’s excess NOx emissions traveled over time. They then overlaid a population map of the EU onto the atmospheric model to identify specific populations that were most at risk of exposure to the excess NOx emissions.
Finally, the team consulted epidemiological work to relate various populations’ NOx exposure to their estimated health risk. The researchers considered four main populations in these calculations: adults with ischemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer.
Overall, they estimated that, each year, 2,700 people within these populations will lose at least a decade of their life due to exposure to excess NOx emissions from passenger cars. They broke this number down by manufacturer and found a wide spread of health impact contributions: Volkswagen, Renault, and General Motors produced diesel cars associated with the most yearly premature deaths, each numbering in the hundreds, while Toyota, Hyundai, and BMW were associated with fewer early deaths.
“The variation across manufacturers was more than a factor of five, which was much bigger than we expected,” Barrett says.
“There’s no safe level”
For each country, the team also compared the excess emissions that it produced itself, versus the number of premature deaths that its population incurred, and found virtually no relationship. That is, some countries, such as Poland and Switzerland, produced very little NOx emissions and yet experienced a disproportionate number of premature deaths from excess emissions originating in other countries.
Barrett says this transboundary effect may be due to the nature of NOx emissions. Unlike particulate matter spewed from smokestacks, such as soot, which mostly settles out in the local area, NOx is first emitted as a gas, which can be carried easily by the wind across thousands of kilometers, before reacting with ammonia to form particulates, a form of the chemical that can ultimately cause respiratory and cardiac problems.
“There’s almost no correlation between who drives [diesel cars] and who incurs the health disbenefits, because the impacts are so diffuse through all of Europe,” Barrett says.
The study ends with a final result: If all 10 manufacturers were to meet the on-road emissions performance of the best manufacturer in the group, this would avoid 1,900 premature deaths due to NOx exposure. But Barrett says ultimately, regulators and manufacturers will have to go even further to prevent emissions-associated mortalities.
“The solution is to eliminate NOx altogether,” Barrett says. “We know there are human health impacts right down to pre-industrial levels, so there’s no safe level. At this point in time, it’s not that we have to go back to [gasoline]. It’s more that electricification is the answer, and ultimately we do have to have zero emissions in cities.”
###
THE PAPER: “Country- and manufacturer-level attribution of air quality impacts due to excess NOx emissions from diesel passenger vehicles in Europe.” https:/
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” There is no safe level ”
I call BS. It’s just like, to me, when they came up with “safe” levels of radiation. It’s so low it is silly, but whatever. The premise must be challenged: There are tradeoffs in living. There is safe and then there is crazy. The ” safe ” puritans have continuously driven acceptable risk and exposure to levels below the natural order or what humans can handle. Of course, women and children hardest hit.. etc.
Is there a safe level for poverty and decline of the standard of living?
Statistics show that strategies to reduce the rate of adverse events in the European Union alone would lead to the prevention of more than 750 000 harm-inflicting medical errors per year, leading in turn to over 3.2 million fewer days of hospitalization, 260 000 fewer incidents of permanent disability, and 95 000 fewer deaths per year.
http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Health-systems/patient-safety/data-and-statistics
Statistics show that strategies to reduce the rate of adverse events in the European Union alone would lead to the prevention of more than 750 000 harm-inflicting medical errors per year, leading in turn to over 3.2 million fewer days of hospitalization, 260 000 fewer incidents of permanent disability, and 95 000 fewer deaths per year.
WHO Regional Office for Europe
Look at any third world country’s standard of living and you have the answer.
I second that
Absolutely correct. The idea of “no safe level” is the linear-no threshold model of toxicity which has NO scientific basis, but which is highly useful as an excuse to impose expensive arbitrary regulation and to control the lives of averyone but the bureaucrats themselves who seem to think their rules don’t apply to them. This study was a complete waste of time and money (Ican’t bring myself to add “talent”) – models for total fleet emissions, models for emissions dispersion, invalid linear-no threshold model for toxicity – I suggest they be paid in model (Monopoly) money.
I agree with Andy and all the above.
The idea that diesel cars cause ‘deaths’ at all by emitting NO and that this can be quantified is BS. Any claim to have ‘identified’ a contribution to premature deaths (not ’caused deaths’ – be careful) is false because these numbers come from an “attribution” process, not a medical diagnosis. It comes from the GBD process which means the global burden of disease. Look it up. This attributes to more than 70 ‘contributing causes’ the shortening of lives of people who died before reaching the age of 86. The different ‘contributions’ are attributed to all early deaths. For example everyone died a little bit by suicide and a little bit by murder and a little bit by smoking weed. It is not a ’cause of death’ investigation. It is useful for national health planning, not coroner’s reports.
But there is much, much more! Here they jump the shark, and make a careful note of this issue:
“If all 10 auto manufacturers were to improve their emissions control technologies to perform at the same level as the best manufacturer in the group, this would prevent up to 1,900 premature deaths per year.”
It would not ‘prevent’ a damn thing! This is outrageous.
“Attributable” in no way means “avoidable”. Just because you claim that someone’s life was shortened by 15 weeks by a lifetime exposure to an NO level 2 ppb above what it otherwise might have been doesn’t mean that taking someone now living, say a newborn baby, and ensuring they do not experience that 2 ppb will have any effect on their lifespan. You just can’t say that. It’s rubbish.
This fact is elementary for public health studies! Good heavens, this sentence proves they do not understand epidemiology, relative risk, or that attribution does not constitute correlation OR causation. It is an assigned risk, not a true cause.
You cannot prove that the new baby will have a similar diet, inoculations, genetic endowment, education, gender, or economic empowerment as the cohort that supposedly experienced the attributed exposure and assigned consequence.
Further, just to nitpick because they richly deserve it, asthma is not caused by NO. No one knows what causes asthma. As the EPA cleaned up the air in the USA since 1970, asthma has increased by 50% per decade. This is an indication that cleaner air causes Asthma, right? And that exposure to NO aggravates it.
The fault, as noted in the article, lies in the test methods, not the manufacturers. The cars meet the standard when tested according to the drive cycle simulated. They do not simulate real driving in an unmodified car. End of short, silly story. They are all complicit.
Some people say that swimming pools cause asthma.
My opinion is that all these exploding children diseases are caused by too many vaccines. Also “shaken baby syndrome”.
And because vaccines are sanctified and worshiped in the modern medical sect, nobody will ever seriously investigate them.
My opinion is that all these exploding children diseases are caused by redefining the diagnostic range and increasing the reporting frequency…….
all that and then add all the frangranced homecare itms and those insane auto operating airfreshener aerosol cans in so many homes and businesses
what the hell is it with people that everythig has to smell of fruit or flowers 24/7?
if they just found that antidepressants enable antibiotic resistace to build in the users
what the hell else does the same?
or combos of a slew of newage crud we imbibe or inhale by choice not default create problems too.
glad Im out in the sticks in an old wooden home with few mod cons;-) and none of the smelly stuff in use.
Some diseases are clearly the fault of Big Medicine. For example, the effects of the radio-iodine in “Chernobyl” cloud in France on the thyroid is actually the effect of chasing down thyroid “anomalies”. (I’m also wondering whether the nuclear catastrophe had a protective effect on thyroid on the people in the narrow area of the east of France where most of the “cloud” rained down.)
The number of French people on thyroid hormonal therapy is absolutely ridiculous. I wished the mainstream would discuss that.
I can rewrite my conclusive remark to: “because high tech medical imagery is sanctified and worshiped in the modern medical sect, few people will ever seriously investigate them.”
(High tech medical imagery is a priori considered extremely objective.)
“exploding children”
Probably very low statistics on this. Unfortuately incurable.
🙂
Crispin in Waterloo = September 21, 2018 at 8:30 pm
Great post, Crispin,
Now I don’t know about the increase in asthmatic diagnoses, ….. but my guess is that the newly discovered disease referred to as COPD has been increasing like 150% per year since it was first diagnosed in the 1990’s.
And what caused COPD, ……… well, they won’t or can‘t tell you.
My learned opinion (verified via an in-home room air filter) is that COPD is the result of inhaling “synthetic fiber particulate” being created as a result of the “wear and tear” of all the home and office products that are made with or covered by “synthetic fibers”.
If one thinks the ”asbestos law suites” involving breathing problems is a “big deal”, …… think how “big of a deal” it would be if the Trial Lawyers figure out that “synthetic fiber particulate” is the direct cause of COPD.
My conjecture. Eighty some years ago in the West, very few newborns were delivered in hospitals, and asthma was almost unheard of. Now, almost all newborns in the West are delivered in hospitals, sequestered in sterile climate-controlled maternity wards for much of their first few days of life, and asthma is everywhere. The correlation is strong with this one.
For the first few days after birth, we still have our mothers’ antibodies in our blood. A valuable window of time for our immune systems to start sorting out the friend-or-foe list. Something they can’t do in a sterile environment, because there’s nothing to sort out. And an unsorted immune system is much more likely to give a disproportionate immune response to an innocuous irritant, ie. an allergy. And what is an asthma attack but an acute respiratory allergy?
who decides to fund some of this crap ? the air has never been cleaner in european cities since the dawn of the industrial revolution. the air in peoples homes is of far poorer quality than outside these days. this bunch certainly read drawing meaningless conclusions from spurious data from the climate science 101 manual.
exactly Max. I have been investigating the Diesel Scandal, as it is called here in Germany, and its background for 3 years now. The global warming issue including all of its catastrophic implications are far more complex to dismantle than the dangers, political bullying and real consequences of NO2 concentrations. Meanwhile I have gathered a lot of insights and data on the NO2 issue and I would like to present some arguments and conclusions to paint an entirely different picture of the real world and this topic in the 5 following posts.
When writing c = 100 it will mean the concentration of NO2 in the ambient air = 100 microgramms/m^3. c = 100 is also the official limit that the EPA established in the USA. The limit in the EU is c = 40 because this is the WHO recommendation. Note, even the EPA is not following the WHO because it is not convinced.
You’d think it was almost human nature to try and dodge impossible standards.
The car companies should have come clean (pun not intended) and admitted the standards were impossible. How will governments ever be realistic if nobody tells them they’re in fantasy land?
Ah, TinyCO2, you obviously haven’t “played” with government regulators. Government regulators know more than everyone else. Though I imagine the car companies did try to lobby for different standards. I will bet however the regulators were “living” by the “precautionary principle” so the companies just threw up their hands and tried different tacts. I will even bet some people blame VW not for cheating but for getting caught. If VW hadn’t been caught no one of have come after the other companies.
They were working under Obama-law.
Nuff said.
Clearly the governmental requirements were arrived at on an inadequate knowledge of the science. It is they that should now be revised.
“Real-word driving produces up to 16 times more emissions according to MIT study.”
It was well known that the standards were unobtainable when they were written in order to kowtow to the “ecology” vote. Manufacturers were given a nod and a wink that they were not really expected to achieve the impossible. It was all PR.
The law required the vehicles to conform of certain levels under specified test conditions and this is what they designed their vehicles to do.
There is not “cheating” going on, They were designed to specification as defined in the legislation.
and what does making cars run slower do?
in sth aus theyre talking speed liits of 40 in urban areas now
already at 50k from 60
fuel here is at 1.57c a litre and in sa its over 1.65(9litres to 2gallons)
highway cycle cars use less and emit less
go slow fuel use soars and so do emissions
I used to work at Caterpillar in the 90s. Cat and their competitors did the same thing that the automakers are doing now. Cat was hit with big fines.
The basic problem with a diesel is that curbing NOX is very easy, you just recirculate more exhaust gases into the combustion chamber. With the current standards, to achieve the NOX limits, you have to recirculate a lot of exhaust. We were looking at about 40%. The performance is terrible. The extra heat in your combustion air just kills your fuel economy or power.
Yes, there are the SCR units which inject Urea, but you still recirculate some exhaust.
Unlike a petrol engine, with a simple line of code, you can dramatically increase performance at the expense of emissions.
The emissions standards are obtainable, but the product just sucks. At some point your efficiency drops below petrol engines.
There is a whole cottage industry out there to ‘upgrade’ old diesel engines mostly to farmers. They sell urea injection kit and software. Most farmers never fill the urea tank. Some don’t even install the tank. They just want the increased performance provided by the software.
“…approximately 2,700 premature deaths per year across Europe..”
Sort of like excess deaths from a hurricane — it is a statistical number, no identifiable bodies.
Extrapolation of numbers out beyond sampled boundaries is an enterprise commonly used in social social sciences that should be outlawed. Or least recognized for what it is, subjective and/or easily manipulated by hidden untested/unwarranted assumptions.
2,700 premature deaths, 0.00045% of the European population.
How premature?
How do they arrive at that figure?
How does it compare to premature deaths from fuel poverty?
Yes, it sounds a lot and is designed to sound a lot, but note it is not 2,700 EXTRA deaths, just premature. Like if statistically ( lies, danmed lies, et al ) these people expected to live a few seconds less on average, does it really amount to a hilll of bean?
I would rather have a car which works better now, saves me a few hours of my time when I’m young enough for it be worth something than have a few more minutes crapping bed sheets in a badly run retirement home while waiting to die.
This unqualified term “premature deaths” stinks of damned lies rather than public health concerns.
There lies, damned lies, statistics and attributions, the latter not even qualifying as statistics.
You think climate models are wonky, you should see the way these ‘premature deaths are cooked up.
“Volkswagen, Renault, and General Motors produced diesel cars associated with the most yearly premature deaths”
Rubbish. They use the word ‘associate’ because they have no path to ‘causation’. Yearly?? Bwa-ha-ha-ha! The prematurity of these deaths is determined by committee and to assign particular numbers of premature deaths to a company is bogglingly unscientific. It doesn’t pass a sniff test.
I will tell you where this comes from. There is a Gates Foundation initiative called IHME that no one respects where they assign to each premature death a single cause, not 74 contributions according to the GDB attribution exercise. The total number of people who died is then compared with the % of the GBD contribution, and multiplied by the total deaths to get ‘the number due to a single attributed cause’. This is the horse puckey you read about in the press saying 12345 people in the US were killed by coal fired power plant emissions. And further, you will read, as you can above, that these attributed deaths with their assigned percentage causes “can be prevented by” [fill in the blank with your pet project].
First, imagine how dishonest these car emission tests are. Next, imagine how defective the causal attribution chain is. Finally, imagine how ridiculous it is to say that you can avoid something in a future population cohort that has been attributed by committee to a cohort already dead, born after 1932.
This is what passes for air quality management strategy in 2018?
“does it really amount to a hilll of bean?”
One bean doth not a hilll make.
One swallow doesn’t make a summer.
You might try to do a better job of retirement planning.
Yes. This is an incredible amount of intricate modelling to produce a vague, tiny, supposed consequence.
Somewhere in all this, precise measurement and statistical analysis Hansen thrown out the window.
Geez.. that’s some autocorrect typo!
Hansen = has been
James Hasbeen. It fits.
“How premature?”
Read the small print. Typically it turns out to mean ‘sick people who die a couple of weeks earlier than they otherwise would have’.
… also since it is a statistical model extraoplated number it most assuredly should be presented an error range estimate.
It properly should have been stated like, “We estimate an additional 2,700 (+/- 3,000) pre-mature deaths from excess emissions.”
That’s right, the statistical noise in what they were estimated could make the number a (minus)300 premature deaths. That’s how statistics works when you deal with such very low effect on a large heterogeneous, dispersed population.
I do hope they come up for a shot or something to prevent all these statistical death.
Last thing I want is to die of statistics.
🙂
The confidence level of ANY number represented to be premature deaths (whatever that is) is VERY VERY small. In other words, not to be believed. ‘WAY to many other uncontrolled factors impact whatever counts as a premature death – including whether or not it was premature or God intended it to be exactly what occurred.
NW sage
I want to give you an idea of how empty this pot is. I could ‘attribute’ your presence and commenting on this list to the presence of a black squirrel on my bird feeder. I could show some statistical value for the correlation between the two.
Then I could claim that moving my bird feeder and raising it to keep the squirrel off will prevent you coming to this list and making comments, and further, claim that is is worth me being paid to do so by attributing to your comments a strongly negative social influence.
The whole thing sounds sciency, but is 100% ±0% made up. Literally.
The GBD exercise is defensible for public health planning. The IHME exercise would require necromancy: interviewing the dead to ask them what they died from – all causes, all contributing percentages, and choosing one by committee vote. Even the Catholic Church priests in the Middle Ages could identify that level of BS.
And what about post-mature deaths? Were their lives extended by exposure to NO? How much?
If they only kill people in Europe, what are we worried about? This sounds about as accurate as most climate science.
Doesn’t matter, they are replacing them with muslim “refugees.”
Where’s the cost-benefit analysis? Talking about “eliminating all NOx emissions” without discussing the cost of doing so is just propaganda. There are diminishing returns to be dealt with.
Would you pay $1 per avoided “premature” death due to secondary particulate from NOx? I hope so. Would you pay $1M? Of course not. There are much better uses for that $1M that would avoid many more premature deaths from other causes.
“a significant health impact, causing approximately 2,700 premature deaths per year across Europe”…
..that’s about .0002 %
France alone kills more than that EVERY YEAR in road deaths. Most of those a seriously “premature” not like you statistically lost a few minutes of life expectancy.
The EU is much more sophisticated and experienced in large scale cheating. Only mortgage backed securities from the U.S. rivaled the German and Japanese cheating on cars. We need to export opioids covered by health insurance to even out the differences between regions.
I bet that, without any exception whatsoever, each and every car manufacturer subject to “EU” rules fiddled the exhaust systems to meet these ridiculously sophisticated targets set by Brussels bureauc-rats.
I think VW stopped all diesel production – they have lots full of diesel cars turned in for refunds which they cannot or will not re-sell. VW is headed for all electric vehicles – their ID chassis, which can be configured as sedan, SUV, etc, appears in 2020. CAn recharge at 125KW rate (same as Tesla Supercharger rate). The Volkswgon group consists of Audi, VW, SKODA, Porsche, Bentley… Porsche is building their first electric on a chassis that will also be used by Bentley. One really good thing about electrics is that an automaker can use one chassis to produce a whole bunch of different vehicle types. VW is building out a public recharging network for the CCS charging protocol, the one used by all automakers except Tesla and Nissan. Its called Electrify America,the first of many CCS networks, which can recharge at 350KW rate (as opposed to Tesla’s 120KW rate). Right now the immediate competition for Tesla is against their higher priced Model S and Model X vehicles, by Jaguar (I Pace SUV) and Audi e-tron SUV, and soon Porsche Taycan. That will change. By 2020 expect an avalanche of electric cars – over 250 models are currently being developed.
Most of of which will run on coal produced electricity.
An “avalanche of electric cars” by 2020? That’s less than two years.
My guess: not much of an avalanche, more like a small pile of snow falling from the roof.
Kent,
That is to be classified as VW propaganda. The only reason that the diesel car sales plummeted is that in several countries they installed an extra tax on diesel cars and increased the price per liter of diesel at the pump. Even with a lot more mileage, you need to drive at least 20,000 km/year to break even.
Electric cars are forced to the market by EU and local laws, but if that will help to increase the current sales from below 1% of all new cars is a good question, as a lot of people don’t trust the governments on that point:
First they promoted diesel cars and solar panels with lots of subsidies or tax reductions.
When a lot were baught/installed the subsidies were reduced or zeroed and new tax forms introduced: for solar panels now they have to pay a tax for using the network bidirectional. That is of course right, but was never mentioned before the installations…
Anyway, when there is more choice in electric cars, the price may go down and when charging and range improve, that may sell more of them. The main bad news will be for Tesla, which will have a lot of problems to stay ahead of the new models…
Tesla not a very bright light bulb. Limiting battery access, to sell a less expensive vehicle in the end is not good practice.
Tesla payed for the battery, the materials labor shipping. Not only do they take the loss but they deny the buyer the use of greater range. One of the greatest concerns for owners of EV.
the extra battery power is a selling point.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-hurricane-florence-relief-supercharger-battery-unlock/
This is way they lose money, like drunk on a Saturday night
michael
In all these forecasts for “an avalanche” of electric cars, I have never seen anything about the need for a major ramp up of electricity power generation that WILL be necessary to recharge this avalanche. In the UK every winter we are on the edge of “brownouts” ‘cos we are so near the limit of our generating capacity. Have the green not realised this fact yet or is it all too real world for them to understand
These watermelons all have their diesel generators in the garage, on standby in winter. Of course not these virtually poor in money and spirit. The well-to-do golden greenies don’t give a darn …
Every time I read about the rapid march to all electric cars I never see any awareness from the writers about the urgent need for a major ramp up in electricity power generation in order to be able to recharge all those new cars. Is this a typical green “I haven’t got the intelligence to be able to think things through” or do they actually know the problem but are just being duplicitous in not mentioing it. I reckon the first option.
Do you have a 350kW supply at home? And you neighbours? Say 10 of them, and we’re looking at 3.5MW. What’s the rating on your local distribution transformer?
kent beuchert
Car manufacturers have been researching every imaginable source of motive power for generations. The current ‘drive’ for EV’s is yet another flash in the pan, motivated by government mandate. The car companies are ‘playing the game’ and know full well the lights will go out on EV’s in the very near future otherwise they would be turning out all their vehicles as EV’s.
Instead, they are churning out one Litre, turbocharged, 130 BHP, three cylinder family saloons capable of 50 – 60 MPG whilst cruising at 56 MPH and achieving 400 – 500 miles between refuelling.
Why would they do that if EV’s were the sensible personal transport path?
We live on the Southern California coastal plain, surrounded by well-meaning SJWs who virtue signal by having Pius’s, plug-in Pius’s, Teslas, and whatever hybrid or electric car needed to save the world. Lots of them Can’t go driving with being in a flock of electric cars. Have been for years.
I can’t recollect seeing a hybrid, plug-in hybrid or electric car on the roads of Europe during may travels.
I guess diesels were going to save the world for them. Now that the US has shown the way, there will be a rush to hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electrics. An avalanche, I guess. Not sure, however, how your basic European will be able to afford them, other than by not having to pay $US 8 per US gallon for gas.
Family saloons? You can’t drink alcohol and drive here. Maybe that will be the push that makes driverless cars successful.
Kent mentioned;
“One really good thing about electrics is that an automaker can use one chassis to produce a whole bunch of different vehicle types.”
Sorry Kent, do you have an engineering and/or manufacturing background? Speaking as someone who does I find that claim very broad, sweeping and questionable. Are you suggesting that electrics are somehow more magical than non-electrics? That non electrics are somehow prevented from using common components? Sorry, not remotely buying that without some more supporting information.
Also you try and build a FOV on a common chassis then you are trying to make a product that is all things to all variants. Yes it is doable, but a FOV common will never be as good as a purpose built design.
If you are on a budget trying to push out economy vehicles to the masses then maybe. If you are trying high end market – which names like Bentley suggest – then re-using an existing design makes little sense… unless of course these manufacturers are not really prepared to fully invest in high end quality manufacture.
Sorry Kent, but I find your post very broad and sweeping and are not currently convinced by your arguments.
The EU suffered 22,415 automobile fatalities in 2015.
The “EU” phased out the good old incandescend bulb, they restricted vacs to 1700 Watt and will soon find out that automobile fatalities can be reduced considerably when automobile traffic itself is restricted to a complete standstill. Europe is a fine place for morons, idiots and other bureauc-rats.
“they restricted vacs to 1700 Watt” – 1600W from 2014, and last year the limit went to 900W and 80dB. My current vacuum cleaner will have a long and glorious life )) Until the EU dies.
Lots of comments can be given here:
– NOx is not solely from diesel cars, if power is made by burning fossil fuels, that produces a lot of NOx too: the higher the burning temperature, the higher the NOx, as always a (small) surplus of air/oxygen is needed (more for diesel in low load conditions). Of course, it is easier to clean up the smoke stack of a central unit than of 1,000 moving vehicles, but the new “ad blue” technique removes near all NOx from vehicles by injecting a urea solution in the exhaust gases.
– particulate of the new generation of gasoline cares may be 100’s of times higher than of diesel cars as in the latter particulate filters are obliged, not in gasoline cars. New generation gasoline cars also use fuel injection to increase the compression ratio and the yield of the motor (thus its fuel use). If the injection is directly in the cylinder, the same problem of soot building may happen as with diesel fuel injection.
Here’s what has happened to UK NOx emissions since 1970:
Presumably, these studies can show we had much higher mortality back then because of all the extra NOx?
I’ve not seen that e.g. in the work by Prof Kelly of King’s College London cited in recent days. Indeed he was a co-author on a paper that said that pollution and mortality were negatively correlated.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279966594_Is_long-term_exposure_to_traffic_pollution_associated_with_mortality_A_small-area_study_in_London
This is kind of like second hand smoke, it was supposed to kill 50,000 people a year but somehow you could never seem to find one. How you could identify 2,000 “excess” deaths in a population of some 300,000,000 is beyond me. Europeans should have been dropping like flies back in the 70’s when half the cars were diesel and there were no catalytic convertors.
Not only that, gasoline was formulated with tetraethyl lead and it precipitated close to where it was emitted. Diesel fuel was full of sulfur for the same purpose of lubricity. Nobody wanted to follow a diesel bus because it was nauseating after a while.
I expect most of the right-hand drive offending vehicles to somehow find their way to Jamaica an other Caribbean destinations.
Bosch, (the leading manufacturer of fuel injection and after treatment systems) recently claimed to have solved vexing NOx emissions through better EGR management and in cylinder combination temperatures.
Combination should read: “combustion”.
“…approximately 2,700 premature deaths per year across Europe..”
give me names and death certificates, otherwise it’s just a meaningless artifact of statistical manipulation.
At the very least, they should provide error ranges for the estimates, to help people realize how imprecise the findings are.
At http://bit.ly/2I1MRC1 26 April 2018:
Bosch says it has solved diesel NOx problem; as low as 13 mg NOx/km even under RDE; refining existing technologies
Bosch says that its engineers have refined existing diesel technologies to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) so significantly that they already comply with future limits. Even in RDE (real driving emissions) testing, emissions from vehicles equipped with the newly premiered Bosch diesel technology are not only significantly below current limits but also those scheduled to come into force from 2020 (Euro 6d).
Because the solution leverages existing technology, there is no need for additional components, which would drive up costs.
There’s a future for diesel. Today, we want to put a stop, once and for all, to the debate about the demise of diesel technology. Bosch is pushing the boundaries of what is technically feasible. Equipped with the latest Bosch technology, diesel vehicles will be classed as low-emission vehicles and yet remain affordable.
—Bosch CEO Dr. Volkmar Denner
Since 2017, European legislation has required that new passenger car models tested according to an RDE-compliant mix of urban, extra-urban, and freeway cycles emit no more than 168 milligrams of NOx per kilometer. As of 2020, this limit will be cut to 120 mg. But even today, vehicles equipped with Bosch diesel technology can achieve as little as 13 milligrams of NOx in standard legally-compliant RDE cycles. That is approximately one-tenth of the prescribed limit that will apply after 2020.
Even when driving in particularly challenging urban conditions, where test parameters are well in excess of legal requirements, the average emissions of the Bosch test vehicles are as low as 40 milligrams per kilometer.
Bosch engineers have achieved this decisive breakthrough over the past few months. A combination of advanced fuel-injection technology, a newly developed air management system, and intelligent temperature management has made such low readings possible, Bosch says.
Bosch
Overview of temperature management measures for the exhaust system. From the Bosch paper presented at the Vienna Motor Symposium this year. Click to enlarge.
To date, two factors have hindered the reduction of real-world NOx emissions in diesel vehicles, according to Bosch. The first of these is driving style.
The technological solution developed by Bosch is a highly responsive air-flow management system for the engine. A dynamic driving style demands an equally dynamic recirculation of exhaust gases. This can be achieved with the use of a RDE-optimized turbocharger that reacts more quickly than conventional turbochargers.
With a combination of high- and low-pressure exhaust-gas recirculation, the air-flow management system becomes even more flexible. This means drivers can drive off at speed without a spike in emissions.
Equally important is the influence of temperature. To ensure optimum NOx conversion, the exhaust gases must be hotter than 200 degrees Celsius. In urban driving, vehicles frequently fail to reach this temperature. Bosch has therefore opted for a sophisticated thermal management system for the diesel engine.
This actively regulates the exhaust-gas temperature, thereby ensuring that the exhaust system stays hot enough to function within a stable temperature range and that emissions remain at a low level.
NOx emissions can now remain below the legally permitted level in all driving situations, irrespective of whether the vehicle is driven dynamically or slowly, in freezing conditions or in summer temperatures, on the freeway or in congested city traffic.
Bosch’s new diesel system is based on components that are already available in the market. It is available to customers effective immediately and can be incorporated into production projects.
At a press event in Stuttgart Bosch had dozens of journalists, from both Germany and abroad, drive test vehicles equipped with mobile measuring equipment in heavy city traffic, under especially challenging conditions. The results, shown in the chart below, show the performance of the Bosch technology against current and 2020 regulations.
2018-04-24_bpk-rde-results_final
AI can further boost performance. Even with the reported technological advance, the diesel engine has not yet reached its full development potential, Bosch said. Bosch now aims to use artificial intelligence to build on these latest advances.
This will mark another step toward a major landmark: the development of a combustion engine that—with the exception of CO2—has virtually no impact on the ambient air.
We firmly believe that the diesel engine will continue to play an important role in the options for future mobility. Until electromobility breaks through to the mass market, we will still need these highly efficient combustion engines.
—Volkmar Denner
Denner’s target for Bosch engineers is the development of a new generation of diesel and gasoline engines that produce no significant particulate or NOx emissions. Even at Stuttgart’s Neckartor, a notorious pollution black spot, he wants future combustion engines to be responsible for no more than one microgram of NOx per cubic meter of ambient air—the equivalent of one-fortieth, or 2.5%, of today’s limit of 40 micrograms per cubic meter.
Bosch calls for renewed focus on CO2 and well-to-wheels evaluations. Denner also called for a renewed focus on CO2 emissions. Denner said that consumption tests should no longer be conducted in the lab but rather under real driving conditions. This would create a system comparable to the one used for measuring emissions.
Moreover, he added, any assessment of CO2 emissions should extend significantly further than the fuel tank or the battery—a full well-to-wheels lifecycle approach.
We need a transparent assessment of the overall CO2 emissions produced by road traffic, including not only the emissions of the vehicles themselves but also the emissions caused by the production of the fuel or electricity used to power them.
—Volkmar Denner
He added that a more inclusive CO2 footprint would provide drivers of electric vehicles with a more realistic picture of the impact of this form of mobility on the climate. At the same time, the use of non-fossil fuels could further improve the CO2 footprint of combustion engines.
The issue may be with the models.
I recently spoke, off the record, to a senior statistician and asked what impact having perfectly clean air in the UK would have on longevity. The answer was a 2 week increase. What’s the problem?
Brussels and the “EU”.
I want to know how many “premature deaths” are caused by excessive paperwork due to the Unaffordable Care Act. But since these sort don’t understand toxicology in the first place, it would probably be an imaginary negative exponential.
They would not dare to calculate the numbers of “premature deaths” saved due to hydrocarbons, even leaving out more efficient ambulances. Of course, you have to correct for dumb laws and drivers.
I learned to drive before seat belts and catalytic converters, now extinguished history. Like many back then suffering what us survivors called real pollution.
HD, the best title I’ve come across, for people such as ourselves is “Red Meat Survivors.”
I worked for a major US lubricants in product development. The biggest end market is automotive. Certification is based on mechanical testing – live engine testing. Fuels etc are all standardize ie not real word. Emissions and fuel economy is tested in the same way. There were some tests that you could run til it passes there is so much variability. The epa is very much part of the game. An aside: Europeans cure their meat with nitrites NO2. BTW nitrites lower blood pressure. Your body can reduce NO2 to NO. NO is an important relaxer of the blood vessels.
As is Viagra.
That gives a whole new meaning to Dr. No.
Well, they said there would be climate deaths.
Oh, wait — these are deaths resulting from public policy meant to mitigate global warming. Those are okay then.
What’s a little white lie, when your up against:
Ronald Reagan Quotes. Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
‘2700 premature deaths across Europe’ is just the scary headline derived from the statistical estimate of the reduction in life expectancy. It could be more honestly expressed as “the reduction in average life expectancy is equivalent to 2700 premature deaths per year”. So using 2700 years, life expectancy in Europe of 81 yrs and a total pop of 717 m, gives a reduction per life of 2.67 hours per person.
I get 3.24 less hours per dead person, or 0.0013 seconds per population in a 81 year lifetime.
Its just a silly calculation, the real issue is breathing issues for some people.
Colin, nicely done!
I’m so totally struggling with the chemistry here…
How does NH3 and NOx produce particles?
Particles of what, its all gaseous chemistry, even before we ask where the ammonia is coming from.
(Apart from the diapers/nappies of bottle fed babies – effectively a death sentence for their brains/minds/personalities before they even get to 3 years old and are *then* introduced to the real killer – refined sugar
COPD – primarily comes from cigarette smoking. Bin the ciggies to cancel that junk idea.
Lung cancer – indescribable stuff and once diagnosed you have typically 3 months. Even -ad-lib Opium/heroine can’t relieve the pain/agony of lung cancer, and again, from ciggy smoking.
When animals are in that much grief, we show mercy and ‘put them to sleep’
Strokes. I have (more than) just a little bit of first hand experience here so, sorry, you’re grasping at straws there. Strokes are lifestyle events coming from obesity, alcohol abuse and stress.
In my case 15 years ago, from a genetic blood clotting disorder – I was in the 1% of the population who carry it. Strange now that 3% of people have it?????
(Probably the cause of Deep Vein Thrombosis – a killer of even very young people esp after long-haul airplane flights)
60% of folks who have a stroke will have another (fatal) one inside 3 years.
Sorry sorry sorry to be Heart Hearted but, this guy is counting people who were doomed anyway. Even if we could understand his chemistry.
Does he?
“coordination is needed not at the country, but at the continental scale,”
This is another research paper written with a political agenda. Whatever the problem the answer is always more government at a supranational level. Nation states are so 20th century.
This atmospheric process being described of NOx reacting with ammonia in the air to produce particulates…
That’s what the SCR’s in our power plants and diesel automotives with “AdBlue”/DEF injection are doing!!
They truly believe we’re stupid. Ok, many are, but at gas turbine power plants with HRSG’s on the back end, we use aqua ammonia (if near major population centers) or more econimically we will use anhydrous ammonia injection before the rhodium catalyst “breadstack” (our techs called them bread loaves due to the superficial resemblance).
So if it happens inside the car, its all honky-dory, but if it happens in the atmosphere we’re all gonna die (well 2700 of us anyway).
Speaking of tractors… noting their mention a few posts down.
My shiny new one year old Case Farmall 110c will presently not leave “idle” no matter how I manipulate the throttle levers inside the cab….
…because it was low on DEF (diesel exhaust fluid/adBlue) and then I refilled it from a container of DEF which had been left open for a few weeks and likely evaporated much of the ammonia/urea from the solution.
Not only have the regulators forced us to have this rediculous equipment on agricultural equipment, its got to be so dang smart it senses the quality of the solution.
PRDJ,
As far as I know, they use an urea solution as “AdBlue” in cars, no toxic fumes when spilled… But I suppose that ammonia is doing the job too and is a lot cheaper for industrial installations. In the past (or still?) they used DU (depleted uranium) as de-NOx catalyst + ammonia in garbage incinerators, which at the same time destroys almost all dioxins formed in the process…
Urea dissolved in water at room temperature is stable. However when exposed to the hot exhaust it breaks down into 2 ammonia and one CO2 molecule. When you mix ammonia with Nox you get water and nitrogen (N2).
As far as I now uranium was never commercially used in car catalyst. Platinum group metals are primarily used as catalyst in cars. However Catalyst don’t work well in high carbon (soot ) levels typically found in diesel engines. The Catalyst eventually gets covered in soot and stops working.
Anyone who’s ever driven behind a diesel car – even a new one – on the highway can tell you they emit more than regular cars.
But this study is bogus. This link between emissions and premature deaths is entirely imaginary. They completely invent those numbers out of other numbers. There’s no actual ties to actual dead people as recorded by morgues or coroner’s offices.