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.”
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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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Post #4, No2 and NGOs
I already mentioned the ICCT in the US as the source where everything began in 2015. The ICCT is a NGO which is not only important because it started the Volkswagen scandal in the US (and they had every right to do so, in my eyes). It is also important because there you see all the political connections of the NGOs and the money flow behind the environmentalism in general.
Before I continue I would like to highlight that the Volkswagen scandal in the US was entirely different from what was going on in Europe. There are different regulations and laws between the US and EU. And Volkswagen did something in the US that most of the carmakers incl. Volkswagen not even did in Europe. They really cheated, because they could not even reach the official limit in the official test cycle with the technology they had on board. Remember: The US limit for emissions is about 50 mg/km EU limit is about 80 mg/km. At the end, the ICCT tests revealed that something must be wrong with the EPA approval test results. Shortly after publishing the test results Volkswagen admitted the failure and everybody knows what happened afterwards with billions of dollars paid to US customers and the US DOJ. Some people in Germany claimed that the US is punishing German carmakers and trying to protect the US car market. I am pretty sure, this is false or at best a side benefit for some players in this game. The Volkswagen scandal in the US had not much to do with markets or whatsoever, it was mainly intended to hit the car industry in total by killing the diesel cars in Europe at first through NO2 and the gasoline cars after that through CO2 regulations.
What is interesting is: 2015 was the year when the EU could punish member states for violating NOx regulations but as written above nothing really happened. Is it a coincidence that the scandal started exactly in this year although Volkswagen and maybe other German manufacturers approved problematic Diesel cars before that year in the US? Could be but if you take a closer look at the ICCT back then and today it seems to be plausible that the Volkswagen scandal in the US pointed to Europe from beginning on. Note that the Volkswagen scandal in the US and the Diesel scandal in Europe were initiated from the very same organizations which coordinate and finance the global environmentalism in terms of climate change.
Let’s look who was and is sitting in the board of the ICCT and who is founding it. Back in 2015 there were two people from the Flora Hewlett Foundation, one member of the Packard Foundation and one member of the swiss Oak foundation which is closely linked to George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and Margo Oge (former EPA manager for transportation and air quality) in the board. Today the board has grown significantly with members and advisors from all over the world and many of them having a link to the EPA and other international NGOs.
The look on the funding is telling everything. Just about 75% of it comes from the Hewlett Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the Mercator Foundation and the swiss Oak Foundation, even if it is called differently. The first two are the main pillars of Climate Works which has its financial arm mainly in Europe called European Climate Foundation (ECF). It is funny to watch how those NGOs like ICCT change their financial reporting from one year to the other. In one year the Hewlett and the Packard Foundations are donating more directly and in the next year they are doing it through ClimateWorks or the ECF. ClimateWorks is not only a pass through organization for NGO donations but also the NGO with the political control system. You will find names like Christiana Figueres (UN) or John Podesta (Democrats) or Caio Koch-Weser (former German government secretary and World Bank manager) sitting next to the people from Hewlett, Packard and Oak foundations.
To me it seems that the ICCT has been defined by ClimateWorks as the international control center for green transportation policy. It is also telling that C. Hochfeld from the green German Thinktank AGORA is advising ICCT as well. AGORA itself is funded by the ECF, the European Commission and the German state. They are promoting and supporting all efforts to follow the green path on the energy transition to renewables and on the transition from fossil fuel to electric vehicles.
Finally, this international network of foundations, politicians and NGOs has an international law advisory NGO called ClientEarth. They developed the plan to sue European and German cities, in order to provoke Diesel vehicle bans in those cities. Client Earth supported the German NGO that was suing German Cities, called Umwelthilfe. Both of course are itself funded by the ECF, which is ClimateWorks, which is the sum of Hewlett, Packard, Mercator and Oak Foundation. Before stopping it is also important to know that ClimateWorks is closely working with Soros’ Open Society and his Climate Policy Initiative, where he directly influences. This organization is openly sharing offices in Berlin with a German Thinktank doing politics through making economic studies for politicians.
At the end those few foundations are not only financing and controlling nearly every green NGO in the western world that is related to climate change and “clean” air but they are also heavily linked to US and European politics as well. You want to tell me that the Diesel Scandal starting in 2015 is a coincidence when the director of the ICCT openly communicates that the death of the combustion engine cars is planned through Diesel regulation at first and CO2 regulation thereafter? Nothing, those foundations are doing, is coincidence. Everything is well planned and equipped with the right people.
Post #5, conclusion
The Diesel scandal and the allegation of cheating carmakers, who are to blame for our huge health effects we are supposed to be suffering, is the greatest scam in terms of turning reality upside down, even if it looks to be true for many at the first view. It is global political bullying at its best. Scientifically, there is very likely nothing to fear from NO2 or even PM, at least all claims from epidemiology in this matter are completely invalid. There is neither a correlation nor a causation between those pollutants and death rates or whatsoever.
It is therefore by far more likely that not even a single person died so far earlier than he/she had to without those emissions. This is indicated by the clinical studies of the toxicology, the only results which are real and reliable.
The self legitimating actions of politicians and the environmental activists are based upon voodoo science from epidemiology. Both create fears to promote their strange green agenda and pass new laws which are always directed against and not in favor of human beings. Needless to say that we pay for it at the end of the day. Or does anybody seriously believe that cars or electricity get cheaper and better with all those regulations?
Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that there should be no regulation at all, but one has to keep his head cool, there is a limit for nearly everything on earth from where on it is getting dangerous, even oxygen. The task of science and politics is to find that limit and pass relating laws that protect people and are not too costly. The promoted and unproven LNT hypothesis by science is nothing else than an applied exaggerated precaution principle due to partly missing knowledge and cannot be the golden rule for that process because it will necessarily mean zero emissions and unlimited costs at the end of the day.
I am also not saying, that the carmakers did their very best to reduce the NO2 emissions. They clearly did not, because they preferred a compromise with higher NO2 emissions and a longer interval for refilling the adblue to reduce NO2. Still, the EU regulation was fulfilled with that strategy. This was done for several reasons, which are limited tank size due to available space or customer satisfaction for example, but not in order to earn more money, as it was reported by MSM. The cost saving argument fails for more than 90% of the newer cars, because these cars have the expensive SCR technology on board but simply do not use it enough. This is also the reason, why most of the cars reached a much better NO2 emission performance after a simple SW update. So, the carmakers clearly underestimated the NO2 danger potential in communication and the willingness of their customers to frequently refill the adblue. If they knew, what would follow, they would never have taken such a risk for this small customer satisfaction gain.
I almost doesn’t matter what the emission ratings are. Diesel truck owners around where I live (rural Maryland, USA) routinely swap engine computer chips out so their trucks will accelerate more quickly. The effect is a monumental increase in unburned carbon when they floor the accelerator (which occurs every chance they get). Of course, they put the regular engine chip back in when they are required to do emission tests. Diesels have a power advantage, which is needed for people who use the trucks for legitimate businesses. But this swapping out of chips is making a joke of emissions ratings.