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France Wants To Get Rid of Diesel Fuel
mrspoonsi sends this Reuters report:
France wants to gradually phase out the use of diesel fuel for private passenger transport and will put in place a system to identify the most polluting vehicles, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Friday. Next year, the government will launch a car identification system that will rank vehicles by the amount of pollution they emit, Valls said in a speech. This will make it possible for local authorities to limit city access for the dirtiest cars. "In France, we have long favoured the diesel engine. This was a mistake, and we will progressively undo that, intelligently and pragmatically," Valls said. About 80 percent of French motorists drive diesel-powered cars. Valls said taxation would have to orient citizens towards more ecological choices, notably the 2015 state budget measures to reduce the tax advantage of diesel fuel versus gas.
Particulates
The issue is the particulate filters that are nowadays standards seem to be worse for your health: particles are so thin you can't see them anymore (hence no more belch smoke) but they're also so thin they can now enter your bloodstream more easily.
And modern diesel engines emit more NO2 than they used to.
So the bottom line is: invisible smoke doesn't mean it's better.
Circa 2006 I used to travel to Roune. Lovely city, amazing architecture, almost all of it completely black. I mean black hole black. So bad that they were power washing them with bleach other something else to try to restore them. Did a great job, for about a year. I soon came to the conclusion that the US actually did make the right choice. Now I understand the low sulfur should be a game changer. Either Valls isn't convinved, or he's targeting other things that may not be using the low sulfur. But I think it's a move that is 50 years too late.
Why would banning diesel force people to buy electric (very limited range) and hybrid (additional cost) when gasoline cars are more plentiful, have a significantly greater range, and are cheaper?
Answer:
Energy Minister Segolene Royal announced earlier this year that drivers scrapping diesel-powered cars to buy an electric one would be entitled to a bonus of up to 10,000 euros ($13,500).
The Europeans have never been afraid of using taxes and subsidies to push consumer behavior in the favored direction.
Which is why diesels are so popular over there, since the fuel taxes have favored diesel over gasoline.
IMO, this is a bit nuts, since modern diesels are really clean.
Ultra-low sulfur fuel allows for catalytic converters to limit NOx emissions and particle filters remove most of the carbon soot and fine particles.
I'd be interested in seeing the research the French looked at before making their decision.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-co...
TL;DR
For example, Rushton et al. (Rushton et al. 2012) recently estimated that occupational DEE (Diesel engine exhaust) exposure in the United Kingdom was the third most important occupational contributor to the lung cancer burden after asbestos and silica exposure.
They estimate 6% of people dying of lung cancer do die because of diesel particles...
I'm sure they simply looked at the research of how well their car industry was doing and decided to come up with any reason to persuade people to buy new cars.
Diesel is a great fuel to use, very efficient, and the modern engines are not the oil-burners of the past, coupled with the catalytic converters in the exhaust, its often said the emissions are cleaner than the surrounding air in many cities. Certainly, diesel engines are cleaner than petrol ones, and if you consider the biodiesel that many are part running on (I understand the USA runs B20 diesel anyway - that's 20% biodiesel mix in all diesel fuel), even cleaner.
So you have ever pumped Diesel ? Did your hands smell a bit after that or not ?
Plus it is a health&safety thing. Diesel fuel does not evaporate as easily and will do more damage to your skin than petrol because it stays longer on YOU. Instead of simply evaporating.
So yes, these plastic gloves are a Good Thing(TM). The hydrocarbon required for them is made up with much less fuel consumption.
Granted it is not the cleanest fuel.
It is the cleanest fuel. We discussed here on slashdot how (gasoline-driven) cars emit more black carbon than previously thought) and the diesels are more efficient so you actually wind up with diesel as the cleanest fuel once you get the traps and filters and piss injection and whatnot. It's true that gasoline direct injection is close, but it's also true that it takes less energy to make diesel than gasoline, that diesel contains more energy than gasoline per liter, and that diesel is less volatile and thus less hazardous to transport and store than gasoline. All in all, it is the superior fuel. Also, it can be made from biological feedstocks including oils from algae, waste animal fats, and so on, and with proper seals and fuel line linings mixed to any proportion with petrodiesel.
Diesel is a better fuel than gasoline in every single way. If, like Subaru, you build your diesel with opposed cylinders, it doesn't even have to be big and heavy because vibration is inherently cancelled by the design. It's just better. The TGDIs are just as expensive as TDIs. So the only thing wrong with Diesel fuel here in the USA is the taxes, and the only thing wrong with it in France is that they want to get rid of it, probably for a reason mentioned elsewhere in this discussion — it's taxed less there.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Meanwhile, in the US, the government quietly criminalized the conversion of fryer oil into fuel for diesel cars unless the 24.4c gallon federal diesel tax is paid by the person who uses it. There will be a line and worksheet in the 2014 1040 packet for reporting this tax.
I bought a 2007 Peugeot with a 2 litre turbo diesel when they first came out. For the first month I often stalled it when pulling away from a standstill because I couldn't hear the engine inside the car.
It got 4.4L / 100km on the highway and I could drive 1100 km on a tank of fuel.
Three months and about 8000km after I bought it I stuck my finger in the exhaust pipe and wiped the inside. It was clean. You could still see the streaks from the forming process inside the pipe.
Modern diesels are NOTHING like the old mechanically injected rattlers.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.