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France Wants To Get Rid of Diesel Fuel

Posted by Soulskill on from the send-it-to-us dept.

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.

3 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Why by MShook · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  2. Re: Why by MShook · · Score: 5, Informative

    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...

  3. Re:Why by gbjbaanb · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.