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.

Comments

Why

[Anonymous Coward]

is diesel such a bad fuel? I thought low sulfur diesel in modern vehicles was pretty OK with great gas mileage?

Re: Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Particulates

Re:Why

[BradMajors]

Diesel is more fuel efficient than gasoline. Hence, banning diesel will force people to buy more electric and hybrid cars.

Re: Why

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, every diesel vehicle I've ever had the displeasure of being near stinks terribly, and emits loud, annoying noise from the engine compartment.

Re:Why

[Calydor]

Good luck convincing them to ditch the car they bought in 2013, which is rendered essentially worthless by these changes, and buying a new car with a different kind of engine in it.

Re:Why

[roc97007]

Diesel is more fuel efficient than gasoline. Hence, banning diesel will force people to buy more electric and hybrid cars.

Hm? I would have thought, Hence, banning diesel will force people to buy gasoline cars. 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?

Re:Why

[roc97007]

I would be shocked if it weren't the Germans who solved it, actually.

Re: Why

[smittyoneeach]

We have two TDI diesel manual transmission cars.
The cost per mile is relatively awesome, compared to a gas car.
Because if they don't manipulate the market and tax systems to eliminate diesels, electric cars will remain an expensive curiosity.

Re: Why

[MShook]

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.

Re: Why

[Anonymous Coward]

If you factor in the energy required to make the battery and the typical generation of electricity using coal, a modern Diesel-powered car is on par with an electric car in terms of CO2 exhaust.

And you can get a modern one, used for something like 6000 dollars or euros.

Dont use an American Diesel though, they have a history of making shite Diesel engines. I hear Ford has proper ones recently, though.

Re:Why

[TubeSteak]

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.

Re: Why

[MShook]

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...

Re: Why

[MShook]

And there's this: http://www.cafe-cba.org/assets...

Page 85, line Chronic Mortality * Premature deaths...
40000 yearly deaths based on PM

And this: http://www.researchgate.net/pu...

They estimate that every increase of 10 micrograms of particulate PM2.5 (2.5 as a 2.5 micrometer particulate) per cubic meter (g/m3) would lead to a 6% increase of death due to illness resulting from these particulates.

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/archives/cafe/general/pdf/cba_health_impact.xls

Re:Why

[gbjbaanb]

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.

Re:Why

[drinkypoo]

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.

Re: Why

[drinkypoo]

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.

The issue is that there were always fine particulates, and they can't be trivially filtered out. But perhaps you missed it when we discussed here that gasoline engines produce as much soot as diesels, and it is all of the exceptionally-fine kind. Now that the big stuff is being filtered out of the diesel exhaust, all we have left is a relatively small amount of that PM2.5.

Ideally we'd do away with the ICEs entirely and eliminate all that crap, get down to worrying about how to eliminate it from the tires. But what's really pathetic is that we've had the technology at least since the 1800s to solve all of these problems. It's called electrified rail. With modern levels of traffic, it is worthwhile to have people in packets smaller than train cars, however, yet with the distances which must be covered the vehicles must have their own power storage. Current battery and self-driving vehicle technology permits just this particular use case. We have every piece we need to replace cars entirely with PRT save for the will, starting in the densest city centers and moving outwards in stages related primarily to the availabilty of parking.

AHEM. Back on topic. "invisible smoke doesn't mean it's better" is exactly why diesel is better than gasoline. And yet, soot isn't even the worst emission that cars produce! It's unburned hydrocarbons, also known as raw fuel. And by their nature, diesels which are running properly run lean all the time, that's just how they operate. That means they're burning their fuel. It also means they produce more NOx, but that's why diesels now have catalysts.

Re: Why

[lgw]

Ideally we'd do away with the ICEs entirely and eliminate all that crap

What a hippie! Ideally, come Paving Day, I'll be cruising the Paved Earth in my Atomic Hypercar under the light of the Chromed Moon, and hippies like you will be Pit Slaves, toiling endlessly to clean the restrooms and stock the vending machines for the driving elite.

Re:Why

[mlts]

The days of the smoke-belching, dog-slow Mercedes turbo diesels which forced people to pass on the breakdown lane in order not to get asphyxiated are long gone, even though those were a scourge of the roads. One can walk behind a Sprinter, Ford F-350, or other diesel vehicle made within the past decade, and there won't be a smell, and there is likely to be no smoke, other than when the engine is started.

Of course, there are coal rollers who deliberately de-tune their engines to run rich and reprogram the ECMs for the black smoke... but in my neck of the woods, the local police will actually scrape off the inspection and registration stickers, or even tow a vehicle on the spot (since it is not considered road-legal) to the nearest diesel shop if the DPF/DEF/EGR stuff is deliberately destroyed.

I personally detest wasting fuel. Diesel isn't cheap.

Re: Why

[Firethorn]

but that's why diesels now have catalysts.

This reminds me of what I think is the most important bit - identifying the most polluting cars and getting them off the road(or at least out of the cities).

We're to the point that a California emissions car in the USA on average actually CLEANS the air. It's exhaust has fewer pollutants than what's going in. The problem is now things like older cars, lawn mowers, weed eaters and other small engines. A lawnmower running for an hour can emit more pollution in an hour than a modern car will all month.

Get rid of various exceptions if you have to, but go after the actual sources of pollution. If that's older diesels, so be it.

Re:Why

[Anonymous Coward]

"Diesel is more fuel efficient than gasoline."

The Diesel cycle is more efficient than the Otto cycle. However the main reason diesel engines are more efficient in practice is:
1. Diesel starts off with ~30% more energy (BTUs) per volume
2. Higher compression ratio.

The later is rapidly shrinking, newer technologies (eg: direct injection) mean modern petrol engines have higher compression ratios than they used to. (9:1 -> 12:1, better than older diesel engines)

Once laser ignition (allows better combustion chamber geometry and strength) and lean burn technologies (mixed spark and compression ignition) make it to production. Petrol engines will swing back to being the cleaner engines, mainly because the fuel starts off cleaner (more refined).

There's also been little investigation into the long term problems caused by adblue and other urea additives used in Euro 6 diesel engines with a selective cat. I imagine this will be causing higher uric acid production, and may be subject to further environmental concerns as the number of such systems increase.

Re: Why

[Anne Thwacks]

In Europe, for about 10 years we have had a series of legal restrictions on what diesle engined can emit, called Euro 1, Euro 2, etc.

From Euro 4, these have been met by running the engine very hot, which creates masses of oxides of Nitrogen, and then neutralising the NOx by squirting ammonia into the exhaust pipe. his works fine in a laboratory environment. Unfortunately, a truck can go from buring 20 ccs of fuel per hour to burning 2 litres a second* in two turns of the crank shaft, and there's not a bat's chance in hell of getting the ammonia to match the NOx during the transition. These engines produce very fine particulates that can go strait through the skin - and enter the blood through the lungs very easily. Real life pollution is very bad. Unfortunately, the option of running the engines cooler and filtering out the lumps of carbon mechanically, was ruled out, because the people selling the Ammonia (pig's piss, sold as "Ad-Blue") paid vast bribes to the European comissioners. MAN Diesel demonstrated an engine that could do this but did not put it into production "for commercial reasons".

Manging the supply of, and carrying expensive 5% Ammonia solution around with them is something truck owners and drivers would go a long way to avoid - though whether that goes as far as buying auto-transmission trucks (which is MAN's product) is another question. They are really difficult to reverse into a loading bay with potholes near where the rear axles come to rest (ie most loading bays). We are talking up to FIVE rear axles here.

* Think: reaches bottom of hill in fully loaded 44 ton truck at just over 56MPH (truck speed limit for Europe) and stamps on the throttle pedal of a 16 litre turbo-charged engine as he hits the incline of the upward hill.

Re: Why

[Eunuchswear]

If you factor in the energy required to make the battery and the typical generation of electricity using coal, a modern Diesel-powered car is on par with an electric car in terms of CO2 exhaust.

Ok, I know its traditional the not read the article, or even the summary, but could you try reading the headline?

"France Wants to get rid of diesel fuel".

We don't make electricity from coal here, we make it from nice clean uranium.

Re:Why

[AmiMoJo]

From your own link:

"However, when compared to petrol cars with a catalyst, diesels have higher emissions of NOx and much higher emissions of particulate matter."

Diesels are bad for human health and keeping cities clean. Even the newer ones are worse than petrol engines for PM2.5.

Re:It's a trap!

[ShieldW0lf]

Yes, in the same way that antique furniture works in place of firewood. If you're not freezing to death waiting for your tank to be refilled, it's a pretty stupid choice.

Re:Make Worlk Program ?

[LiMikeTnux]

All new trucks in the US have DEF (urea) systems and DPFs now, my 2013 Freightliner doesnt belch a bit of black smoke, either.

Re:Yeah, 80%

[TWX]

Heh. As an automotive enthusiast in the United States, I'm glad that our laws have generally applied such that a vehicle, once it has been certified by the relevant governing body, does not later generally need to meet more stringent emissions standards. As far as I'm aware, a vehicle's emissions certifications only get less-strict with time if they change at all, not more strict, and to do otherwise would put undue financial burden on a lot of people that cannot afford to retrofit or replace vehicles, which is why they're driving old cars in the first place.

I do live somewhere where vehicles are generally immune from the effects of the environment- people have literally pulled old heaps out of the desert, cleaned off the years of caliche built up on top of the floor pan, dropped a modern engine in, and turned them into hotrods. As a consequence we still have emissions testing on everything back to 1967 when federal emissions first came into effect, but even still it's not hard to meet the rules for a given year.

Changing that would cause riots.

Political nonsense

[seoras]

The reason 80% of percent of French motorists drive diesel-powered cars is because they are the most economical option.
Not just French but in most of Europe you'll find the diesel car is the popular option as it's the most economical choice.

The introduction of the "AdBlue" legislation on goods vehicles, and now private vehicles, has reduced the pollution deficit in comparison to petrol to a point which is even better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid

Take a typical French family car and compare same sized engines of petrol and diesel (this car has AdBlue).
http://www.nextgreencar.com/view-car/49548/citroen-c4-grand-picasso-1.6i-vti-vtr+-120hp-petrol-manual-5-speed
http://www.nextgreencar.com/view-car/49561/citroen-c4-grand-picasso-1.6-e-hdi-vtr+-115hp-diesel-manual-6-speed

Which one pollutes the most? Why the hell would you want to start "phasing out" the cleaner car?
Why not just offer everyone driving a fossil fuel car the same incentive to move to electric?
Why pick on diesel when it's now cleaner?

I'm all for electric and the end of burning fuel to drive around but you have to ask the question of WHERE that electricity is coming from to charge up your car?
Is the problem just being shifted?

At least when you burn the fuel yourself you have the choice of which fuel you burn and how well you burn it.
When you are consuming electrons off a grid you've given up a lot of your freedom of choice.

Re:bio-diesel?

[roc97007]

Well, french fries aren't... ok never mind. (This could turn into a Hercule Poirot routine.)

I mean, isn't this the same France that decided that since the eye is most sensitive to the middle part of the visible spectrum, that all cars should have lenses over them only allowing that part of the spectrum, requiring French drivers to make their way by dim, mucus-colored light? [1] Point being, they already have a history of making sweeping, ill-advised decisions involving automobiles. I wonder if this one will be rescinded when all the ramifications come to light.

[1] I just looked it up, and it's called "Selective yellow" and was mandatory for all illumination in French vehicles until the 1990's.

Re:Pushing the problem onto someone else

[angel'o'sphere]

The rest of EU already has strict laws agat pollution. E.g. that Diesel engines need a filter against particles. Or have laws that only cars allow into the cities that meet certain cleanness requirements.
Paris even had to shut down car trafic last year because of smog. That is very unheared of since decades in europe.
You see very dirty cars in Paris every day, because no one really cared so far.
So, no: the old french cars are not sold into the EU ... it is the opposite around. Like myself: I export my car to france as I can mot use it in my town anymore because it is one glimpse of a fraction above the alowed emissions.

Re:We never said that....

[Chris Mattern]

Because it's not happening yet. Actually, they're phasing out nuclear for coal, oil and gas because that's what can take over the load.

I've long said this.

[sunking2]

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.

Re:BINGO

[MShook]

First roadworthiness check happens after 4 years for a brand new car then it's every 2 years.

The reasons...

[guruevi]

1) Diesel enjoys great tax breaks all over Europe. If you gas up with diesel, the government receives a smaller share than with Gasoline. Diesel cars are a LOT cheaper to own and operate in Europe. From my experience with the EU, this may be mandated and thus may not be able to be fixed by individual states.
2) Gasoline cars are harder to repair at home and break down more often and sooner. Fixing a diesel, especially the older ones, is easier but that is a lot less profitable to either business or government.
3) Many people in Europe skip the Diesel taxes all together by (illegally) driving on "red" home fuel diesel or avoid the markup by having their own tanks of 'white' diesel at home. Truckers sometimes have a switch installed that allows them to temporarily switch from 'red' to a reserve of 'white' for check points.
4) You can make a diesel car (especially the old 70/80's VW, Mercedes, Jeep and other 'tanks') run on several kinds of oil including old filtered frying oil, skipping taxes and duties all together.

Re:It's a trap!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

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.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess they will be raising diesel tax slowly and not lowering gas tax at all.

Re: Seen the e-Golf?

[gweilo8888]

90 miles is frankly pathetic. That's a best case scenario 45 miles there and back; less with frequent starting and stopping. And 45 miles by road is probably not like 35 miles as the crow flies. Imagine a 35 mile radius around your home. You cannot get any further than that without recharging. And that's supposed to be good mileage?

These work for a regular daily commute of relatively short distance, nothing more. In the real world you need to own a second car to do anything useful after work, on weekends and holidays, or when taking a vacation. And if you need a second car for that, you bought the wrong first car.

Title is bogus

[geantvert]

There is nothing in the article about France trying to kill diesel. The purpose of those measures are to get rid of OLD DIESEL CARS that are well known source of pollution (for the particules).

Meanwhile, the US quietly criminalizes veg oil

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Yeah, 80%

[whoever57]

As a consequence we still have emissions testing on everything back to 1967 when federal emissions first came into effect, but even still it's not hard to meet the rules for a given year.

Different states have different regulations. California, which has a climate that is very conducive to long-lasting cars (even in the Sierras, they don't use salt on the roads) only tests cars those built in 1975 or later. And there are 6 counties where vehicles registered in only certain zip codes are required to be tested. The rest are exempt.

Re: Seen the e-Golf?

[Alioth]

In 2014, I have driven more than 45 miles from my origin on exactly two occasions, and one of those was in a rented long wheelbase van.

The French

[JimSadler]

Frankly France exhibits far more intelligence than the people in the US give them credit for. Our system in the US acts like cancer and tries to perpetuate all of our current qualities and wrongs. It sort of self heals regardless of what changes are needed. Here we see all kinds of organized and quite likely criminal opposition to Tesla cars being introduced despite the fact that they are the most superior vehicle one can buy. I wonder to what degree French companies and politicians will resist phasing out diesel engines. This type of resistance to change is exactly why the US has not been on solar, wind and water power for decades. It is not that it is not good or too expensive. It is all about propaganda and lies and big business wanting to keep a tight grip on energy supplies. Really folks, just dwell upon this stuff for a bit. If the US has an energy supply issue why do we allow any exports of coal, oil or natural gas at all? If you are short of groceries in your home do you rush to sell what little food you have?