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The Dirty Truth About 'Clean Diesel' (nytimes.com)
HughPickens.com writes: Volkswagen persuaded consumers it had created a new generation of so-called clean diesel cars — until investigators discovered that phony testing concealed that its vehicles emitted up to 40 times the permitted levels of pollutants during regular use. Now Taras Grescoe writes in the NY Times public outrage over the fraud obscures the much larger issue: "clean diesel" is causing a precipitous decline in air quality for millions of city-dwellers. Monitoring sites in European cities like London, Stuttgart, Munich, Paris, Milan and Rome have reported high levels of the nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, or soot, that help to create menacing smogs. Although automakers worked hard to convince consumers that a new generation of "clean diesel" cars were far less polluting, diesel has a fatal flaw. It tends to burn dirty, particularly at low speeds and temperatures. In cities, where so much driving is stop and start, incomplete diesel combustion produces pollution that is devastating for human health.
Fortunately, Volkswagen sold only half a million of its "clean diesel" cars to the American public before the emissions scandal broke. Today, fewer than 1 percent of the passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. run on diesel fuel. Europe is now scrambling to undo the damage. In London, Mayor Boris Johnson last year called for a national program to pay some drivers to scrap their diesel vehicles. In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo has gained broad support for a proposed ban on diesel cars. "Last month, the signatories of the climate deal in Paris agreed that the world has to begin a long-term shift from fossil fuels to more sustainable forms of energy," concludes Grescoe. "Recognizing "clean diesel" for the oxymoron it is would be a good place to start."
Fortunately, Volkswagen sold only half a million of its "clean diesel" cars to the American public before the emissions scandal broke. Today, fewer than 1 percent of the passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. run on diesel fuel. Europe is now scrambling to undo the damage. In London, Mayor Boris Johnson last year called for a national program to pay some drivers to scrap their diesel vehicles. In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo has gained broad support for a proposed ban on diesel cars. "Last month, the signatories of the climate deal in Paris agreed that the world has to begin a long-term shift from fossil fuels to more sustainable forms of energy," concludes Grescoe. "Recognizing "clean diesel" for the oxymoron it is would be a good place to start."
1 gallon of diesel burned in a train makes a truck look like the dirty polluting piece of crap it is. Make the train electric and you'd think that truck was the source of all pollution.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Your comments highlight the crux of the problem. Back in the day, inefficient (read truck like) diesel were shooting out black smoke. That particulate is large in size (10 or 100 of microns) that you actually "see". Improvements in efficiencies (both in combustion and trapping) made modern "clean engines" reduced the size of particulate to few microns. Those are much more difficult to see. Yet they are far more dangerous. Large particulate is trapped in your upper respiratory tract, the fine stuff gets deep in your lungs, often bioaccumulaating like abspestos does. You know how the stoey goes. Not because you don't see it it means it's not there... Next time stick a paper towel on the exhaust of your cold diesel and leave it there for a few minutes. Look at the color. Now you have somerhing to "see".
And as soon as we got rail tracks to every grocery store this actually means something.
Where I live (Los Altos, CA), there were rail tracks adjacent to every grocery store. They were ripped out to make the Foothill Expressway. http://www.abandonedrails.com/...