Poll for Americans: What about Diesel engines?

[Duffman]

Originally Posted by ConnClark

IMHO environmental agencies should just set standards to meet. They should be forbidden from dictating how they are met such as mandating DPF and catalysts.

That is how it does work. They just moved the bar far enough that the DPF is pretty much required.

[hal9999]

IMHO environmental agencies should just set standards to meet. They should be forbidden from dictating how they are met such as mandating DPF and catalysts.

I totally agree but are you sure that the regulators specified that a PDF is mandatory ?

[festivaWES]

Originally Posted by hal9999

Finally an anti-diesel !



Could you be more detailed ?
Thanks.

gas that gels up...
fuel that costs more than gas but yet it takes less money to refine diesel.
diesel costs more..

JUNK!

[Big Dave]

No, the EPA does not dictate compliance measres, just the standards that have to be met, recordkeeping to demonstrate compliance, and what reports have to be submitted.

That said, they are quite aware of what emissions controls are available at any given time.

Soon or later the question becomes: "Is a tiny amount of environmental improvement (so tiny it is not likely to be measureable) worth sacrificing a lot of MPG?"

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Big Dave

Soon or later the question becomes: "Is a tiny amount of environmental improvement (so tiny it is not likely to be measureable) worth sacrificing a lot of MPG?"

Yes, well for the person who would otherwise get cancer or asthma from said emissions anyway. No one's preventing you from sneaking around w/ a battery powered reciprocating saw and hacking off DPFs Big Dave.

[hal9999]

Dear Big Dave,
with all sincere respect, did you ever live in a high polluted city ?
With a lot of older stinky diesel cars, two stroke scooters, lories, ships, heavy industries and gasoil heating systems like Milan, Naples, Paris or New Deli?

How can you claim that:

Is a tiny amount of environmental improvement (so tiny it is not likely to be measureable) worth sacrificing a lot of MPG?.

Ok, DPF can decrease the MPG but our clean air is at least as important.

This all remembers me the big discussions when catalytic filters and unlead fuel where introduced in Europe, in the eighties, for gasoline engines.
There where a lot of critiques about efficiency drops, increased MPG and possible destruction of the engines etc. Today all those fears have disappeared, the air quality has been massively improved and the cars are reliable.

The same schema seams now to happen about the DPF. At the beginning Germany, for instance, didn’t want the DPF . But because of other reasons. Now they praise their “clean last generation DPF engines”.
Thanks to the DPF’s the air quality is drastically improving in Western Europe.

Although being a diesel fan, I recognize that the PM matter is a serious problem.
INHO, air quality is as important as MPG. Especially in large agglomerations.

[festivaWES]

I lived in socal for five years...they occationally have smog alerts telling you to stay indoors.

[Big Dave]

hal9999 posted:
"...did you ever live in a high polluted city ?"

Big Dave says:
Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati in the 1960s. Johannesburg in the 1970s. Bangkok and Taipei in the 1990s. Polluted enough for you? I also worked on railroad ready tracks where 50-60 locomotives sat idling all day. I seem to have survived.

If a city has a local problem, they should take local measures. No point in crippling everybody to address a local problem.

The US has the the best air quality in living memory. Thus spracht the EPA. Even in LA, Tier II will not generate a reduction of 0.1 microgram per cubic meter of PM2.5. Out here on the frozen steppes where PM2.5 is below threshold of detection, this is all pain and no gain.

So some people say that infinitesimal benefits in air quality for the benefit of a very small subset of the population outweigh a large improvement in MPG for everybody. That makes improved MPG Mission: Impossible unless you force people to drive small cars they don't want.

[hal9999]

So some people say that infinitesimal benefits in air quality for the benefit of a very small subset of the population outweigh a large improvement in MPG for everybody.

Ok, I get your point now, although I have to agree that we disagree in some points.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Big Dave

If a city has a local problem, they should take local measures. No point in crippling everybody to address a local problem.

That would be great if everyone just stayed in their respective areas and never traveled or sold their vehicle to anyone else, but unfortunately they do. In specific instances, long haul trucking for example, limiting use for a patchwork of emissions regs is pointless.