VW TDI vs. Gas comparison

[theunchosen]

Bump. . .I've only ever seen diesel within 20% once. That was when the refineries in texas shut-down for what 3 days, and gas stations hiked prices. other than that its ALWAYS a dollar more.

1/5 =20%. Which is the highest gas and diesel have gotten.

Higher gas prices mean better diesel deals because its always just 1,00$ above so at 100 a gallon for gas and 101 for diesel diesel is favored.

That said refineries and energy corporations have an interest in keeping diesel dead even with gasoline because it means the by-product is not demanded more than the supply and the supply is greeted with demand.

If gas goes to 10 a gallon diesel would be within 11%. . .otherwise no it won't.

One of three posibilities.
Everywhere other than where I go is completely different in gas/diesel prices.
Wherever you found that made it up.
The data was greivously misconstrued.

[theunchosen]

I'll be happy to say this again, I don't know very much about diesels. My argument was never against diesels because I don't have any proof that diesel emissions controls affect MPG.

They do in gasoline engines. 7 MPG for me. . .

I understand you cannot regulate the number of grams per gallon because cars have different specifications that make that impossible. By the idea of grams per gallon the scooters can still escape virtually with no emissions controls.

That said every car converts fuel to heat and emissions of some sort.

Emissions controls reduce that to acceptable levels.

High MPG vehicles have less total emissions to weed out than teen MPGers because they have greater MPG, therefore less fuel consumed per distance traveled, therefore less emissions total created, therefore less emissions to weed out to slip in under the standards.

For diesels there might not be a case, because diesel controls might not cost you any MPG. I don't drive one and haven't had the opportunity to rip it out and try it.

In gasoline it does.

I ripped it out, I see an MPG gain.

Because it costs more energy to make gasoline than burn it it saves the world energy(fuel) to increase how much of that power makes it to the pavement. Energy is such a "dirty" market that saving it from my car makes tremendous strides. My car doesn't produce any measureable NOx SOx or a handful of pollutants generated by refining gas and so its obviously the best choice to limit how much fuel I use at the cost of dropping some hydrocarbons in the air.

[trebuchet03]

Originally Posted by theunchosen

By the idea of grams per gallon the scooters can still escape virtually with no emissions controls.

Bingo - and why it's important to have statistical controls.

Originally Posted by theunchosen

That said every car converts fuel to heat and emissions of some sort.

Emissions controls reduce that to acceptable levels.

Agreed and Agreed

Originally Posted by theunchosen

High MPG vehicles have less total emissions to weed out than teen MPGers because they have greater MPG, therefore less fuel consumed per distance traveled, therefore less emissions total created, therefore less emissions to weed out to slip in under the standards.

Disagree - the scooter scenario. High mpg, some have terrible emissions. I've been taking a peek - some are actually better, others are terrible.

Originally Posted by theunchosen

For diesels there might not be a case, because diesel controls might not cost you any MPG. I don't drive one and haven't had the opportunity to rip it out and try it.

Let me put this angle on it.... As an engineer, I see these standards as a design challenge. A challenge requiring an elegant and intelligent solution. Historically (engineering wise), engineers are at their best when there's a problem. And when we don't have problems we either make them or have marketers explain to you (end user) that you have a problem, but didn't know until now. CAFE 35 b 2020, TierII, etc. etc. These are design challenges to put fire under the asses of people like me, who are otherwise lazy and will continue status quo.... And to quote Dr. Horrible, "The Status is Not, Quo"

My final tidbit in reference to your earlier post - Diesel is no more a by product of crude than gasoline is A barrel of crude has an approximate affinity to make X motor gas, Y diesel, Z Kerosene, etc. etc. The proportion of which depends on the oil itself, distillation process, etc.

[theunchosen]

The standards are challenges. . .but for gas engines they are entirely misguided.

to refine gasoline it costs .5 grams SOx and .3 grams NOx which my car does not produce. for emissions its better for the world for my car to drop a very tiny amount of HC

[tasdrouille]

Originally Posted by tjts1

The Energy Information Administration can say whatever they hell they want. I'm telling you the reality at the pump. $1.91 for 87 octane vs $3.19 for diesel. You would have to be an idiot buy a diesel car around here.

You're telling the reality at the pumps you looked at. The fact is your reality does not reflect the prices across the US. I'll give you that you might be an idiot to buy a diesel in your town, but don't go around saying diesel is dead based on what you've seen across the corner, because that's just false.

[theunchosen]

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that its different. . .
Although in TN Diesel is equivalently. . .less cost effective.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by theunchosen

The standards are challenges. . .but for gas engines they are entirely misguided.

to refine gasoline it costs .5 grams SOx and .3 grams NOx which my car does not produce. for emissions its better for the world for my car to drop a very tiny amount of HC

It's also better for your car to drop NOx since refinery emissions per mile are lower than current T2B5 emissions. SOx is all on the refinery side regardless of how clean a manufacturer makes your three way cat since the cat doesn't deal w/ SOx AFAIK.

[theunchosen]

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

It's also better for your car to drop NOx since refinery emissions per mile are lower than current T2B5 emissions. SOx is all on the refinery side regardless of how clean a manufacturer makes your three way cat since the cat doesn't deal w/ SOx AFAIK.

Waffle I agree entirely that a refineries NOx per mile is terrible lol. For that reason I was computing grams per gallon since refineries don't move(because cars and refineries both have metrics for gallons).

[trebuchet03]

Originally Posted by theunchosen

The standards are challenges. . .but for gas engines they are entirely misguided.

to refine gasoline it costs .5 grams SOx and .3 grams NOx which my car does not produce. for emissions its better for the world for my car to drop a very tiny amount of HC

So change the refineries. A optician isn't going to prescribe that you read less because of poor eyesight (lucky for us, our eyes aren't individual carcinogen generators). Consumption increases every year despite increases in individual mpg.

[theunchosen]

Trebuchet. . . you have to work 125% harder to clean things up at the refinery. thats the 5:4 issue. It's possible to make refineries cleaner. . .but the people who run them have no interest in doing that because it goes from cutting into their profits to draconian cuts into profits.

If you make it impossible to do business people quit doing business. Even if legislation is passed to force refineries to release no emissions, they will simply consume enormous amounts of power to filter it all out. And all of a sudden the power plant begins releasing more emissions than the refinery was, because of the increased demand. We limit the coal plants. . . and instead of losing money per ton of coal per however many KWH they shut down, fire thousands and walk out while they still have capital.

And no it's not like your optician saying because your eyes are messed up you shouldn't read. The doesn't correct the issue. Emissions controls would be like mandating that all text has to be large enough for you to read it, instead of just giving you eyeglasses.

EPA likes to correct things and do the blanket effect. Your doctor designs eyeglasses just for you to get your sight back on track.


The fastest way to change global emissions is do something everyone else will do with no coercion. Emissions policies are followed by a few handfuls of countries and there is no way to make the others come to the table. If you increase all Gas driven vehicles around the world by 10% MPG you reduce global emissions 10%.

Sure, its entirely possible to limit the products of the combustion equation, but the cost is higher than the gain. we gain not dropping a few tenths of a gram of hydrocarbons at the cost of half a gram of Sulfer Dioxides, and a third of a gram of NOx emissions, plus several more pounds of CO2 per car per per week.

It would be a fantastic world if we could just say "we are not going to emit pollutants anymore." We could.
It would cost a nuclear power plant on the 500 MW scale, per day for 10 years to get there. Because if you are really going to emit 0 emissions you are going to have to run off an unfathomably large electrical grid.

Can't use batteries because they release emissions on their terminals, Fuel Cells are out because they introduce rust in to the ground water supply(what comes out of Hydrogen fuel cell pipes mixes with the pipes gradually rusting them) and your only options are to transmit electricity in some form of wave through roadside rails to cars that store it in uninvented ultra-capacitors and power their electric motors. At that point though you step out of the solid pollutant range and into the energy pollution. broadcasting that kind of power in microwave form or any other form is probably likely to have detrimental side effects.

Yes I agree with you. It would be fantastic if we could limit car emissions to 0, refinery emissions to 0 and power plants to 0. Unless you have an idea on how to make several quadrillion in USD and intend to hand it over to the US government to rebuild our electrical infrastructure, it won't happen in the next 20 years.

So the answer is we should stop whining about emissions being produced that we CAN'T change and do something about FE that we can radically change.

Aptera
It gets something like 240 odd MPG after its batteries have gone dry. There are cars on this forum that get 100 MPG. If you change nothing else on your car and you cut your fuel consumption in 1/3(EPA 35 mpg is roughly 1/3 of 100) you reduce your emissions by 1/3.
If you don't think so only drive 1/3 of the way to work, get out and walk the rest of the way. walk back to your car and drive home. you emit 1/3 as much.

Since that doesn't sound fun(instead of walking that extra 5 miles per gallon of gas I use) I just popped off my cat and eseentially produce the same number of emissions.