would pollen filters not have any effect then?
what size of particle do they filter out?
how does this compare to paticulate size from
a) older diesels
b) new diesels
c) old petrols
d) new petrols
don't know the answer just asking.
|
|
I imagine that anything that is not pure atmospheric air going into your lungs is going to harm you. If it isn't petrol it will be diesel or home gas or chlorine in swimming pools or tobacco smoke or sawdust or asbestos etc etc. Don't worry - we are all going to die of something sometime! Getting worked up about it just spoile the time you have left.
|
|
|
|
It's to do with the size of the particles. Petrol engines emit microscopic particles - so small they are virtually invisible but are also easily absorbed into the blood stream. They also float around in the atmosphere more easily.
Diesel particles on the other hand are larger - this is what makes them more visible - but being larger means they are not so easily absorbed and they fall much more rapidly to the ground.
Make no mistake, both petrol and diesel emissions are very unpleasant. On balance I reckon diesel will win. especially as the older engines slowly reduce in number.
|
|
Adding just 5% biodiesel to your tank of derv will significantly reduce not only CO2 and CO emissions, but particulate emissions as well. It also introduces greater lubricity to the engine. I'd still like to see particulate filters fitted to all engines as standard though.
|
>Adding just 5% biodiesel to your tank of derv will >significantly reduce not only CO2 and CO emissions,
Er, no. CO2 is pretty well fixed by the amount of fuel you burn, and diesels produce negligible CO as they run lean
>but particulate emissions as well.
Dunno about that!
>It also introduces greater lubricity to the engine.
Or that!
>I'd still like to see particulate filters fitted to all engines as standard though.
Petrol and diesel? Depending on which reasearch you believe, petrol and diesel both emit around the same amount of PM 2.5, and it is this that causes the serious problems. PM10 (the visible one) is a more diesel problem, but is much reduced in current high pressure engines, and eliminated in cars (such as the PSA 2.2 HDi) with a particulate trap (which also takes out the majority of PM2.5) - indeed these are MUCH cleaner than the equivalent petrol engine, but still attract an extra tax on VED and company car tax - why??
Of course, it's impossible to tell if petrol emissions cause any long term damage, because the CO kills you off long before the researchers have any chance to find out about cancer - they just don't publicise that! On an equally cynical note, the government is likely to support anything that puts peoeple off buying diesels since their revenue falls about 30% every time someone choses a diesel over a petrol.....
Richard
|
|
Run on cooking oil 39p a litre from most supermarkets,renewable,green,does not seem to smoke and stuff Mr Brown,in the long term could also stick 2 fingers up at the OPEC nobbers.Beats coal anyday!
|
Run on cooking oil
What about the smell?
|
|
Smells like someones cooking dohnuts,nice!
|
|
|
What about the smell?
Don't worry. I'm sure the cooking oil will soon get used to it :o)
|
|
|
|
Is this actually safe for the engine?
And do you recycle all the containers?
|
|
3 litre plastic containers or 20 litre tin containers all very recyclable.Must be about as 'green'a fuel as you can get.Very big in Germany i understand,when Aldi or Lidl have a special offer on cooking oil people buy it by the trolly load.When Mr Diesel invented his engine he was running it on peanut oil!!!Safeway,£1.14 for 3 litres,38p a litre,sounds good to me.
|
|
|
|
|
The cooking fat in our house spends most of his time curled up on the sofa... :-)
|
This will be a long post, sorry about that, but I want to address the points raised above.
Thanks for the reply, Richard. Actually, you have a point, as what I said was a bit misleading - humble apologies. Shouldn't have said emissions, exactly - tailpipe emissions measured alone for CO2 will actually show a slight increase using pure biodiesel. Thing is, biodiesel is like a yoyo system for CO2 - the fuel is made from vegetable oil, which is derived from plants that naturally absorb CO2 as they grow. So by burning biodiesel, you are not really building up the net amount of atmospheric CO2 as you would with derv. Unfortunately, tractors, harvesting equipment etc are usually run on mineral diesel, so it's not a failsafe system. But using 100% biodiesel will still reduce overall CO2 emissions by around two-thirds when made from new oil, and by around 95% when made from recovered waste food-grade oil. In the UK at the moment, any commercially produced biodiesel will be made from waste oil, as the tax regime doesn't allow for competitive production of biodiesel from new oil. So in this country, a 5% blend will mean a 4.75% reduction in "global" CO2 emissions.
Tailpipe emissions of CO are reduced. The addition of just 2% of biodiesel improves the Scar Number by a factor of 1.6, IIRC. Biodiesel has higher oxygen content and higher cetane number than derv, so burns more completely/efficiently. This is what causes higher tailpipe emissions. However, this also means reduced particulate matter due to more complete burning. But the big difference is that the particulates which do escape from biodiesel are non-carcinogenic, non-mutagenic and not as bronchially irritant as derv emissions.
Help me out here - what's the difference (I have a vague idea) between a particulate trap and a particulate filter? The Peugeot system was actually what I had in mind, so I should have used the latter term. To my knowledge not all diesels are fitted with this system as standard. I'd like to see that, because not every diesel car burns biodiesel. I hadn't thought that it wouldn't work for the smaller particulates of a petrol engine - even more reason for me to dislike them, if that's the case. But if these are equally present in diesel emissions, I'll have to do a little digging to find out more about ways of reducing these - you obviously have some knowledge of this, so any information you can point me towards would be very helpful.
I'll also have to dig around a bit to find stuff about lubricity, but in the meantime, trust me - it is true! It's the reason the French added around 5% biodiesel to all their derv, once the requirement to reduce sulphur was brought in about 8 years ago.
Couldn't agree with you more on the VED issue around diesels.
FYI, I drive two diesel cars, both fuelled on 100% biodiesel which I buy commercially.
TLucas - do not attempt to run your car on straight vegetable oil unless you have a preheating system in place. The vegoil is too viscous and full of waxes to put straight into most diesel engines, especially direct injection ones, and will clog your injection pump and fuel lines, particularly in cold weather. This is the reason for making biodiesel - makes the stuff into a fuel you can use in an unmodified modern engine. I suppose you could try it as an additive to 10 or 15%, but it's still a risk.
BrianW - I reuse my containers every time, and have done for the last 3 years. But yes, they can be recycled as well. I also have a couple of metal jerrycans I reuse. But biodiesel is safe to transport in plastic containers, as it is as explosive as vegoil.
Well, I hope you haven't had to spend as long reading all this as I spent typing it!
|
I accept that CO2 is an issue but it has to be put firmly into context. The vast majority of CO2 released into the atmosphere is natural - there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Vast majority means about 98%
The next biggest contributor is cement production. Vast quantities of limestone is pulverised and baked to make cement around the world. During that process millions and millions and millions of tons of CO2 is released. Nothing can compete with cement for CO2 production.
The next biggest contributor is the built environment. Buildings produce massive amounts of CO2 - most of the buildings in this country are very inefficient.
Vehicles come way down the list. A major change in the CO2 output of all vehicles in this country would not be measurable, even over a 10 year period.
Don't get me wrong, I support anything that is 'relatively' easy to do which will reduce CO2 production. But don't get carried away. You would probably save more CO2 emission if you planted a tree in the garden, and then more still if you burn that on your open fire instead of turning on your gas central heating.
Pollution is a far more important subject when discussing fuels.
|
|
|
|
Toyota Hi-Lux TD,have been running it on approx 80% cooking oil,starts ok,runs perfectly,been thru winter but not really very cold.I am not a great fan of Diesel engines but like the idea of alternate fuels.The Hi-Lux is used for all kinds of things with usually 4 different drivers and apart from the smell you would not know what fuel it was running on.3 years ago we ran a Sierra 1.8 TD on used engine oil mixed with with heating oil(kerosene)about 50/50,the car was an old mini cab with at least 200,000 miles on it.The car ran ok but was a little down on power but never failed to start and never broke down.On this abusive mix it did about 6,000 miles b4 being sold on without any noticable problems.Great way to dispose of old oil!Defeats the green argument for using cooking oil though.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"On balance I reckon diesel will win."
Heaven forbid. My neighbour goes to work in the wee small hours, and every weekday morning I am woken up prematurely by the noise of his diesel car starting up. Diesels may be "clean" but they are definitely not as quiet as a petrol-engined car ~ especially one that has got an original (or genuine-replacement) exhaust system.
|
Couldn't agree more. The muttering press goes on about diesels getting quieter all the time, but that's only for the occupants!
Also, emissions from petrol engines may be unpleasant, but to the best of my knowledge are not carcinogenic. CO, for instance, has no permanent effect on the body below a certain threshold - it's rightly considered dangerous because it replaces oxygen in the bloodstream and will kill you if you absorb too much, but at lower levels its effects are only temporary.
I'm not excusing petrol engines from all pollution, but it seems to me that the 'green-ness' of diesels is somewhat overstated.
|
Most people take the view that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, increased levels of which contribute to global warming which in turn brings about climate change. Others disagree about this, which they're entitled to do, but I think that on balance, there seems to be a lot of truth in it.
"The vast majority of CO2 released into the atmosphere is natural - there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Vast majority means about 98%."
Of course, CO2 exists naturally and is produced naturally. However, as someone else said elsewhere on this site, global industrial activity doesn't slow down to compensate for when volcanoes blow up, or when forest fires are caused by human activity. Our contribution to CO2 is, as you rightly point out, in addition to natural levels, not instead of them.
"The next biggest contributor (to cement production) is the built environment. Buildings produce massive amounts of CO2 - most of the buildings in this country are very inefficient. ... Vehicles come way down the list. A major change in the CO2 output of all vehicles in this country would not be measurable, even over a 10 year period."
I completely agree that motoring is only one part of the story. However, it's one of the areas in which most of us have the capacity to effect change. By not buying a new car every two years but holding on for four or five years (or more), we can reduce the pollution entailed in producing new cars. By choosing more fuel-efficient cars when we buy, we use our limited fuel resources less quickly. By using cleaner fuels, we may reduce the impact of climate change and we WILL improve the air quality in our towns and cities. Likewise for using less energy in our homes - insulation, energy-efficient appliances, etc etc. Small changes to the way we live will enable us to do so for longer. I think this combination would give a more significant measurable difference in CO2 output.
TLucas - if you don't already know about this, an interesting link for you would be biofuels.infopop.net - there are large sections devoted to running engines on straight vegetable oil. I think it's a matter of personal choice if you go for vegoil or biodiesel as a fuel (not so keen on the kerosene idea though ... ;) - for me, the risks with vegoil are too high, and I don't want to ruin the injectors on my TDi!
|
|
CO2 released at ground level is largely dealt with by plant life, so the most urgent requirement is to stop cutting down forests. CO2 released into the upper atmosphere by jet engines is far more damaging WRT the greenhouse effect, but no government wants to be first to curtail the activities of the airlines (or to tax the fuel). Incidentally, can anyone explain why we still need another London airport/terminal when all the air traffic forecasts have turned out to be incorrect?
|
I'm not sure you are right about air traffic forecasts being too high (which is what you imply) - the huge growth in low-cost airlines over the last few years means that far more people fly than would have been predicted 10 years ago.
As a non-Londoner, I have to say that I think the problem is that there is too much obsession in London as the hub of the universe.
For example, almost as many people live within 1.5 hours of Birmingham Airport than within 1.5 hours of any single London airport (and of course, the Birmingham 1.5 hours is far more in miles because the traffic isn't as bad). But the number of international flight destinations (especially outside Europe) served from Birmingham is appalling.
I am not sure if this is down to the passengers assuming they can't fly from Birmingham and hence flying from London, or the airlines failing to take the initiative in matching flights to demand outside the London area.
Surely it isn't hard for airlines to compare the postcodes of passengers with the airport they are flying from and move flights from London to the provinces appropriately?
Charter airlines have sussed this pretty well. So why are the scheduled carriers not trying?
|
|
|
|
One of the motoring programs did a test on Volvo - a petrol against the lastest diesel. Started on a cold morning. Result diesel was quieter. From OUTSIDE.
Petrol emissions may not be carcinogenic (but this is unlikely!) but the lungful or two of benzene you get when fill up certainly is!
Sorry!!
Richard
|
Well, there may be the odd honourable exception, although I bet the diesel makes a racket when it's got a few more miles on it. Some friends of mine got rid of their new diesel Citroen after a few months for that reason (and they were inside it!).
The quality of the noise makes a difference, too. I went outside this evening to listen to three unsilenced V-8 powered trikes that had parked nearby. Loud but musical...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
