Diesel v petrol

[xsaab]

At one time Volvo coated the radiator with a substance that de-polluted the air that passed through it as the car moved forward.

Saab claimed that the exhaust gases were cleaner than the urban air going into the engine. No doubt these are marketing claims from days when marketing claims were not thoroughly challenged.

Given that traffic pollution is more a result of the road and town design, is it not possible to clean up the city air by having air cleaning devices placed in the streets.

[Harvey1512]

Originally Posted by xsaab

Given that traffic pollution is more a result of the road and town design, is it not possible to clean up the city air by having air cleaning devices placed in the streets.

I believe they are called trees.

[GMcL]

No, no, no, no, no. Trees are dangerous and expensive to run:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ages-soar.html

Give it 5 minutes and petrol will be evil and there will be a swing to some other form of electric hybrid.

[The Thong]

Originally Posted by GMcL

No, no, no, no, no. Trees are dangerous and expensive to run:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ages-soar.html

Give it 5 minutes and petrol will be evil and there will be a swing to some other form of electric hybrid.

I agree..... Hold on to your diesels, they'll be back in fashion soon enough

[Grimble]

Don't live in a city, plenty of fresh air in the countryside.

Sorry, I'm being stupid, central London is the centre of the universe and what happens there must be the same as the rest of the country.
Why don't we just all walk or pushbike to our clean office jobs?

The problem is not the type of fuel, its that too many people are using it. Cut the population, cut the pollution.

I do have some sympathy for the villains in the films that want to kill off the human race.
But not me of course.....

[skyship007]

Originally Posted by Triple-S

Having heard today's news that plans are afoot to ban diesel cars from London, as Paris etc has done, can any experts amongst us tell me if diesel fumes are more dangerous than petrol. They talk of high parts per million of soot affecting the health of Londoners, but on other occasions say that petrol cars emit so much pollution the planet is suffering. Surely car manufacturers have chemists who were consulted before the market was saturated with diesel cars, but if so lorries and buses are so much larger they MUST be major polluters yet there was no mention of banning them.
As for the future, bring on fuel cell development and stop playing with silent death - the expensive-to-make and limited-range electric car.

Paul

It depends on which type of engine and the emissions control systems is used. In general terms using a modern petrol engine that has a real good EGR and CAT results in lower emissions, mostly because of the fine particle output from a diesel. These Carbon particles don't cause cancers like some chemicals that the EGR/CAT remove, BUT they are bad news in terms of general lung related problems and will make conditions like emphasema worse, which can have fatal consequences.

Expensive hybrid diesels or stop start diesels with a DPF using Urea injection systems are just as good as a small petrol car.

Most of the city area diesel pollution in the UK is from trucks and buses, not cars, BUT that is not true in Germany or other countries that have very modern bus fleets that are often gas powered or hybrids.

Talk of banning diesels in the UK is daft, BUT they could increase the road tax diesel cars that are city based.
The Germans might well instigate a ban for some city areas and that would be related to the type of DPF fitted. In some areas it would make more sense to ban all non electric or gas cars and provide free parking and shuttle bus etc.