SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the that's-a-lot-of-rogue-engineers dept.
Four More Companies Caught Cheating Emissions Standards
From The Guardian :
Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi have joined the growing list of manufacturers whose diesel cars are known to emit significantly more pollution on the road than in regulatory tests, according to data obtained by the Guardian.
In more realistic on-road tests, some Honda models emitted six times the regulatory limit of NOx pollution while some unnamed 4x4 models had 20 times the NOx limit coming out of their exhaust pipes.
"The issue is a systemic one" across the industry, said Nick Molden, whose company Emissions Analytics tested the cars. The Guardian revealed last week that diesel cars from Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo and Jeep all pumped out significantly more NOx in more realistic driving conditions. NOx pollution is at illegal levels in many parts of the UK and is believed to have caused many thousands of premature deaths and billions of pounds in health costs.
The article goes on to state that the toxic emissions levels are anywhere from 1.5 to 6 times higher in road use than in the lab tests. Of the 200 cars tested only five had emissions levels that matched their test results. This is a rather distressing fact. It seems that we the public have been lied to (again) for many years now. The "clean diesel" might just be a myth.
Given that these manufacturers come from all over the world, how is it possible that this is an accident? Is there so much incest in the automobile industry that the code from one manufacturer has permeated the industry and the rest of the manufacturers are just waiting to get caught?
VW Says Rogue Engineers, Not Executives, Responsible for Emissions Scandal
Volkswagen's US CEO testified Thursday that the decision to use emissions cheating software was not made at the corporate level. Instead, it was "software engineers who put this in for whatever reason," Michael Horn told a congressional panel that is investigating the scandal.
What's more, Horn told US lawmakers that the German automaker was withdrawing its application to sell 2016 autos with 2.0-liter diesel engines because they don't comply with US emissions standards. Horn testified that the 2016 vehicles were equipped with the same type of software that allowed millions of VW diesel vehicles to cheat pollution tests. "As a result, we have withdrawn the application for certification of our model year 2016 vehicles. We are working with the agencies to continue the certification process," Horn told the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
The timing is perfect to throw the engineers under the bus.
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Monday October 12 2015, @11:42AM
Technically petrol is much filthier but all gasoline.
Much like there is no "the gasoline molecule" there is no "the catalytic converter" and the chemical environment of diesel exhaust vs gasoline exhaust is very interesting and requires different engineering solutions. It turns out that "perfect" cat converters are really easy for gasoline engines due to the rich HC exhaust. Diesel is not so simple.
Even just 30 years ago "everybody knew" that diesel particulate filters were of course impossible, yet here they are being shipped. Ditto "everyone knows" low sulfur, almost sulfur free diesel is impossible, yet here we are. Where we're stuck right now is there exist some really cool catalysts that given raw diesel emissions they devour residual HC and last forever, but no one has a really good chemistry solution for NOx in a lean exhaust stream other than squirting an ammonia source into the exhaust, the ammonia "naturally" eats the NOx, at least at exhaust temps.
Basically the 50000 foot pix is the EPA is intentionally legislating diesel out of existence. "You must get rid of your NOx" "There is no scientific way to do that" "OK then stop making diesels". The previous hurdles have been understood but too much of an engineering PITA... the current hurdle, the NOx output, is just a scientific question mark. Its not a matter of taking an off the shelf DPF design and toughening it up to survive 3000 automatic cleaning cycles so it'll make it to 10 years. Or having the will to convert the entire fuel distribution system from like 1% sulfur to basically zero. Off the top of my head I can't think of a good lean NOx catalyst, there just aint no such thing on this universe for some semi-interesting thermodynamic reasons. This is no problem for petrol engines but it means diesel production will basically have to cease.
In the end, in terms of energy and human effort spent vs motive power generated, its probably a lot more straightforward to refine diesel into syngas than to make a clean diesel engine. Or put the effort into lithium batteries, mass transit, railroads, etc.
Technologies can die out. More than a century ago there were steam automobiles. Think of the vacuum tube.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 12 2015, @08:50PM
And conveniently, diesel is one fuel we might have been able to grow enough of to displace fossil fuels (assuming the whole algae based biodiesel wasn't just a boondoggle.)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 13 2015, @12:00AM
A couple of points:
Technologies can die out. More than a century ago there were steam automobiles. Think of the vacuum tube.
Those technologies died out because they were greatly inferior to newer technologies that replaced them, not because of any legislation that prevented them from being used. Steam cars were terribly inefficient, and vacuum tubes were terribly unreliable, power-consuming, and large.
For diesel, what's the problem with just using ammonia, as you mentioned? If that solves the problem, why not just do that for all diesel engines? Obviously it's a bit of a PITA because now you have another tank to fill, but from what little I've read about the urea-injection systems, a tank lasts a long time, like thousands of miles I think (I guess it doesn't take much to deal with the NOx in the exhaust), so that doesn't seem like such an onerous burden for diesel drivers.
Eliminating diesel altogether seems completely impractical at this time. For small cars, sure, gasoline works well enough (today's latest cars are getting fantastic fuel economy figures), but for 18-wheelers, trains, construction equipment, etc., that isn't going to work so well. There's a reason big engines which need lots of torque always use diesel, and never gasoline. I guess you could deal with that using gearing, but still that's probably going to result in much worse fuel economy. Not to mention how many such engines are in use now.