s'all right
didn't mean to spank you

 

I'm glad you're here to listen.

No, I'm just saying that both engines pollute in different ways. You probably know more about this than I do anyways.
Bottom line is:if you don't want to pollute, buy an electric car.
electric cars

 

Dude, I tell you what, if you don't want to look like a pansie driving an electric vehicle, check out the electric Ford Rangers. I worked at a plant where the maintenance staff had 3 of those things. (2001 models) They were awsome! We got one up to almost 80 MPH on the freeway. They only got between 50 miles and 100 miles per charge depending on how fast you were driving it but they were still awsome possums! It was like being in a big golf cart but a golf cart with a 90 Kw motor that could really scoot. I wouldn't mind buying one for my 2.7 miles daily commutes to work.

 

If anything I'll buy a hybrid. A diesel-electric hybrid anyways. Dodge is supposed to be coming out with a Cummins/electric truck. But, it's still a Dodge.

 

Electric cars pollute too, just not at the same place as do regular cars. Electric cars need electricity to run and get the power thru a plug in the wall. The power from the plug comes from a electric plant that most often burn coal, oil or such to make power. Silly hippies with their 'non polluting' cars.

 

thats the way i see t too, no matter how u look at it, just about everything today if ou follow it back, creates pollution one way or another, no way around it

 

Yea, burn coal to make electricity to run a car..... And let's not get into battery manufacturing and all it's wonders.

Seems to me the "big picture" has been lost in this battle. The continued focus on autos with new standards every year is counterproductive. How close to zero can you get?

Meanwhile, the increased cost of cars slows the turnover in the fleet. And if you want to clean up cars, nothing would do it like everyone driving an '05 right now.

Now all you fellas with the '64 F-100's cleaning out the road draft tube on your 292 needn't worry. Not enough to make a big difference. It's the '93 pot-metal motor'd Mitsubishi pumping oil and the fleets of BMW 320i's running around with dead cats doing the damage. It's the last of the carbureted units running around with stuck chokes. It's the millions of Crown Vics with 200,000 cop and taxi miles doing double duty as transportation and mosquito control.

I read a fellow's calculations a few years back about electric cars when the that GM rolling toaster came out. If you do some figure work on the whole project, it turns out that you could, for less money, go into the poor part of town where the rolling totals foul the air, and trade them new Caddys (or Lincolns, I suppose) for less money.

Anyway, gotta go work on my new 3 car garage so I'll have some place to work on the carb on my van & keep my 2 stroke dirt bike.

 

Just a comment on the original thread:

Here in CA (probably other states as well) the politicos have a bad habit of robbing from enviro funds to help balance our bloated state budget, so the enviro plate money doesn't make it to the intended agencies.

Steve

 

Yea, I was shocked a while back when I went to an OHV park to see that they actually had done some work on it rather than take the money to pay something else like they had done for years.......

 

n578md, I think you need to read the following EPA report excerpts on biodiesel emmisions:

http://www.distributiondrive.com/Article16.html

It may not be perfect, but it sure is the best thing going right now. Better than electric or hydrogen (unless you go nuclear-whoe other subject).
One of us must not understand the hydrocarbon issue very well I'll give you my interpretation and you tell me if I'm wrong:

You said: "And I don't get the "I burn cooking oil so I don't pollute" bit either. What is cooking oil? Cooking oil is a lipid. What's a lipid? Fatty acids and glycerol. And what is a fatty acid? A bunch of hydrocarbon chains. You're still burning hydrocarbons, then you're still polluting."

I though it was UNBURNED hydrocarbons that were the problem. Seeing as how diesels are already lower in these, and biodiesel (according to EPA tests-I've seen better) has a further 67% reduction, it seems it deserves a little more credit than you give it.

 

Thank you tdister. I knew there was something I was forgetting.

 

67% reduction in HC is great but it's 67% less than regular diesel which already puts out very little HC's. NOx is the diesel's problem. A ULEV 5.4L gas engines put out 50% less HC's but HC's are an important percentage of the gasoline engine's pollutant output, not NOx. So what? 67% and 50% of what numbers? You see where quoting percentages is meaningless. (Especially in the ULEV's case which is 50% of a LEV which is itself a percentge of a TLEV which is a percentage of a Tier 1.) You're missing one important point. I said "You're still burning hydrocarbons, then you're still polluting." I didn't say "You're still burning hydrocarbons, you're still putting out unburned HC's." So you're not understanding the context in which I used the word "hydrocarbon". I'm talking about the type of fuel, not the emissions. Pollution is not limited to (unburned) HC's, there's NOx, PM, CO, Sulphur oxides (SOx??? SOx sucks! ) among others to contend with. Here's another problem with biodiesel; it puts out more NOx than regular diesel, some sources say as much 37% more for B100. Both HC and NOx are a part of the problem but NOx is what makes ground level ozone according to the EPA. Ground level ozone is our biggest air-quality problem in the DFW area.

I've been looking at several web sites (gov't and state) to see what the various emission standards are but I haven't been able to get coherent data from that. Also, it's impossible to find specific info on different engines. Grams per Mile will differ by engine size and type let alone by year of manufacture.
However, I found some European sites that have a little clearer information. The information points to the fact that for example, Euro II (1998) gasoline emission standards allow 0.57 grams per Kilometers of NOx and HC combined while the Euro II standard for diesel is 0.70 g/km. What percentage of this HC+NOx is HC? As far as I can tell, 9.3% of the .70 figure is comprised of HC for diesels and 30% of the .57 figure for gasoline for that particular table. In another table, I see also that CO emissions for gasoline are double that of diesel. Allowable NOx emissions are 69% higher in diesels than in gasoline. Allowable HC emissions are 70% higher in gasoline engines than diesel engines. So we can assertain that gasoline engines pollutes mostly by HC's and diesel engines pollute mostly by NOx but a diesel engine is allowed to put out 18.6% more emissions than a gasoline engine. (Neither the EPA nor the TCEQ/TNRCC had any info that I could find on this matter.)

What I need to do here is find someone with a 2003 6.0L diesel. Then take my 2003 5.4L gas and the 2003 6.0L diesel to a smog inspection station and see what the results are for HC and NOx for each engine. This would be the only way to tell for certain what we have here. This is difficult at the moment because all my friends have 7.3L diesels. No one has traded their trucks in yet. And still, the results won't be completly meaningful because of the Cu. In. difference, pollution control devices used, and the method of fuel injection.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think biodiesel is a great idea but I can't give it any credit myself because I can't use it. I would rather put money in the pockets of American agri-business instead of Middle-Eastern oil men who hate our guts.

 

I have just one question. If gas exhaust is so much better than diesel exhaust, how come you can get a diesel pickup without a catalytic converter from the factory, but you have to have one with a gas engine?

 

I did a little search-a-roo on the old spider area (Web) and I found a few things about diesels and catalytic converters. You can't even get a diesel from the factory without a catalytic converter anymore. Doesn't the 6.0L Powerstroke and the 6.6L Duramax have catalytic converters? The January 1st 1994 and later 5.9L Cummins have a catalytic converter, and I know we had a 1996 Chevrolet 6.5L turbo diesel at work that had a cat. It seems that Ford has been able to do without one until the 2003 1/2 introduction of the 6.0L. The newer 6.0L diesels also have EGR valves while my 5.4L does not, what about that? Are Ford gasoline 3/4 and 1 ton vehicles better in emissions? Probably better than they ever were because my 2003 5.4L can pass ULEV standards with the sole emissions control device being the cat converter, not counting the evap canister purge valve for the gas tank. (No EGR, no DPFE, no downstream O2 sensors, no A.I.R. pumps, no TAB , no TAD, no cat heater.) And it still puts out 70% less NOx than most diesels. (If we go by European figures.)
A few reasons come to mind as to why cat converters were not required earlier. Diesels have been available in consumer vehicles only since 1982 (6.2L GM diesel, unless you count the rare diesels in the 1978 Dodge Power Wagon.) These vehicles were mostly of the 8500 GVWR and above size which has had much laxer emission standards. Just recently are these standards including diesels. Yes, true, there were the odd europen cars here and there but not enough to redefine the rules. (my guess) Also, according to an article I found, diesels including heavy trucks still only make up 1/4 of all vehicles in use in the US. There is a much greater number of gassers out there, hence the cat requirements.

 

You are spot-on w/ your last reply regarding diesels and cats n578md (I erased almost the same message after reading yours)

NOx is pretty easy to get back to regular diesel standards by retarding inj. timing a couple degrees. This would need to be done w/ any diesel fuel w/ the cetane #'s biodiesel provides. This is the part where I agree w/ you : The problem is that diesel engines give off 8+ times more NOx than gasoline from the start (as far as untreated exhaust goes). Besides the Catalysts they have devised to treat this problem(though not in use yet, in the states, due lack of urea distribution), there isn't much that can be done. The reason the other emmisions are so low is because the extreme heat the fuel is burned at and the length it is exposed to this heat is the same thing that creates NOx. the cats present on todays diesels can only do so much about this.

Urea (harmless) will transform seperate NOx into nitrogen and oxygen and does it very well. the con w/ this is you need to replenish the urea like you would fuel (not too big of a problem, considering the benefits). Mercedes is set to have just such a system here soon (2006-2007). The Great thing about biodiesel is that once you get this small hurdle cleared, you are well on your way to a zero emissions vehicle (with use of catalytic converters of course) once warmed-up(cold start output will still be a problem-minor in comparison though). Zero meaning no dirtier than the air that came into the engine . Gasoline (compared to biodiesel) has many more compounds in it that pass through the cat unchanged from my understanding. This doesn't even touch the evaporative qualities. SOx is completely eliminated w/ biodiesel (it contains no sulfur).PM is reduced, usually, by over 90% almost eliminating it/them (once you factor in particulate traps which will be set in place for regular diesel-they will be)

Does anyone have any info regarding the differences between gas and diesel cats? (as if anyone's read this far)

Man, your right, it sure is hard to find any concrete #'s regarding this subject. I looked and looked. I was under the impression that the ULEV standards for gas and diesel in the states was the same (I could very well be wrong here). Also there may or may not be a different ULEV standard for "medium duty" vehicles. heres one thing I did find:

California LEV II Emission Standards for Passenger Cars and Light Duty Vehicles
Vehicle less than 8500 lbs. (grams/mile for 120,000 miles/11 years)

NMOG CO NOx PM HCHO
LEV 0.090 4.2 0.07 0.01 0.018
ULEV 0.055 2.1 0.07 0.01 0.011
SULEV 0.010 1.0 0.02 0.01 0.004

Thanks for allowing a rational debate to happen n578md. I've learned a few things researching trying to argue w/ you. I welcome any contributions you can offer to the subject. heres some other emissions technologies coming under way (electric heated cats, NOx traps, etc.):

http://www.aecc.be/en/next_technology.htm

Mods: Is this too far off subject?