A "major breakthrough" in diesel technology significantly reduces emissions
express.co.uk
express.co.uk
https://www.autoblog.com/2018/04/25/bosch-diesel-emissions-b...
Everything in this article is pure marketing nonsense.
>Bosch says its technology uses a combination of advanced fuel injection, a newly developed airflow management system to recirculate exhaust gases, and intelligent temperature management, and it requires no additional new components. It says the technology drops nitrogen oxide emissions to one-tenth of the amount set under the stricter 2020 limits for Europe, even in real-world driving conditions. Bosch says the results hold consistent regardless of driving conditions, weather or how aggressively the vehicle is driven.
Much like post-market drug evaluation in the USA, we will only see the true real-world driving conditions until the product is released en masse and all of its potential use cases are established to release 10% NOx. Until then, I am skeptical, as we have heard such things about cleaner diesel numerous times.
(Or perhaps I just don't get the extent to which you English people fawn over your royalty, and a lot of you REALLY think it's OUTRAGEOUS that Corbyn took SEVERAL HOURS before congratulating?)
Further, reducing NOx is one thing, but you still have other harmful emissions notably SOx and black carbon. So to Dr Volkmar Denner, CEO of Bosch, who says: “There’s a future for diesel. Today, we want to put a stop, once and for all, to the debate about the demise of diesel technology." I respectfully argue that until you can make Diesel as clean as H2 fuel cell, the push to eliminate diesel burning engines will go on.
For my money, the best environmentally sustainable 'fuel' is electric via Hydrogen/Air powered fuel cell, in which the hydrogen is generated by electrolysis powered by renewable generators (wind, solar, hydro). We've seen a significant push in the Maritime sector towards conversions of diesel engines to LNG-fueled engines. However, LNG (which may have significant methane slip - a really BAD greenhouse gas - if you're not careful) isn't nearly as clean as H2.
Of course there's also lots of really cheap, clean fuel, and ways to reduce GHG emissions, such as bicycling, sky sails, stairs/walking, telecommuting, etc.
I've never really seen the evidence that command and control style planned economies work very well.
Since undergrad, I've never heard a good argument as to why we shouldn't do what Musk recently supported: a tax on pollution.
Then let the market figure out where is best to put the money to solve the issue..? Then, if your ideas are correct--and they sound like they are--they would be more-widely adopted, and more efficiently implemented than bureaucrats would, as well.
To respond to the GP post, IMO something like Cap and Trade makes more sense than tax for most forms of pollution; taxes only make sense for pollution when we have the ability to clearly quantify the harm done by the pollution. Most of the time we merely want to cap the amount of pollution, and cap-and-trade will more easily meet that goal than taxation.
>IMO something like Cap and Trade makes more sense than tax for most forms of pollution
Economists argue about this at length. Among those who write a lot to the public, you'll find figures like Mankiw among the most vocal supporters of a tax, and DeLong as one of the biggest supporters of cap and trade. Krugman, from what I have seen, seems to just want either one of them.
IMO the problem with Cap and Trade is that it needs to be implemented perfectly. So far it has had problematic corruption. For example, in some cases the greatest offenders (coal generators) have been handed allowances... For free... Which they can then sell on the market at their fair market value. So if anything, it has been a reward for being the first to harm others.
Not only that, then you have Wall St entering the picture, and in 2008 they proved their marketplaces dont always work so well. Bureaucrats and politicians, attorneys and accountants, endless committees, and endless meetings... It's going to be another War on Poverty all over again, where trillions are spent and the problem is not only never solved, but there has arguably never been evidence the problem has even been reduced.
Finally, how would cap and trade reward and incentivize micro and household economics? Are we going by an honor system on our tax returns to tally up our carbon allowances and deduct how many car pools, telecommutes, bike rides, stairs, cold showers, etc? This is all lunacy. Why try to do this in a heavy-handed way when this is the type of thing which markets are actually brilliant at solving. Probably because all those industry experts dont want to be obsoleted overnight.
For CO2 at least the microeconomic incentives are simple because the amount of CO2 generated by burning fuel is fixed, so you can just require that retail sales of fuel come with a CO2 credit. For NOx, the emissions of which depend on many variables it's much more complicated, but I can't think of a good way of taxing those either.
However, as an engineer with the power to change affect a piece of machinery's design, I don't have to sit back and say "hey, the government doesn't regulate black carbon, so I'll just do the easiest thing and use my budget to integrate diesel engine with NOx and SOx just under regulatory thresholds." Instead, I can decide to use my noggin to design a system that has the same (or even better) performance, OPEX and CAPEX, without burning diesel.
It's really not that hard. We have the technology. Engineers who desire a cleaner environment, just need to buck-up and push back on customers (or venders in this case) who are afraid to do something just because 'that's not how we did it in the past. That's what I do.
The power to change is not purely in the hands of regulators, it's also in the hands of 'doers'.
>Our analysis of the respective emissions standards identifies that (broadly) US federal standards are more ambitious for key local air quality pollutants, particularly NOx, than EU standards. A key difference is that the US applies a single set of standards to petrol and diesel vehicles, while the EU allows higher levels of air quality pollutants to diesel vehicles.[1]
[1]http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/58733...
What market are these competing in?
So, that's two big markets: Marine and Land-based Transportation.
1. http://www.sname.org/westerneurope/events/event-description?...
I think diesel will have its niche in the future, as the energy density concerns are legitimate and important for many applications. Biodiesel also doesn't have the same limitations in terms of materials the batteries do.
For personal transportation, I'm a strong proponent of human power, particularly walking and biking. No new magic technology is needed as far as I'm concerned. This is not practical in many places in the US, but if someone were to spend as much effort selecting where they live to have a good cycling commute as they do when selecting where they live to have a good driving commute, the problem would be mostly solved. Many people would have to change their lifestyles to do this, but I think those who do would typically find the changes acceptable or an improvement over their current situation.
/Looks at batteries 1/5th the cost of what they were 10 years ago, and still falling. Just another 1/2 reduction to being cheaper than an ICE engine
Yeah.... even if this made diesel cleaner than baby smiles I don't think this is going to save diesel.
We are still a ways away from the convenience of chemical fuel because of energy density and refueling time.
But the future is indeed bright, pun intended.
The energy density of li-ion is .05ish mj/l, vs 50ish for diesel. EVs are about twice as efficient at converting that energy than gasoline ICEs but that's still a large gap (and diesel is much more efficient, but I don't have that ratio handy) where weight and volume are constraints. Also, refueling time is hard to get down economically (you can trade out a full set of battery cells for new/charged ones, but more vehicle weight/complexity and infra to accommodate that).
A more efficient diesel is more meaningful to vehicle trends in Europe than the US, but I think regardless of type of hydrocarbon fuel sources, commuter use cases are closer aligned with EVs and you're right there that this development won't stop the trend there (and non-commercial vehicle usage is an enormous, perhaps largest, source of CO2 pollution).
Electric has ~4,200 lb to work with before weigh for components before you consider the weight of fuel. https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-620-april-26-2010-...
Mack trucks get ~6.5 mpg, so a 350 mile range would take ~5 Tesla battery's ~6,000 lbs. That's a little low, but far from useless just add how battery swaps and it's completely viable.
Long term, the move to in road charging means electric trucks will actually save significant weight over IC engines while also having unlimited ranges. http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/18/technology/uk-electric-cars-...
To be fair, 350 is low. Don't semis vary around 150 gallons of fuel capacity? There will also be a balance to update roads vs choosing rail in a multimodal logistic chain. Maybe the smaller EV range would be appropriate there for last mile. Anyway, I know it's complicated but I sure hope we solve this urgently.
Long haul trucks will probably use it.
The key challenge to diesel engines is that the combustion is essentially a chemical reaction in vastly different thermal conditions depending on the outside temperature. Every engine has a "sweetspot" thermal range where they are really efficient in burning diesel fuel and washing out NOX from the exhaust fumes. Once you're outside that sweetspot, there is little you can do.
http://english.gov.cn/policies/infographics/2015/06/02/conte...
China plan to have 80% of the EV market in next to no time with 80% being of all sales globally. If Chinese EV cars are just a better product than diesel banger style cars then diesel is dead. The switchover would happen more like the death of analog film, economics kicks in at some point and the network of fuel stations goes much like how the network of places you could get film processed has utterly vanished.
Film people thought it was all about SLR lenses and film grain, petrol heads are the same except they think about the joys of a manual transmission and the silly fart noises that come out of their exhaust. Much like how nobody would give up the camera on their phone for some 35mm SLR camera it will be the same with electric cars, nobody would give up their electric car to drive exclusively diesel or petrol. That is where that analogy ends, nobody was subsidised to give up their 35mm camera to go digital.
The Bosch press release is indicative of attitude problems, although petrol/diesel may be 98% of the market now that can be changed with a fall from being relevant much like what happened with analog film. It takes a generation to come along and the Luddites eventually shut up or die.
Although Bosch do amazing 'leccy powered systems for cars the manufacturers have not been quick to start using those components. Maybe this is a bit like a new CPU, e.g. when the Z80 came out in '76 it took a few years before the mass market ZX Spectrum came along to use it. Zilog didn't go ahead and make their own complete system, they just waited a few years for others to do that. Maybe this is where Bosch are now with their EV goodies. It is all going to work out fine, we will all be driving Chinese electric cars.
Kidding aside: this is a vacuous press release regurgitated by a tabloid, and doesn’t deserve attention.
Diesel has always been an illusion to me, like turning lead into gold.