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Comment by SideburnsOfDoom

9 years ago

For instance, For a long time diesel has promoted in Europe as greener than petrol. This is soon to change, because: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/27/diesel-engine-fum...

Diesel engines produces less CO2 by being slightly more efficient.

Pretrol engines produce less nitrogen oxides and particulate matter.

What's "greener" is just a matter of your definition of it.

  • > What's "greener" is just a matter of your definition of it.

    What i means was that the "promoted" part is soon to change, because of the greater understanding of the drastic public health consequences.

Diesel /is/ greener when you consider only CO2 emissions and energy efficiency, although turbocharged direct injection engines narrow that gap significantly. If this were the '70s though, I'd much rather have a fleet of diesel cars running around than ones with cabureted gasoline engines.

  • What about all the people who die from diesel particulates? Failing to consider that is exactly the mistake Europe is still making.

    • Particulates are easy to deal with using current technology--burn lean, burn hot (and inject lots of urea to get rid of all the NOx that this regime creates), and stick on a filter on the tailpipe to get rid of the stuff that does get created. The main problem is that diesel engines last forever, and a lot of old engines that don't meet requirements are still on the road.

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