Is The Demise of Diesel Cars just Slick marketing?

werner said:
Fine particulates are also introduced into the environment from tyre wear and brake linings (significant quantities) and from biomass combustion. Coarser particulates predominately come from soil/land erosion and mining. Also if the idea is that electric cars are somehow a panacea , if we were all to convert to them, we would have to bring on stream 100% of the time an awful lot more power generation to cope.

There is very little difference between emissions of all sorts from either modern diesel and petrol Euro 6 compliant engines except of course the much higher C02 from petrol engines. A change to electric powered vehicles is just moving the emissions from the tailpipe to the power stations. Be aware that all wind turbines, apart from the dreadful environmental damage they do to local environments, they must be continuously backed up by fossil fueled power stations at all times due to the dreadful intermittency of wind.
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Nuclear power stations...simples :p
 
PGF2016 said:
What is the damage to local environments?
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I'm guessing Werner is talking about the damage done to the environment during installation of wind turbines. I have seen evidence of flooding in areas which has been linked to the installation of wind turbines. I'm not sure how proven the link is but at least I'm guessing that is the damage being referred to here.
 
Leo said:
Wind turbine syndrome, you know, like the opposite of the placebo effect where cranks convince themselves the presence of turbines is damaging their health so much they make themselves ill.
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Which is one aspect of environmental damage. Given the number of wind-farms you have visited, live in proximity to and studied, what aspect of turbine farm operation is most likely to damage human health and well-being?

For a serious overview, from multiple perspectives, rather than your unwarranted flippancy about a serious matter, have a look here: [broken link removed]

Unfortunately, electricity from the wind farms won't magic itself to the nearest distribution point so underground ducting and cabling features in these developments as do access roads and site navigation tracks, none of which get added to the appalling environmental damage windfarms cause.

Concrete features heavily in these developments, foundations, concrete ducting, paths, roadways, etc. and the cement industry contributes in excess of 5% of all CO2 worldwide. Conversely concrete may help reduce air-borne sulfur dioxide, a source of acid rain, by a small amount.
 
For @Leo "Assessing the effects of wind turbines on human health is an emerging field and conducting further research into the effects of wind turbines (and environmental changes) on human health, emotional and physical, is warranted." The scientific view is less dismissive than yours. I'll maybe stick with the science, although this is only one of many such studies. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3179699/
 
Firefly said:
Nuclear power stations...simples :p
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In my opinion it is the only source of energy which can viably replace burning hydrocarbons.
Fusion may be here within the next 30 years. If so then we will have access to almost limitless energy.
I like wind turbines and solar and wave power are a nice idea but only nuclear power provides a relatively safe and environmentally friendly option.
 
AlbacoreA said:
Why are solar and wave power not safe and environmentally friendly?
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Not particularly environmentally friendly and they certainly aren't viable options to replace hydrocarbons any time soon.

It is interesting that so much attention is given to car emissions, particularly the emissions from diesel cars, when the largest 16 container ships in the world emit as much sulphur as all the cars in the world; a large container ship currently emits as much as 50 million cars.
 
AlbacoreA said:
Why are solar and wave power not safe and environmentally friendly?
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Purple said:
It is interesting that so much attention is given to car emissions, particularly the emissions from diesel cars, when the largest 16 container ships in the world emit as much sulphur as all the cars in the world; a large container ship currently emits as much as 50 million cars.
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Different kinds of pollutants though -- sulfur is only one of them. And it is getting lots of attention -- marine bunker fuel is switching over to a low sulfur variety in 2020 so will be a thing of the past soon.

Purple said:
In my opinion it is the only source of energy which can viably replace burning hydrocarbons.
Fusion may be here within the next 30 years. If so then we will have access to almost limitless energy.
I like wind turbines and solar and wave power are a nice idea but only nuclear power provides a relatively safe and environmentally friendly option.
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Agree with you here. And MIT SPARC is only one of at least half a dozen serious commercial fusion efforts at the moment. Still a lot of hurdles to clear, but I'm quite optimistic about a credible fusion demo within a decade or so, well ahead of ITER.
 
dub_nerd said:
Different kinds of pollutants though -- sulfur is only one of them. And it is getting lots of attention -- marine bunker fuel is switching over to a low sulfur variety in 2020 so will be a thing of the past soon.
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I thought that was only in harbours (as is the case in the EU now). China has changed it's omission standards for cars, reducing amount of sulphur emissions by cars from 50 to 10 ppm. That means the figure changes from 50 million cars to 93 million cars. N02 pollution levels from chips are similar to sulphur. It's not a good comparison though as car pollute where people live, ships less so.

dub_nerd said:
Agree with you here. And MIT SPARC is only one of at least half a dozen serious commercial fusion efforts at the moment. Still a lot of hurdles to clear, but I'm quite optimistic about a credible fusion demo within a decade or so, well ahead of ITER.
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Hopefully there is a rational rather than ideological response from the public.
 
Purple said:
I thought that was only in harbours (as is the case in the EU now).
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No, there's still a difference between the global limits and emission control areas, but the new global limit will be 0.5% (down from 3.5%), lower than the ECA limit of 1.5% up to 2010 (but which is now down to 0.1% since 2015).

Purple said:
Hopefully there is a rational rather than ideological response [to nuclear fusion] from the public.
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Hopefully, though I'd have my concerns. There's still a low level of waste from fusion, from activation of shielding by fast neutrons*. And the most likely fuel includes tritium which must be initially produced from more conventional reactors**. Both of these problems are miniscule in the overall scheme of things, but never underestimate mass hysteria.

* unless we hit the Holy Grail of aneutronic fusion.
** ... but can than be bred from a lithium blanket in the fusor
 
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mathepac said:
For @Leo "Assessing the effects of wind turbines on human health is an emerging field and conducting further research into the effects of wind turbines (and environmental changes) on human health, emotional and physical, is warranted." The scientific view is less dismissive than yours. I'll maybe stick with the science, although this is only one of many such studies. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3179699/
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Pretty much in line with what I was referring to. From your link:

To date, no peer reviewed articles demonstrate a direct causal link between people living in proximity to modern wind turbines, the noise they emit and resulting physiological health effects.
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dub_nerd said:
* unless we hit the Holy Grail of aneutronic fusion.
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We are a long way off from even approaching getting any reactor to 6.6 billion degrees Celsius (or 1.1 Billion under pressure confinement). The whole technology is really exciting though.
 
Purple said:
We are a long way off from even approaching getting any reactor to 6.6 billion degrees Celsius (or 1.1 Billion under pressure confinement). The whole technology is really exciting though.
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For that reason, aneutronic fusion is unlikely in the thermalised environment of a tokamak. But you have the non-Maxwellian regime in a Polywell, and focused laser approaches, that could conceivably come to fruition. I suppose it wouldn't be the Holy Grail if it was easy! :D

But I'd happily take tokamak fusion with a conventional water boiler and a bit of short half-life low-level waste. Even that would start Agricultural+Industrial Revolution 2.0.
 
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dub_nerd said:
For that reason, aneutronic fusion is unlikely in the thermalised environment of a tokamak. But you have the non-Maxwellian regime in a Polywell, and focused laser approaches, that could conceivably come to fruition. I suppose it wouldn't be the Holy Grail if it was easy! :D
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To the layman that's suspending plasma hotter than the sun in a doughnut (torus) shape using magnetic fields. Yea, it's really cool technology but really needs to be stable.

dub_nerd said:
But I'd happily take tokamak fusion with a conventional water boiler and a bit of short half-life low-level waste. Even that would start Agricultural+Industrial Revolution 2.0.
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Agreed.
 
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