VW caught cheating US emissions tests

[Welly]

There's a story hotting up over on the Volvo Forum where a Volvo Diesel was tested at 15 times over the limit to which Volvo immediately reported "you tested a faulty car, try this one 'ere mate". Or something.

To me it all smacks of Diesel engines not being able to meet Euro 6 and this is the beginnings of the end......

[KozmoNaut]

It sure smells like everyone has been doing this to avoid fitting expensive and complicated urea injection systems etc. to their passenger cars.

I wonder if this will mean those systems will now have to be fitted to all diesel cars, and whether the added expensive means that diesel passenger cars will severely reduce in numbers.

[Bailes1992]

I would be happy to have an AdBlue system fitted to my car. I would much prefer it than a bloody EGR.

[KozmoNaut]

It's not either/or situation. You'll have urea injection, EGR, DPF, all of that stuff to make the diesels less dirty than they really are. And they'll be mandatory and checked at every inspection.

[steve_earwig]

[KozmoNaut]

Chernobyl had a rather low carbon footprint, considering it was a nuclear power plant and that's sort of the whole point. That picture makes no sense.

Now, the radiation footprint, on the other hand...

[steve_earwig]

Ah well, it's my own fault for assuming other people know what they're talking about, rather than using my own brain

[highlander]

Chernobyl had a rather low carbon footprint, considering it was a nuclear power plant and that's sort of the whole point. That picture makes no sense.

Pretty certain Chernobyl did give off a fairly large amount of carbon ... whilst it was on fire, following the explosion.

We also had the original reactor pile at Windscale (now called Sellafield) which went on fire, ages ago. Though there was no release of radioactivity as the exhaust system had a filter installed (it originally wasn't supposed to have had one, but one guy insisted on it during the construction of the plant, and eventually pestered people so much he got his own way - and basically stopped a major radiological incident).

[KozmoNaut]

Pretty certain Chernobyl did give off a fairly large amount of carbon ... whilst it was on fire, following the explosion.

Well yes, technically you are correct, of course

But during normal operation, there would be very little carbon emissions.

And actually I made a mistake as well, since this issue with VW is mainly about NOx emissions, not carbon.

[rwb]

It's not either/or situation. You'll have urea injection, EGR, DPF, all of that stuff to make the diesels less dirty than they really are. And they'll be mandatory and checked at every inspection.

Yeah, the worst thing to come out of all this will be over-zealous inspections.

Domestic heating produces more carbon emissions in the UK (32%) than road transport (25%), so why aren't the richeous environment crusaders telling granny to turn her heating down? And don't get me started on the winter heating payment we stump up out of the jobs that we drive to. :p

[highlander]

Fun fact: a coal-fired power station will give off more radiation every day of normal operations than a nuclear power station does in a year of normal operations

Coal, when burned, gives off "fly ash", which contains concentrated levels of uranium and thorium which just aren't as potent in raw "whole" coal. So all the coal power stations which remained operational during the period since Chernobyl where the world and all the hippies said "NO NUCLEAR POWER, IT'S TOO DANGEROUS OMG" have been busily emitting more radioactive material than the nuclear stations that should have replaced them.

It's entirely possible to build a nuclear power station that WILL NOT MELT DOWN in the event of a loss-of-coolant accident - the Fukushima plant (comprised of several light water reactors) melted down because the reactors lost coolant due to the failure of its pumps following the tsunami. Use of liquid sodium would have prevented the explosions and core meltdown.

And Chernobyl only really went up because the operations team decided to run a test by disabling every safety feature.

I'm all in favour of nuclear power - as long as it is properly planned from the beginning to the end (construction, commissioning, operations, waste processing / fuel reprocessing, decommissioning, decontamination, deconstruction, return to green field status).

[steve_earwig]

Just add in someone taking back-handers to cut corners any where along the line there...

The next generation has to pay...

Also, VW's problems are NOx's, not carbon...

[Bailes1992]

It's not either/or situation. You'll have urea injection, EGR, DPF, all of that stuff to make the diesels less dirty than they really are. And they'll be mandatory and checked at every inspection.

Not true, most lorries up to Euro 6 had one or the other.
Lots of companies going for the EGR because it's 'maintenance free' and others going for AdBlue because it allows them to run combustion at higher/optimal temperatures which gives you a more complete combustion and less particulate matter as a result.

[KozmoNaut]

Nah, all modern engines use EGR, it's pretty much mandatory to meet Euro 5, never mind Euro 6. That goes for both petrol and diesel engines.

And I know some bus companies prefer heated ammonia systems because they can run better at lower engine temperatures, which is better for city busses. They can have both and switch to urea when the engine's fully warmed up, as it is cheaper in consumables.

[Doggy]

I beg to differ http://www.iveco.com/uk/products/pages/ ... iveco.aspx