Canadian Diesel Market 'Ripe to Explode'

[wesintl]

I just doubt highly that 'treehuggers' will protest the introduction of small efficient diesel cars into the US.

They do and they will. Diesel is good but is a short term solution. Problem is diesel produce more greenhouse gasses than gasser like NOx. NOx is the major contributer to green house gasses. Europe has a BIG problem in many major cities due to NOx due to diesels being widely popular there for ~15 years. The increase in smog is directly attributed to diesel emissions. Treehuggers are one of the reason tdi's aren't sold new in ca, and a few NE states. Even the cleaner fuel diesel were just getting here has been in europe for over 10 years. It's cleaner than what we have but it's not the end all.

Also, Americans are still stigmatised by diesel as being dirty an slow. Sure there are some people that drive diesel pickups, a few tdi'ers but that represents a very, very small % of the actual market.

My wife it a great example. We were dating, she needed a car, she wanted a jetta, I told her to get a TDI. First words were smelly, noisy, slow and dirty. SHe bought a gasser. Fast fwd to being married I sold that POS gasser and bought a tdi. She loves it. Many of her friends, family said the same thing you don't want a diesel , smelly, noisy, slow, etc. This is til they rode it and then became believers. Still, none of them ran out and bought one.

 

[Deny]

They do and they will. Diesel is good but is a short term solution. Problem is diesel produce more greenhouse gasses than gasser like NOx. NOx is the major contributer to green house gasses. Europe has a BIG problem in many major cities due to NOx due to diesels being widely popular there for ~15 years. The increase in smog is directly attributed to diesel emissions. Treehuggers are one of the reason tdi's aren't sold new in ca, and a few NE states. Even the cleaner fuel diesel were just getting here has been in europe for over 10 years. It's cleaner than what we have but it's not the end all.QUOTE]

I don't understand why they don't put catylitic converters on diesels, wouldn't that drop the NOx produced. I know the new Dodges coming out will have some kind of particulate trap to catch any particulates from leaving the exhast, I guess they are taking steps, but I still say, if they would put the reasearch into cleaning up a diesel, it would be cleaner in every department. Hell, just the usage of fuel alone, don't tell me that a engine that burns less fuel can produce more harmfull emmisions.
Cheers,
Deny

 

[Lantec]

This is exactly what the environmentalists should be pleased about but instead they bash diesels.

To me it's a no brainer, diesel is less refined which means less energy to produce, it goes further on that less refined fuel which further lessens the environmental impact, not to mention that diesel engines last longer so you don't need to melt down all those cars so often either, it's just a good deal all around.

I can't understand that folks don't see that.

All it takes is a bunch of folks that get together to talk about the environment and see some biased documentaries on emissions and cars and whatnot, you'll get a bunch of people that will protest to anything.

Like the time at this environmentalist protest, they sent in a girl to get people to sign a petition to ban DiHydrogen oxide... H20 and managed to get a whole lot of people to sign it. They didn't use any form of lies.. she simply said she wanted it banned because it's a chemical that's in our food, water, everywhere.

 

[Lantec]

I don't understand why they don't put catylitic converters on diesels, wouldn't that drop the NOx produced. I know the new Dodges coming out will have some kind of particulate trap to catch any particulates from leaving the exhast, I guess they are taking steps, but I still say, if they would put the reasearch into cleaning up a diesel, it would be cleaner in every department. Hell, just the usage of fuel alone, don't tell me that a engine that burns less fuel can produce more harmfull emmisions.
Cheers,
Deny

It was due to the older diesel that was sold in North American which had too much sulphur content in it. 500ppm of sulphur as opposed to the recently new diesel which is 15ppm. Only now can they have cats and particulate filters when the diesel fumes aren't going to burn up the cats.

 

[ChuckB]

Rosco, no offense but I fail to see why religion has anything to do with how much or how little your boss knew about enignes???

I used to have a jewish south african boss

who knew nothing about engines except that diesels were smelly and polluting.
He thought my 1HZ ran on petrol for 6 months before I told him

 

[Varty Yo]

all we gotta do now is get the price of diesel below gas. right now here diesel is 10 cents more then gas. $1.05L thats rediculous to say the least...

 

[chet]

ya no kidding. I had a discussion with around 10 guys here at work the other day when they heard I was looking for a diesel landcruiser. All but one commented on how loud and slow diesel vehicles are! One guy even owned an early '80s chev diesel and swore he would never buy another one. thats 9 guys in one office that will not even consider a diesel! of course they are engineers and no it alls so no changing their minds either!

 

[83bj60]

All it takes is a bunch of folks that get together to talk about the environment and see some biased documentaries on emissions and cars and whatnot, you'll get a bunch of people that will protest to anything.

Like the time at this environmentalist protest, they sent in a girl to get people to sign a petition to ban DiHydrogen oxide... H20 and managed to get a whole lot of people to sign it. They didn't use any form of lies.. she simply said she wanted it banned because it's a chemical that's in our food, water, everywhere.

Great quotes! Indeed the image of diesel people have is that of big, loud smelly semis driven by tobacco chewing rednecks. No wonder 'Tree Huggers' are against it. They will glow for any alternate source of energy that reduces pollution and our dependency on foreign energy, enthusiastically promoting ethanol for example, forgetting thet ethanol takes a lot of fertilizer (=oil) to produce, takes land away from food crops and are completely oblivious to the fact that only diesel engines can use pure waste for fuel with hardly any contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, waste oil!

 

[83bj60]

They do and they will. Diesel is good but is a short term solution. Problem is diesel produce more greenhouse gasses than gasser like NOx. NOx is the major contributer to green house gasses.

Is disagree! NOx produces tropospheric ozone and OH radicals, whcih reduces greenhouse gases such as methane. You must be confusing NOx (nitrogen oxides) with N2O (nitrous oxide). The problem with NOx is that it is a contibuting factor in the creation of smog, a respiratory irritant.

NOx is a byproduct of efficient, high temperature combustion and can be substanntially reduced using catalytic conversion in a well tuned engine.

As a sidenote concerning pollution: People forget that most of the pollution is caused by short trips and cold engine use. Where do most of these happen? In cities. Where do most 'Tree Huggers' live? In cities. Think about it... Come to your own conclusion! Pollution could be substantially reduced if vehicle cooling systems would be fitted with eutectic heat storage compounds that would make it possible for an engine to store its heat for re-use at start, thereby considerably reducing pollution, consumption and wear.

 

[83bj60]

Rosco, no offense but I fail to see why religion has anything to do with how much or how little your boss knew about enignes???

I agree, this was insensitive, but hot debates tend to be loud and get insensitive at times and stereotypes and other insulting epithets tend to be used.

I hope I have not offended tree huggers, rednecks and highly qualified urban intellectuals too much in my ramblings. Please disregard my occasional crudeness in that matter, and let's dicusss solutions to our energy dependency.

 

[83bj60]

all we gotta do now is get the price of diesel below gas. right now here diesel is 10 cents more then gas. $1.05L thats rediculous to say the least...

I'm not 100% on this but I believe it is because in north america a lot of the base oil used for diesel is converted into gasoline, by hydrocracking if my memory serves me right.

 

[wesintl]

Is disagree! NOx produces tropospheric ozone and OH radicals, whcih reduces greenhouse gases such as methane. You must be confusing NOx (nitrogen oxides) with N2O (nitrous oxide). The problem with NOx is that it is a contibuting factor in the creation of smog, a respiratory irritant.

We may be arguing the same thing though NOx Is a generic term for a group of gasses of which Nitrogen dioxide NO2 is the worst. At least the way i've always understood it.

As a sidenote concerning pollution: People forget that most of the pollution is caused by short trips and cold engine use. Where do most of these happen? In cities. Where do most 'Tree Huggers' live? In cities. Think about it... Come to your own conclusion! Pollution could be substantially reduced if vehicle cooling systems would be fitted with eutectic heat storage compounds that would make it possible for an engine to store its heat for re-use at start, thereby considerably reducing pollution, consumption and wear.

Of which short trips in a diesel engine doesn't help, clean diesel or not.

I agree though more robust cooling systems and improvements to new cataylsts within cats can help.

 

[cruiser_guy]

ya no kidding. I had a discussion with around 10 guys here at work the other day when they heard I was looking for a diesel landcruiser. All but one commented on how loud and slow diesel vehicles are! One guy even owned an early '80s chev diesel and swore he would never buy another one. thats 9 guys in one office that will not even consider a diesel! of course they are engineers and no it alls so no changing their minds either!

You must work at the same office I did when I bought my BJ60 from Metro Toyota in '88!!

 

[Lantec]

Is disagree! NOx produces tropospheric ozone and OH radicals, whcih reduces greenhouse gases such as methane. You must be confusing NOx (nitrogen oxides) with N2O (nitrous oxide). The problem with NOx is that it is a contibuting factor in the creation of smog, a respiratory irritant.

NOx is a byproduct of efficient, high temperature combustion and can be substanntially reduced using catalytic conversion in a well tuned engine.

As a sidenote concerning pollution: People forget that most of the pollution is caused by short trips and cold engine use. Where do most of these happen? In cities. Where do most 'Tree Huggers' live? In cities. Think about it... Come to your own conclusion! Pollution could be substantially reduced if vehicle cooling systems would be fitted with eutectic heat storage compounds that would make it possible for an engine to store its heat for re-use at start, thereby considerably reducing pollution, consumption and wear.

See the thing is, most treehuggers advocate to make everyone take public transit or just walk which would eliminate the idea of having lots of people making short trips in the city

However unfeasible, they still advocate it.

Hell, buses use diesels but that won't stop them from using public transport... They're hypocritcal and many times, mis-informed and/or biased.

 

[cruiser_guy]

all we gotta do now is get the price of diesel below gas. right now here diesel is 10 cents more then gas. $1.05L thats rediculous to say the least...

It's the oil companies gouging diesel owners. Just check out the futures on gasoline and diesel and diesel is almost always much less. No one seems to be able to explain why that doesn't transfer over to the pumps like it does everywhere else in the world.
Diesel shouldn't be more than 80% the price of regular gasoline, anything more than that is price gouging on a fuel that is cheaper to make than gasoline.

 

[M John Galt]

Problem is diesel produce more greenhouse gasses than gasser

Not in terms of GHG per mile. Diesels produce less per distance travelled because of the higher MPG.

 

[83bj60]

We may be arguing the same thing though NOx Is a generic term for a group of gasses of which Nitrogen dioxide NO2 is the worst. At least the way i've always understood it.

Sorry to correct you but... N2O is not the same as NO2!

short trips in a diesel engine doesn't help, clean diesel or not.

Absolutely. Therefore it makes much more sense, for city users, to use electric cars. Unfortunately, cities are generally unfriendly to quality living therefore suburbs attract most city workers, hence the need for commuting and... the regular automobile.

OTOH there are people who live off of centers such as myself, where roads almost don't exist, at the edge of the power grid, almost off-line. We NEED vehicles that can run the distance in a thrifty manner, and diesels are the best solution for that dilemma.

However, all internal combustion engines pollute when at below optimal temperature. If measures were taken so that engines would always start at normal operating temperature, we could eliminate most pollution, especially when fitted with a catalytic converter which, as you know, suffer most when cold.

I agree though more robust cooling systems and improvements to new cataylsts within cats can help.

They're on the way!
http://www.innovation-america.org/archive.php?articleID=5
http://www.discountconverter.com/diesel/index.htm

But in the end, it makes no difference whether gas or diesel, short trips with cold engines are going to produce more pollution no matter what. But at the proper temperature, with proper catalytic treatment, diesels will produce less pollution than gas simply by the fact they are more efficient. And it's about time the general public woke up to that fact!

 

[83bj60]

See the thing is, most treehuggers advocate to make everyone take public transit or just walk which would eliminate the idea of having lots of people making short trips in the city

However unfeasible, they still advocate it.

If cities were more livable and affordable, most people wouldn't need to commute to affordable, uncrowded suburbs. No offence, but it sesm to me Treehuggers forgot they had to drive out of town to hug trees.

As far as I'm concerned, I live in a 100 person community and without vehicles, we would simply not exist. Actually, without the internet, we certainly would not exist anymore. A lot of us here who are not retired either work in the tourism field or, like myself, are self-employed and depend on the (horribly backwards) telecommunication infrstructure for our livelihood.

Hell, buses use diesels but that won't stop them from using public transport... They're hypocritcal and many times, mis-informed and/or biased.

Good point, but like everytyhing, it is difficult to speak rationally with people who base their judgements on romantic imagination. Reminds me of the dangers of that all pervasive chemical, 'di-hydrogen oxide'... LOL!!! GAW!!!

 

[83bj60]

It's the oil companies gouging diesel owners. Just check out the futures on gasoline and diesel and diesel is almost always much less. No one seems to be able to explain why that doesn't transfer over to the pumps like it does everywhere else in the world.
Diesel shouldn't be more than 80% the price of regular gasoline, anything more than that is price gouging on a fuel that is cheaper to make than gasoline.

It certainly stinks of conspiracy based on the almighty buck. Since most diesel users are commercial, and the bad image diesel has in the NA public, fewer people are going to complain about its price here.

Truckers should really do something about it. Problem is, consumers don't complain about the price of things having gone up because diesel fuel is so much more expensive. But let's see how it plays out in a recessive economy. Remember that word, 'Recession'? I remember it as clearly as yesterday, because for me at the time it meant eating pasta and margarine for months on end and not being able to pay my heating bill on time at the end of the winter.

Good point, cruiser_guy!

 

[wesintl]

Sorry to correct you but... N2O is not the same as NO2!

Ok.. whatever. Again I'm a layman And I never specified N20
I guess we should use compound forumulas
Compounds of nitrogen:
nitrogen (IV) oxide

* Formula as commonly written: NO2
* Hill system formula: N1O2
* CAS registry number: [10102-44-0]
* Formula weight: 46.006
* Class: oxide

Synonyms

* nitrogen (IV) oxide
* nitrogen dioxide
* nitrogen oxide

nitrogen oxide

* Formula as commonly written: N2O
* Hill system formula: N2O1
* CAS registry number: [10024-97-2]
* Formula weight: 44.013
* Class: oxide

Synonyms

* nitrogen oxide
* dinitrogen oxide
* nitrous oxide

Absolutely. Therefore it makes much more sense, for city users, to use electric cars. Unfortunately, cities are generally unfriendly to quality living therefore suburbs attract most city workers, hence the need for commuting and... the regular automobile.

Most people commuting to and from the city sit in traffic. If the average suburbanite that commuted to the city(or to another suburb) went 55mph I would agree with you. But in any major city that is hardly the case when people travel at work commuting times. Hence the reason greenies won't embrace them.

OTOH there are people who live off of centers such as myself, where roads almost don't exist, at the edge of the power grid, almost off-line. We NEED vehicles that can run the distance in a thrifty manner, and diesels are the best solution for that dilemma.

agreed

But in the end, it makes no difference whether gas or diesel, short trips with cold engines are going to produce more pollution no matter what. But at the proper temperature, with proper catalytic treatment, diesels will produce less pollution than gas simply by the fact they are more efficient. And it's about time the general public woke up to that fact!