John & Angela wrote:
Good morning.
I don’t know. I’m not a science guy, but I’ve stood on street corners in those and many other euoropean cities. The diesel fumes can be overwhelming. I get people’s concerns. Especially if their kids have respiratory problems. I don’t see how it can hurt to reduce the amount of old diesels driving around those cities.
JMHO.
John.
Here is the issue with that. They are replacing those diesels with engines that actually emit more particulate matter and even worse is that it is fine particulate matter small enough to get into your bloodstream. The PM on the old pre DPF diesels is coarse and cannot get into your blood stream, but people can see it and not the PM from GDI engines so they ignorantly feel safer with the GDI engine.
There is a solution to the PM problem on diesels that has been around for a while and it is called a DPF. In many cases, the air going into these new diesels engines is dirtier than what is going out of the tailpipe. Requiring that all diesel engines in the city have DPF's is a better solution than replacing those old diesels with GDI engines if PM was a a health concern. However, it "feels good" to just ride the "look I am doing something" wave by the politicians even though they are making it worse.
Or an even better solution, stop living in such a highly populated area.
