5 ms·

>Polluting vehicles account for around half of London’s harmful NOx air emissions What's the other half coming from?

by swebs 7y ago

sjg007 7y ago
Trains. Business.
- collyw 7y ago
  Trains are vehicles.
- willyt 7y ago
  Construction machinery, Busses, Gas heating boilers? Probably not trains, only a few long distance trains out of Paddington and St Pancras are still diesel powered.
  - leoedin 7y ago
    There's diesel trains running out of Kings Cross, Euston, Marylebone and Waterloo as well. They're definitely the minority of train services overall, but there's still a lot of them.
    - makomk 7y ago
      Yeah, and they're probably going to be doing that for quite a while longer after the Government killed off plans for rail electrification on most of the currently-unelectrified parts of the network.
    - epanchin 7y ago
      I used to walk alongside Euston to go to work. The air quality was noticeably bad, and you could feel the heat from the consistently running Diesel engines. It’s upsetting they don’t power down while parked.
  - youngtaff 7y ago
    Is there much diesel out of Paddington now? Sleeper to Cornwall is the one I often see but the rest is all electric for the Paddington bit - of course trains going West switch to diesel once they get off the electrified line e.g. at Swindon for Cheltenham
- einpoklum 7y ago
  1. Haven't they electrified the trains? 2. Don't cars still pollute, even under the low emission standards? 3. Car pollution is also part of business. Do you mean industrial production activity? Fossil fuel burning for heating?
  - notkaiho 7y ago
    There's a LOT of diesel trains coming in to London terminals still
    - systemtest 7y ago
      Would it be possible to shut off the engine when entering the peripheral of London and coast into the station with zero emissions? Perhaps use an electric locomotive to push or pull them out of London, again with zero (local) emissions.
      - lorenzhs 7y ago
        Diesel trains built in the last two decades (e.g. class 220/221/222) are already Diesel-electric, meaning the Diesel engine drives a generator which powers an electric motor. Doing it this way is more effective because you can run the Diesel engine under optimal conditions all the time. This also makes it possible to build bi-modal trains that run on Diesel on non-electrified tracks and use a pantograph on electrified bits (like London). That's what is being done in the UK now under the Intercity Express programme in order to replace the old Diesel trains (HST/Class 125): https://www.hitachi-rail.com/products/rolling_stock/bi_mode/index.html https://www.hitachi-rail.com/products/rolling_stock/bi_mode/... - these are the class 800/801/802 trains mentioned by vertex-four in a sibling comment.
        makomk 7y ago
        The trouble with this is that the trains have to have both a full set of diesel generation equipment for non-electrified operation and a full set of power conversion equipment for electrified mode, plus some way of switching between the two. The class 800 doesn't seem to have done a terribly great job of this; there's been huge teething problems with their introduction and rumour has it that the underfloor diesel engines simply can't operate at outside temperatures above 30 C or so due to inadequate cooling in order to fit them into the space available.
- tarjei 7y ago
  Work from Oslo has shown that building machinery is a major source of carbon emissions and NOx in cities. I would also expect buses to be a major source if they are not included in the numbers above.
  - lorenzhs 7y ago
    From the full report: "All TfL buses operating in the zone meet the ULEZ standards"
zeristor 7y ago
Quite often going into Liverpool St I used to see pals of smoke from fires, and whilst an occasional occurrence they’re not rare, I would have thought across the whole of London they’d add quite a bit.
easytiger 7y ago
Private cars represent around 10% from what I recall.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Breakdowns of petroleum use generally split between transport, commercial/residential, and industrial uses. NOx generally result from very high-temperature combustion -- sources such as building heat and cooking hobs won't contribute so much (though they can produce considerable net CO2 emissions, soot, and VOCs). Stationary powerplants (construction equipment, generators, compressors, pumps), and and industrial processes, typically account for much. Landscaping equipment, especially two-cycle engines, are especially polluting due to incomplete combustion.

>Polluting vehicles account for around half of London’s harmful NOx air emissions What's the other half coming from?

by swebs 7y ago

>Polluting vehicles account for around half of London’s harmful NOx air emissions What's the other half coming from?

sjg007 7y ago

Trains. Business.

collyw 7y ago
Trains are vehicles.
willyt 7y ago
Construction machinery, Busses, Gas heating boilers? Probably not trains, only a few long distance trains out of Paddington and St Pancras are still diesel powered.
- leoedin 7y ago
  There's diesel trains running out of Kings Cross, Euston, Marylebone and Waterloo as well. They're definitely the minority of train services overall, but there's still a lot of them.
  - makomk 7y ago
    Yeah, and they're probably going to be doing that for quite a while longer after the Government killed off plans for rail electrification on most of the currently-unelectrified parts of the network.
  - epanchin 7y ago
    I used to walk alongside Euston to go to work. The air quality was noticeably bad, and you could feel the heat from the consistently running Diesel engines. It’s upsetting they don’t power down while parked.
- youngtaff 7y ago
  Is there much diesel out of Paddington now? Sleeper to Cornwall is the one I often see but the rest is all electric for the Paddington bit - of course trains going West switch to diesel once they get off the electrified line e.g. at Swindon for Cheltenham
einpoklum 7y ago
1. Haven't they electrified the trains? 2. Don't cars still pollute, even under the low emission standards? 3. Car pollution is also part of business. Do you mean industrial production activity? Fossil fuel burning for heating?
- notkaiho 7y ago
  There's a LOT of diesel trains coming in to London terminals still
  - systemtest 7y ago
    Would it be possible to shut off the engine when entering the peripheral of London and coast into the station with zero emissions? Perhaps use an electric locomotive to push or pull them out of London, again with zero (local) emissions.
    - lorenzhs 7y ago
      Diesel trains built in the last two decades (e.g. class 220/221/222) are already Diesel-electric, meaning the Diesel engine drives a generator which powers an electric motor. Doing it this way is more effective because you can run the Diesel engine under optimal conditions all the time. This also makes it possible to build bi-modal trains that run on Diesel on non-electrified tracks and use a pantograph on electrified bits (like London). That's what is being done in the UK now under the Intercity Express programme in order to replace the old Diesel trains (HST/Class 125): https://www.hitachi-rail.com/products/rolling_stock/bi_mode/index.html https://www.hitachi-rail.com/products/rolling_stock/bi_mode/... - these are the class 800/801/802 trains mentioned by vertex-four in a sibling comment.
      - makomk 7y ago
        The trouble with this is that the trains have to have both a full set of diesel generation equipment for non-electrified operation and a full set of power conversion equipment for electrified mode, plus some way of switching between the two. The class 800 doesn't seem to have done a terribly great job of this; there's been huge teething problems with their introduction and rumour has it that the underfloor diesel engines simply can't operate at outside temperatures above 30 C or so due to inadequate cooling in order to fit them into the space available.
tarjei 7y ago
Work from Oslo has shown that building machinery is a major source of carbon emissions and NOx in cities. I would also expect buses to be a major source if they are not included in the numbers above.
- lorenzhs 7y ago
  From the full report: "All TfL buses operating in the zone meet the ULEZ standards"

zeristor 7y ago

Quite often going into Liverpool St I used to see pals of smoke from fires, and whilst an occasional occurrence they’re not rare, I would have thought across the whole of London they’d add quite a bit.

easytiger 7y ago

Private cars represent around 10% from what I recall.

dredmorbius 7y ago

Breakdowns of petroleum use generally split between transport, commercial/residential, and industrial uses. NOx generally result from very high-temperature combustion -- sources such as building heat and cooking hobs won't contribute so much (though they can produce considerable net CO2 emissions, soot, and VOCs). Stationary powerplants (construction equipment, generators, compressors, pumps), and and industrial processes, typically account for much. Landscaping equipment, especially two-cycle engines, are especially polluting due to incomplete combustion.