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The biggest problem with diesel engines is that they tend to last nearly forever by virtue of their design (tolerating high compression ratios). I see a lot of

by bob1029 4mo ago

The biggest problem with diesel engines is that they tend to last nearly forever by virtue of their design (tolerating high compression ratios). I see a lot of ancient big trucks on the road today that are completely legal in Texas but would probably get you sent straight to jail in Europe. The owners of these vehicles are oftentimes also diesel mechanics to some degree and can make their machine run much longer than they can. The problem with all of this is that there is this entire niche of the market that you simply cannot penetrate with policy. I think some of these old trucks should be taken off the road, but I also sympathize with the owner/operators of these vehicles. I don't think many people drive a big dump truck around for fun (even in Texas). That's mostly a phenomenon on the consumer side. Rolling coal out of your Ram 3500 isn't something that really bothers me. The optics are horrible, but the actual impact is not. The thing that concerns me is the fleet of old Kenworth trucks from 1988 that the local construction company uses all day every day. Straight pipes and a constant rumble the USGS could monitor tend to drown out the broader concerns regarding emissions, but those also pop into your mind if you happen to be riding behind one. I think a lot of the defeat device stuff is blown out of proportion for political reasons. Something approximating this has been going on since the 70s. Anything pertaining to consumer vehicles makes me roll my eyes. The studies they ran around VW are absolutely hyperbolic (hundreds of billions in damages, 100k+ dead eventually). Compare the marginal impact of slightly cheating emissions standards in a family sedan with one supermax cargo ship or a data center parking lot full of gas turbines and you'll probably find you are wasting your energy on the car thing. The deception is what makes most people angry. Not the actual impact.

saghm 4mo ago
> The problem with all of this is that there is this entire niche of the market that you simply cannot penetrate with policy. I don't really understand how the rest of your comment provides evidence for this claim. Not wanting to address it with policy, sure, I can see you seem to feel that way, but it's not clear why you're convinced it can't be addressed.
roryirvine 4mo ago
Why couldn't it have been penetrated with policy? As you note, Europe did this quite successfully with successively-tighter diesel emissions standards for new vehicles being introduced every few years since 1992. Other countries - China, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Indonesia, Australia, etc - have either adopted the Euro standards wholesale or tweaked them slightly for their local market conditions. That was backed up by measures such as testing individual vehicles for continued compliance at their annual inspections, banning commercial vehicles that fail to meet recent standards from using public roads, charging private vehicles which fail to meet recent standards when they enter dense urban areas, and scrappage schemes to mop up the remaining non-compliant vehicles. It took a while to produce results, but eventually resulted in pretty dramatic improvements in air quality - and we now have good evidence of improved health outcomes, particularly in children with asthma or other respiratory conditions. Perhaps too late for the US to start now given the switch to EVs, but it ought to be kept in mind for the next time a "we can't possibly do anything about this" issue comes up.
tim333 4mo ago
>get you sent straight to jail in Europe I'm in the UK and no one goes to jail but it's more expensive tax wise to run the more polluting ones. As a result you don't see many.

by bob1029 4mo ago

saghm 4mo ago

> The problem with all of this is that there is this entire niche of the market that you simply cannot penetrate with policy. I don't really understand how the rest of your comment provides evidence for this claim. Not wanting to address it with policy, sure, I can see you seem to feel that way, but it's not clear why you're convinced it can't be addressed.

roryirvine 4mo ago

Why couldn't it have been penetrated with policy? As you note, Europe did this quite successfully with successively-tighter diesel emissions standards for new vehicles being introduced every few years since 1992. Other countries - China, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Indonesia, Australia, etc - have either adopted the Euro standards wholesale or tweaked them slightly for their local market conditions. That was backed up by measures such as testing individual vehicles for continued compliance at their annual inspections, banning commercial vehicles that fail to meet recent standards from using public roads, charging private vehicles which fail to meet recent standards when they enter dense urban areas, and scrappage schemes to mop up the remaining non-compliant vehicles. It took a while to produce results, but eventually resulted in pretty dramatic improvements in air quality - and we now have good evidence of improved health outcomes, particularly in children with asthma or other respiratory conditions. Perhaps too late for the US to start now given the switch to EVs, but it ought to be kept in mind for the next time a "we can't possibly do anything about this" issue comes up.

tim333 4mo ago

>get you sent straight to jail in Europe I'm in the UK and no one goes to jail but it's more expensive tax wise to run the more polluting ones. As a result you don't see many.