pat@ih1ap.UUCP (09/15/83)
I am wondering if anybody else out there has the same feeling about the
perponderence of diesel cars. It seems we don't have enough stinky
clouds of black crap floating around from buses and trucks. Every time
I get behind one of them diesel stink pots I get nauseated(sp?). Does
anybody no the particulates (Polution) of diesel compared to gas?
^
|----- know
Patrick A. Fargo
BTL -IH (!ih1ap!fargo)thor@ihuxw.UUCP (09/15/83)
I must with Mr. Fargo. Aside from stinking up the place, they sound like Stukas over Poland circa 1940. The people at my apartment complex who have them regularly wake the dead when then try to start them in cold weather. The clouds of black smoke which accompany ignition are lovely-just like living in Gary, Ind. Is saving 5 cents a gallon worth it? Does it offset the cost of buying the diesel to begin with? If the auto designers could solve the smoke and sound problems no one would care, but I am sick of sucking the exhaust from these diesels at stop signs. Mark Kohls ihuxw!thor
crc@clyde.UUCP (C. R. Colbert) (09/15/83)
All diesel owners should be sent to work on a IBM mainframe in El Salvador.
warren@ihnss.UUCP (09/16/83)
As I understand it, both the diesel and catalytic converter exhuast unpleasantness benefit from the narrow definition of polution in federal standards. The law regulates carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons. Diesels do pretty well on these, but put out tons of plain old soot (unburned carbon particles) during heavy load. Apparently this doesn't count. Catalytic converters solve the problem by oxidizing everything in the exhaust, hence little CO and Hydrocarbon emmission. Their problem (other then tending to burn up if you have a misfiring sparkplug) is that they also oxidize the sulfer in the gas, which becomes noxious (and highly poisonous) SO2, instead of staying as less detectable organic molecules. I have heard discussion that not only is the SO2 worse from a health perspective than the unconverted exhaust, but the platinum and other goodies in the converters tend to get eaten away by it and wind up in the exhaust too. In answer to the item on emmissions monitoring in the Chicago area, the EPA has beein tring to force Chicago to put in some sort of manditory emmisions monitoring program for some time. It has now been deferred to 1986 or some such. I am sure that all of you in netland in states that do this can point out tons of horror stories about failing inspections and bribing inspectors to get by. Something to look forward to. -- Warren Montgomery ihnss!warren IH x2494