Tony,
You also have to consider how much H2 (from CH4) and energy (thermal) it takes to refine gasoline from heavier crudes and make >15->5ppm ULSD.

We can only hope that biodiesel will become a mainstream fuel in America!

"Biodiesel is next fuel for diesel vehicle. But how we overcome Injection mechanism failure?"

what injector failure? unless the temperature is too cold and the fuel gels, there should be no injector failure.

Tony,

There was an interesting discussion of this before:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/08/diesel_deficit_.html

I'm sure there's plenty of more info out there, too.

Knowing that filters to remove fine diesel particles are iffy at best, & non-effective at worst, & that nano particle filter tech isn't even demonstrated, this 4+ times increase in diesels must be devastating people in European cities. Or are the studies to intimately document pollution-felled citizens...NOT being performed.

Certainly, such studies are NOT a high priority in the above posts.

@ Litesong -

I've noticed you've mentioned that DPFs aren't effective in removing ultrafine PM and nanoparticles in several other posts about diesel emissions. Do you have ANY reference for that? Any?

I have several references which show DPFs are extremely effective across that entire particle size distribution. Here are a couple:

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/deer_2003/session9/2003_deer_storey.pdf (slides 10 and 11)
ftp://ftp.arb.ca.gov/carbis/cc/techsem/final_presentations/hofbauer_ccengines.pdf (slide 27)

Other references show that at the very worse, exhaust from engines with DPFs are indistinguishable from the intake air in terms of PM numbers (http://www.aecc.be/en/content/pdf/AECC%20Newsletter%20March-April%202007.pdf, “Report on Ultrafine Particles”, page 7).

If diesel engines produce most of the ambient ultrafine and nanoparticles, why have studies shown that ambient ultrafines consist almost entirely of organic carbon (OC)? The USEPA claims that diesel exhaust PM is about 75% elemental carbon (EC) by mass. EC makes up an EXTREMELY small mass fraction of ambient UF PM, about 1% according to the Southern Oxidant Study.

Other source apportionment studies have shown that GASOLINE emissions makes up a larger portion of ambient PM than diesel (see, North Front Range Air Quality Study; : Min-Suk Bae, James J. Schauer, Jeffery T. DeMinter, Jay R. Turner; “Hourly and Daily Patterns of Particle-Phase Organic and Elemental Carbon Concentrations in the Urban Atmosphere.” Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, Volume 54, July 2004, Pages 823-833; Alan W. Gertler, “Diesel vs. gasoline emissions: Does PM from diesel or gasoline vehicles dominate in the US?” Atmospheric Environment, Volume 39, Issue 13, April 2005, Pages 2349-2355)

I've worked in the air pollution field for almost 25 years, and I don't recall ever seeing EC making up more than about 10% of speciated ambient PM. That's why I'm not convinced that even the old high-emitting diesels were a "major source" of ambient PM, much less these clean diesels with DPFs.

Hi Italy...Children near freeways have extra lung disease & deaths the closer they live to freeways. New studies now indicate diesel particles contribute to society's extraordinary heart disease & death rates, whether they be in the U.S. or in Europe, where engine manufactureres are so proud of their 'highly controlled' diesel fumes.

Yes Carl, that is where my data comes from...the playgrounds & living spaces(more like death places) kids inhabit near freeways. Your pristine data from some diesel laboratory is NOT translating well to the congested highways where engine particle pollution is invading the habitats of our children, where sneaky fine & nano particles take up residence inside our children causing lung & heart disease & death. & as I have alluded to already, studies on other organs damaged by particles aren't even done yet.

Carl, take your 25 years air pollution research, find a 4 year old running diesel with a filter that hasn't been maintained properly & breath that exhaust for 3 years.

Cheap after market diesel filters have very little effectiveness. Much more expensive diesel filters must be custom tailored to the vehicle it is placed on & rigorously maintained for proper functioning. Even with proper maintainance, they are prone to long-term failure. The data on childhood lung & heart diseases & deaths near freeways prove that diesels AND autos in general are a greater danger to our children than the human child-predators we fear so much.

Hi Carl...You & your brother are 2 data points. I'm glad you 2 data points survived. A lot of kid data points didn't survive & aren't surviving. Do you NOT believe studies that kids have greater lung & heart disease & death the closer they live to freeways? Do you really believe the semi that just belched diesel fumes onto the playground is innocuous? Do you think the only problem workers face inside the cargo holds of a ships next to running diesel forklifts are the carbon monoxide emissions?

Ten plus percent of highway traffic are diesel semis. Now that so many 'civilian' diesels are on the road in Europe, diesels are blooming on the highways. Commercial diesel trucks use many times more fuel than gasoline cars. Just one diesel with malfunctioning filter will output 100 times more fine particles than cars. Some of the manufacturers jump up & down when they declare that 'our filter reduces particles by 85%. That only leaves a semi outputing 15 TIMES more particles than a gasoline car. To call diesels safe while watching diesels belch particles continually from any freeway onto a playground, is to be blind while you shake your clean paper 'data' in my face.

Smoking has nothing to contribute to this discussion. But since my parents, my brother & my uncle died of smoking & my sister is dying of emphysema, yes, I don't like smoking either.

It's also worth noting that the diesel engines that were "on the road" in the past and even now, are no comparison to the DPF-equipped diesels that will gradually be replacing the older non-DPF-equipped diesels.

I haven't seen an acknowledgment yet that a significant portion of the traffic on these roads that are supposedly killing our kids (yet somehow I survived!) are gasoline powered vehicles ... that also emit fine PM.

Do you NOT believe studies that kids have greater lung & heart disease & death the closer they live to freeways?

Yes, but they’re exposed to PM from a myriad of sources. PM from diesel is being addressed (DPF). What about the other sources?

I believe emissions from ANY combustion source are harmful, including emissions from gasoline engines and coal-fired electric power plants.

Do you really believe the semi that just belched diesel fumes onto the playground is innocuous?

No, which is why I support using DPFs on diesel engines. What about particulate filters on SI engines? What about children that live just downwind of a coal-fired electric power plant?

This is really digressing from the original point of my discussion, which is your assertion about DPF - “[k]nowing that filters to remove fine diesel particles are iffy at best, & non-effective at worst, & that nano particle filter tech isn't even demonstrated...” (your words from your previous post)

Sorry, I “know” no such thing. This is what I dispute. I’m sorry you feel that I’m “shaking data” in your face, but that’s the only way I know to support my point.

In the U.S. (where I live and work), ALL new diesel vehicles sold since January 2007 have been OEM-equipped with DPF - trucks, buses, and light-duty diesel vehicles. Heavy-duty over-the-road diesel trucks have to be certified for 435,000 miles. EPA wouldn’t certify these engines if the engine manufacturers couldn’t demonstrate they (DPFs) wouldn’t be effective for at least that time frame.

Here are a few more sources that support the point that DPF is VERY effective (hope you don’t feel I’m shaking data in your face):

“…Health effects were eliminated or reduced to non-significant levels [with use of DPF]…” (http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/deer_2007/session5/deer07_mauderly.pdf slide #11)

“...The lowest number of particles are emitted from the diesel + filter vehicle, and are about one tenth of those emitted from the vehicles with the NA SI-engines….
...If fitting particle filters to diesel vehicles becomes widespread practice, petrol vehicles could become the major source of ultrafine particles...." (Färnlund et al., "Emissions of Ultrafine Particles from Different Types of Light Duty Vehicles." Swedish National Road Administration (European study)

“…DPF effective over entire PM size range…” (Matti Maricq, "Measuring motor vehicle PM emissions: Current issues and future.")

My point isn’t that diesel PM is innocuous; it’s that DPM has been essentially eliminated with DPF, contrary (apparently) to what you believe.

Children & other people existing near freeways have greater diseases & death, the closer they live to freeways. At this late date, eyesight shows that many semis are belching particles onto our playground kids near freeways.

Diesel tractor trailers are carrying too much weight trying to be accelerated by straining diesel engines with too many emissions NOT to be unhealthy to surrounding people continually near freeways. The smart people here just aren't looking up enough data.

I'm not letting gasoline engines off the hook either, but as someone said, this article is about diesels.

Michel – by your own admission in some of your other posts, CO2 is increasing in the diesel fleet in Europe and decreasing in the gasoline fleet because diesel engines are disproportionately used in the larger cars there (not to mention the increasing market share they’re getting). Bosch expects efficiency to improve by at least 10% in future diesel engines and that the gap between the best advanced gasoline engines and diesels will remain about 30% (http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/feb2008/bw2008027_552768.htm).
And does that CO2 output include the higher energy requirements to refine gasoline?

The whole drivetrain efficency and system efficency should be taken into account - and the impact of our health of course (mostly ignored by European governments).

I agree, and what are really being ignored are the massive HC emissions for which GASOLINE vehicles are responsible. A study in Europe (Heidi Hellén, Hannele Hakola and Tuomas Laurila, “Determination of source contributions of NMHCs in Helsinki (60°N, 25°E) using chemical mass balance and the Unmix multivariate receptor models.” Atmospheric Environment, Volume 37, Issue 11, April 2003, Pages 1413-1424) showed that 54% of the ambient NMHC is from gas vehicles (both direct and indirect emissions). Contributions from diesels were trivial (0.2%). If you remove the long-range transport (34% - most of which is probably gasoline-derived anyway), local contributions to ambient NMHC would be 0.54/0.66 = 81%. Interestingly, that’s similar to what’s been found in the U.S. (http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/deer_2002/session5/2002_deer_fujita.pdf , slide #16).

Anthropogenic VOCs (NMHC) are an air quality problem on multiple fronts. First, they’re the primary precursor to ground-level ozone (smog). Second, many VOCs are toxic in and of themselves (e.g., benzene). Thirdly, VOCs photo-oxidize to formaldehyde (a suspected carcinogen). Finally, these substances further oxidize to increasingly lower vapor pressure products which partition into the solid phase (particles). Most of these particles are in the nucleation (nanoparticles) and/or accumulation (ultrafine) modes.

It is clear to me that DPFs essentially remove diesel engines from the air quality “radar”. I’m still waiting for tangible evidence that DPFs are ineffective or are subject to high failure rates.