Those fuel-efficient diesels? Actually worse on lifetime CO2, study says

wxman

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Yes, saw that and downloaded the full report.

It appears this report used worst-case data for diesel and best-case data for gasoline.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) referenced a European study which calculated that refining diesel fuel produced about half the GHG emissions that refining gasoline produced in European refineries in a 2009 report ("Light-Duty Diesel Vehicles: Market Issues and Potential Energy and Emissions Impacts" http://www.tmaarc.org/Documents/LightDutyDiesel.pdf , page 26, last paragraph). It may be true that a very high demand for diesel fuel results in less efficiency per barrel of crude oil, but it seems unlikely it would result in that big a difference.

In U.S. refineries, the average "well-to-pump" GHG emissions from the production of ULSD fuel is 20,722 grams CO2e/mmBTU; 22,087 grams CO2e/mmBTU for E10 according to the latest version of the GREET model. The only reason it's even that close is that GREET assumes a lower "feedstock" GHG emission factor for E10 because of the ethanol in the fuel.

According to CARB's "Low Carbon Fuel Standard" Lookup Table, ULSD has a Carbon Intensity (CI) of 98.03 g CO2e/MJ, while Biodiesel ("Conversion of Midwest soybeans to biodiesel (fatty acid methyl esters -FAME")) has a CI of 83.25 g CO2e/MJ, and that includes 62 g CO2e/MJ for "Land Use or Other Indirect Effects". So T&E appears to be using some extreme ILUC factor to conclude that first-generation biodiesel is actually worse than ULSD in terms of GHG emissions.

Even then, T&E acknowledges in that report that renewable diesel from waste products like used cooking oil has GHG emissions that are nearly 90% lower than ULSD (Table 23 on page 43).
 

TDIMeister

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Thanks, I wanted to leave it to you to give more expert commentary on what I can only call an antagonistic bias against Diesels (and this is apparent not only on this report for the first time, but a long line of studies from T&E). Obvious things to me, like using different lifetime mileages for gasoline vs diesel vehicles, as if that is a fault of technology itself, and, as you point out, other areas of cherry-picking data to put Diesel in the worst possible light and gasoline in the best (or at least much better).
 

oilhammer

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There are just too many to list....
When there is an agenda at the onset, the facts will always be skewed towards that end. Sad but true.
 

MP517PRCT

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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
 

fastalan

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The researchers are not stupid, I am sure they need to very carefully set up the report in a certain direction to ensure they continue to receive funding for more research.
 

Lug_Nut

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cherry-picking

T&E acknowledges in that report that renewable diesel from waste products like used cooking oil has GHG emissions that are nearly 90% lower than ULSD (Table 23 on page 43).
When there is an agenda at the onset, the facts will always be skewed towards that end. Sad but true.
No "agenda" here.
 

wxman

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Their "agenda" is summed up in the end of that report...


...Instead of trying to preserve diesel technology in Europe, carmakers and Governments must focus on producing clean electric vehicles that are now being recognised as the future ... We now need the dash for diesel to be replaced by the dash for electric motors and batteries....
(Page 63)

Their entire premise is contradicted by a recent (November 2017) symposium in Europe which shows life-cycle GHG emissions from diesel vehicles are currently lower than life-cycle GHG emissions from both gasoline vehicles (Otto ICEVs) and EVs (BEV100; presumably 100 km range?):





https://www.dieselnet.com/news/2017/11fad.php

[the "Vehicle maintenance" entry in the key looks like it probably should be "Vehicle manufacturing"; "Maintenance" is already accounted for in the key]
 
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