Anti-Diesel Information and Links?

[Dante]

I suspect we can get some useful information from our opposition's sources. I bet if we look at the primary sources cited by the anti-diesel crowd we'll find that they have misquoted the source or taken information out of context.

I'll do some searches of our forums in the near future to try to pull together the anti-diesel propaganda members have linked to here.

 

[Mik]

Here's some highlights(ugh) from the Union of Concern Scientists (aka the Priest of Techno-Alarmism).

<A HREF ="http://www.ucsusa.org/transportation/diesel.summary.html">Diesel Stance Summary</A>

Suitable Quote out of Context: "Today's best diesel passenger vehicles are more efficient than their gasoline counterparts, reducing carbon emissions by roughly 30 percent."

Diesel Health Impact

The UCS seems to be concentrating almost entirely on city smog in much of its literature.

Alarmist Junk Science about Semis

Note the constant use of media-darling terms such as; "loophole", "gap", "Big <anything>"... all of these terms turn a reader against the target of the peice... "darn those Big Oil companies and their pollution loophole..."

Also check the writing for a blatant use of audience-impacting slant: while cars "emit" particulate matter, diesels "spew" it.

Almost every article on their site is linked to a call to action, such as This one.

These are the people driving CARB, CAFE, and the Zero Emissions Vehicle projects.

The goals of this organization in the transportation sector seem to be as follows:

* eliminate all human production of ozone-depleting chemicals and greenhouse gases.

* increased funding and development of fuel-cell and alternative power strategies for personal transportation.

* using government as a legislative whip to change the behavior of unwilling citizens, and a carrot to coax action from companies.

As a civil libertarian, their use of the legislative whip is repellent to me. Far worse, their calls to action involve voters pressuring non-elected, non-representational appointed bodies such as the EPA to enact more stringent policies.

In my opinion, the tenor of the group can be summed up with this quote, from their site:

"In the '70s, I tried organic farming. I tried yoga and meditation.... [Then] a light went on. I could have the greatest personal impact...by working to transform our energy system."
Alan Nogee
Director, Energy Program

These are the people who still want to change the world, and feel damn sure they are the ones with all the right answers.

=Mik

[This message has been edited by Mik (edited July 27, 2000).]

 

[Lug_Nut]

My Goldwing associated me with the Hell's Angels and straight pipe Harleys.
My Weimaraner associates me with "pit bulls".
My TDI associates me with that old ten wheeled dump truck just up the road.
As long as the fringe gets notice and the majority are ignored, the perception becomes that the fringe are the majority. We should be complaining about dirty, sooty diesels. It is far too easy to legislate an entire class than to set values and limits on permissiblities. Banning all diesels is easier than setting into operation a means of quantifying which are dirty and which are clean.

And those of you that are proud of "smoking" that driver you just passed are NOT helping.

 

[Dante]

Here’s a link to the results of a www.dogpile.com search for “diesel emissions”: http://search.dogpile.com/texis/search?q=%22diesel+emissions%22&geo=no&refer=dp-s earch&fs=web

It looks like an entire industry has sprung up to profit from the regulation of diesel emissions.

Check out EPA/ORD/NCEA - Diesel Emissions (Health Assessment Document for Diesel Emissions). Here are a few nuggets from the executive summary:

The Health Assessment Document for Diesel Emissions represents the Agency’s first comprehensive review of health effects from exposure to exhaust from diesel engines.

Both the particles and the numerous organic compounds of DE have toxicological properties that are capable of influencing a toxic response in humans, though the role of either or both in producing a toxic effect in humans is unknown.

Over the years, the mass of particles emitted in engine exhaust has been reduced, as have the accompanying organics.

For years researchers have measured DE concentrations using particle mass per unit volume, i.e., µg/m 3 of diesel particulate matter. This assessment adopts µg/m 3 as a dosimeter and further assumes that the important toxicologic agents in DE will be proportional to µg/m 3 . This leads to some uncertainty, but the best dosimeter will not be known until the mode of action for DE toxicity is better understood. Questions have been raised as to whether toxicological findings generated from exposure to older engine exhaust can appropriately be applied to current-day engine exhaust exposures. This question is not resolvable with present information, except to note that available evidence does not point to significant shifts in DE composition relative to the total organics over the years, and that organics are believed to be in relative proportion to the mass of particles.

For DE we expect adverse respiratory effects but have not clearly observed them in human studies, possibly because few such studies have focused on respiratory effects. Animal studies conducted at higher than ambient exposure levels, the most prominent being in the rat, provide the basis for the expectation of human
respiratory disease.

DE shows a pattern of statistically increased lung cancer in more than 20, but not all, human occupational studies where DE exposure is prominent.

There are some uncertainties about the magnitude of the increase, because questions about exposure are almost always present in the human studies in which the increases are seen, and with lung cancer, the question of confounding by cigarette smoke is present.

None of the available studies show that the lung cancer hazard is present at environmental levels of exposure, although the margin may be relatively small between some higher environmental exposures and occupational exposures where lung cancer risks are thought to be present.

[This message has been edited by Dante Driver (edited July 28, 2000).]

 

[Mik]

One of the larger concerns that environmentalists appear to have with diesel technology is the impact that diesel exhaust has on human health. While it is a fool's errand to claim that exhaust has no adverse health effects whatsoever, it is naive to clamp the argument off with simplistic stances to the effect of "air good, engines bad".

The question before us is not 'should engines be made to run more cleanly and with less adverse impact on human health'. Certainly, if the capability to produce cleaner, more efficient, safer engines exists, a benefit will be realized by doing so. The question requires an additional interrogative: "HOW should engines be made to run more cleanly and with less adverse impact on human health".

Certainly, cleaner diesel fuel will go a long way toward improving overall air quality. It also stands to make further developments in PM reduction and NOx output more cost-effective.

What other means are investigated will largely depend on the actions of environmental advocacy groups and the regulatory agencies they lobby. While some groups have welded their wagons to only one technology (most commonly fuel cells) and are pushing for the eventual elimination of combustion technologies, others are more flexible, and seek to limit the output of PM and other pollutants.

The Health Effects Institute (HEI) provides consulting and studies services to the Environmental Protection Agency, from whom it receives a measure of its funding. Reading the publications available from their website shows the types of studies and data that are circulating in the offices of the EPA.

There are a number of studies on particulate matter and component chemicals of diesel exhaust that could provide a starting point for discussion or examination.

Additionally, the ongoing research page shows a number of potentially important diesel and general air-quality studies that are currently taking place.

Health benefits are a noble cause, but, as outlined in this article from Reason magazine, the benefits must be considered in light of costs - if other actions provide greater benefit for lower cost, they should be investigated first, allowing development to continue on solutions addressing the smaller benefits.

=Mik

 

[Dante]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mik:
Health benefits are a noble cause, but, as outlined in this article from Reason magazine, the benefits must be considered in light of costs - if other actions provide greater benefit for lower cost, they should be investigated first, allowing development to continue on solutions addressing the smaller benefits.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Excellent point, Mik. That's why I think it is a waste of resources to regulate diesel passenger automobiles in the US. Their contribution to diesel emissions is insignificant. According to CARB only 20% to 30% of diesel emissions are from on-road sources, and there are very few diesel automobiles on the road in the US. Also, the newer ones are cleaner than other sources of diesel exhaust. If they are going to address diesel emissions, regulators should address the sources that can be reduced the most at the smallest cost. Then talk to me about my TDI.

BTW I love Reason.

 

[wxman]

Don't forget the anti-diesel crew at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC):

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Some automakers tout diesel fuels as the way to improve efficiency and prevent global warming. But reliance on diesels comes at the unacceptable price of human health and clean air. Diesel particulate exhaust has been declared a carcinogen by the World Health Organization, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and the California Air Resources Board. Diesel engines account for approximately 26 percent of the total hazardous particulate pollution in the air, and 66 percent of particulate pollution from motor vehicles. Particulates are linked to increased asthma emergencies and to thousands of premature deaths in the United States every year. Diesel vehicles also emit high amounts of nitrogen oxides, a major component of smog and acid rain.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
www.nrdc.org/earthsmartcars/faq.html#q7

 

[wxman]

Lest anyone thinks that PM emissions are limited to diesel engines:

www.hsph.harvard.edu/press/releases/press1102000.html

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Diesel is the fuel of choice now, but concerns about particulate pollution in diesel exhaust have prompted a move toward alternatives. The HCRA analysis finds that natural gas reduces emissions of fine particulates, those smaller than 2.5 microns. But natural gas may generate more ultra fine particles than diesel. Those are less than .1 micron. Several studies indicate that ultrafine particles may have an even more dramatic impact on health than those in the fine category.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[Dante]

Out of sight out of mind . . .

 

[Sun Baked GL]

From an Abstract of an Inhalation Toxicology article "Comparative Mutagenic Dose Of Ambient Diesel Engine Exhaust":
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
Diesel engine exhaust contains carbon-based particles that can be inhaled and deposited on lung surfaces. Concern about the carcinogenic potential of diesel engine exhaust derives in part from the mutagenic activity of organics that can be extracted from exhaust particles. However, the lung cancer risk is controversial, and diesel exhaust is a candidate for further evaluation. A comparative potency approach can be used to rank the mutagenic risk of diesel exhaust with other combustion products….

We calculated that, depending on the source of CSC cigarette smoke condensate and DEPE diesel exhaust particle extract, a person would have to inhale approximately 63 to 181 mg of particulate from diesel engine exhaust to match the mutagenic dose of 1 cigarette. We also calculated that a person would have to breathe diesel exhaust (1.5 mug/m3, estimated total personal exposure) for 6 to 16 yr to equal the mutagenic dose of 1 cigarette….

In summary, our analysis showed a larger mutagenic dose-to-target-tissues in the smoke of one cigarette as compared to a year of exposure to diesel exhaust particulate at ambient levels.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[wxman]

Hmmmm...interesting. According to this study, it looks like even if all diesels were abolished, only a trivial improvement in air quality would occur at least as far as airborne carcinogens are concerned.

Any similar studies on gas engine particulates?

 

[mickey]

So how do these hippies get around, anyway? I've never seen a microbus that WASN'T spewing crap! These people are all loonies. I pisses me off that I have to dance to their tune.

-mickey

 

[Sun Baked GL]

Here's a website trying to get people to send this letter to the EPA comment box:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
Dear Administrator Browner,

Big trucks and buses are among our country's biggest pollution sources. Every year, smog sends more than 150,000 Americans to emergency rooms and 40,000 more die prematurely from breathing particulate soot pollution. We can't solve our national smog and soot problems without cleaning up the nation's diesel trucks and buses and the diesel fuel that powers them.

I urge you to clean up these vehicles by at least 90 percent by 2007 and the diesel fuel that powers them by 97 percent by 2006.

Sincerely,
Your Name
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A bunch of idiot running a website at http://www.saveourenvironment.org/action/item.asp?item=32

[This message has been edited by Sun Baked GL (edited August 07, 2000).]