Category: Diesel

Diesel , Lightning , Ships and Clouds

Published on by sunshinehours14 Comments

If true this makes a huge case for eliminating diesel and switching to Natural Gas for shipping.

“The new study is the first to show ship exhaust can alter thunderstorm intensity. The researchers conclude that particles from ship exhaust make cloud droplets smaller, lifting them higher in the atmosphere. This creates more ice particles and leads to more lightning.

The results provide some of the first evidence that humans are changing cloud formation on a nearly continual basis, rather than after a specific incident like a wildfire, according to the authors. Cloud formation can affect rainfall patterns and alter climate by changing how much sunlight clouds reflect to space.

“It’s one of the clearest examples of how humans are actually changing the intensity of storm processes on Earth through the emission of particulates from combustion,” said Joel Thornton, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle and lead author of the new study in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

“It is the first time we have, literally, a smoking gun, showing over pristine ocean areas that the lightning amount is more than doubling,” said Daniel Rosenfeld, an atmospheric scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who was not connected to the study. “The study shows, highly unambiguously, the relationship between anthropogenic emissions — in this case, from diesel engines — on deep convective clouds.””

Lightning

“In the new study, co-author Katrina Virts, an atmospheric scientist at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, was analyzing data from the World Wide Lightning Location Network, a network of sensors that locates lightning strokes all over the globe, when she noticed a nearly straight line of lightning strokes across the Indian Ocean.

Virts and her colleagues compared the lightning location data to maps of ships’ exhaust plumes from a global database of ship emissions. Looking at the locations of 1.5 billion lightning strokes from 2005 to 2016, the team found nearly twice as many lightning strokes on average over major routes ships take across the northern Indian Ocean, through the Strait of Malacca and into the South China Sea, compared to adjacent areas of the ocean that have similar climates.

More than $5 trillion of world trade passes through the South China Sea every year and nearly 100,000 ships pass through the Strait of Malacca alone. Lightning is a measure of storm intensity, and the researchers detected the uptick in lightning at least as far back as 2005.

“All we had to do was make a map of where the lightning was enhanced and a map of where the ships are travelling and it was pretty obvious just from the co-location of both of those that the ships were somehow involved in enhancing lightning,” Thornton said.”

AGW Cult and Diesel – Killers!

Published on by sunshinehours13 Comments

Diesel fumes have been proven for the first time to cause coughing and shortness of breath.

British scientists now have physical evidence that car fumes cause nerves in the lungs to misfire.

It was known that people with asthma, taken to traffic-heavy Oxford Street in London, for example, are worse affected than those in less polluted areas.

But researchers can now explain the effect of diesel particles, which are so tiny that the body mistakes them for natural molecules and draws them deep into the lungs.

A team from Imperial College London has discovered diesel fumes trigger a receptor in the airway, starting a chain reaction which causes nerves in the lungs to fire wrongly.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4530994/Scientists-discover-diesel-fumes-trigger-coughing.html

 

Old Plan: More Diesel Cars – New Plan: Ban Diesel

Published on by sunshinehours12 Comments

In Europe: “diesel has been favored by public policy because it produces less carbon emissions than petrol, and is therefore better in the fight against climate change. But diesel produces far more air pollution – up to 15 times more than petrol (or unleaded gasoline).”

“The French and British capitals are grappling with dangerous levels of air pollution this week – conditions in winter help smog stick around. The mayor of Paris wants to ban diesel cars to stem it. Will London follow?”

http://www.dw.com/en/paris-takes-on-winter-smog/a-36663652

Remember, this is all going on at the same time the UK is building diesel farms to save their electricity grid from the stupid decision to rely on wind.

UK Electricity Grid – Diesel Farms – It Ain’t Easy Pretending To Be Green

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Diesel farms aren’t green at all.capture

The owner of Britain’s energy network is gearing up to buy more power from suppliers to ensure the country’s lights stay on, with polluting diesel generators among the providers vying for contracts.

The National Grid needs back-up electricity sources that kick in when, for instance, demand is high but the weather is not breezy enough to power wind farms. It secures this back-up power through the annual capacity market auction that begins on Tuesday and will see controversial “diesel farms” taking part.

This auction process has created lucrative investment opportunities for people to invest in diesel farms, rows of noisy and polluting generators that operate for up to 15 years. In fact, financiers have set up companies specifically to access payments from the National Grid. And while the government is weighing up plans to limit the attractiveness of such investments, many diesel farms have been built and are already delivering returns. Still more could land multimillion-pound contracts this week.

Industry sources said one farm can easily make £5m a year, while non-profit climate analysis firm InfluenceMap today claims the diesel farm industry could pick up £500m in a matter of years. In some cases, investors are also eligible for generous tax breaks. Gas has become an increasingly important part of the UK’s energy mix as coal, due to be phased out by 2025, has been scaled back. Diesel farms are not there to provide power on a routine basis, but to fire up at times of peak use or to help balance second-by-second changes in demand.

While the farms offer a profitable investment, those who live nearby say their lives are blighted by noise pollution and fear of toxic emissions. In Ernesettle, Plymouth, locals told the Guardian they are fed up with generators being built in their quiet neighbourhood.

Dust on Ice Sheets = End of Glaciation

Published on by sunshinehours14 Comments

I’m still working my way through this but:

“The role of dust in terminations of Ice Ages is probably far more important than many realize. It appears likely that unusually high dust levels coupled to sharply rising solar intensity at high latitudes was a major factor in initiating termination of Ice Ages. As Palmer put it, layers of buried dust probably sustained the evolution of the interglacial period.”

Dust deposition on ice sheets: a mechanism for termination of ice ages?

And if that is true, what about the dust at the end of the 1920s leading to the big temperature increase in the 1930s. Or the soot from the massive expansion of coal burning power plants and diesel cars/trucks?

 

Fuel Efficient GDI Engines Are Dirtier

Published on by sunshinehours11 Comment

Oh no … what a surprise …

Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering looked at the emissions from gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines, which are smaller and more efficient than traditional petrol engines.

Car manufacturers have adopted GDI engines in models to satisfy demand for more miles per gallon, and increased power output. According to the team, the number of GDI engines found in new cars between 2009 and 2015 has jumped to from five per cent to 46 per cent.

But their analysis revealed while carbon dioxide emissions were lower in GDI engines, they pumped out more soot and harmful organic compounds such as benzene and toluene.

‘The whole motivation for creating these engines in the first place was fuel efficiency. But what we haven’t considered are the other climate-related emissions,’ explained Professor Greg Evans, an engineer and applied chemist at Toronto.

‘If a vehicle emits a small amount of soot, it can completely negate the lower amount of CO2 that it’s emitting.‘

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3688189/Not-green-Fuel-efficient-cars-churning-pollutants-previously-thought.html

 

Global Warming Zealots are to blame for the Deadly Diesel Fiasco

Published on by sunshinehours12 Comments

The Diesel Fiasco and the AGW Cult:

Amid all the reporting of Volkswagen’s rigging of emission tests on its diesel cars, one inconvenient truth has been overlooked by the BBC and many media organisations. It is that we very largely owe the prevalence of these death-traps to the pernicious tyranny of the Green lobby.

That they are death traps can scarcely be denied. They spew out vastly more nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide than petrol cars, both of which gases are potentially damaging, and 22 times more particulates — the minute particles that penetrate lungs, brains and hearts.

According to Martin Williams, professor of air quality research at King’s College London, diesel cars account for roughly 5,800 premature deaths a year in the UK alone. Other experts put the figure even higher.

 

Twenty years ago, diesel cars constituted a tiny minority. But following the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, most Western countries, including Britain, were legally obliged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions — alleged by some to cause climate change — by 8 per cent over the following 15 years.

Diesel cars produce slightly less — but only slightly — carbon dioxide than petrol ones. In 2001 the Labour government introduced a new tax regime whereby cars were taxed according to how much carbon dioxide they produce, a development that enormously favoured diesel over petrol. (Duty at the pump has been the same for petrol and diesel since 2000.)

Gordon Brown, then Chancellor, also introduced tax incentives to encourage company car buyers to plump for diesels. Across the EU, car manufacturers were encouraged to develop diesel models.

As a consequence, about half of new cars in Britain are now diesels. In some European countries such as France and Italy, where there have been similar inducements, the proportion is even higher.

When recently buying a new car, I was attracted to a diesel partly because its annual tax was only £40, in comparison to £150 for the petrol version, otherwise identical. Happily, my wife, who had read about the polluting effects of diesels, overruled me. Even I had been almost gulled by Green lobbyists and the blandishments of politicians into doing something that I would have regretted.

You may say ministers didn’t realise that diesels discharge dangerous emissions — but you would be wrong. A 1993 report published by the Department of the Environment was fully aware of the potentially lethal effects of diesel cars.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-3246885/It-s-inconvenient-truth-global-warming-zealots-blame-deadly-diesel-fiasco-writes-STEPHEN-GLOVER.html

 

 

AGW Cult Kills

Published on by sunshinehours11 Comment

“Scientists warned British ministers 22 years ago their planned “dash for diesel” could cause a public health disaster, but were ignored because the then government believed climate change was more important”

 

“It said that although diesel produced less of the key greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide), it produced more of the toxic nitrogen dioxide and particulates that damage health.

It added: “The impact of diesel vehicles on urban air quality is a serious one. Any increase in the proportion of diesel vehicles on urban streets is to be viewed with concern unless problems of particulate matter and nitrogen oxides emissions are addressed.”

 

Embed from Getty Images

http://www.thegwpf.com/britains-climate-policy-is-killing-thousands-every-year/

 

 

The Great ‘Green’ Diesel Car Scam Was a Killer

Published on by sunshinehours16 Comments

I’ve mentioned this from time. The AGW cult heavily promoted diesel cars to save us from evil CO2 and in return they actually ruined the air quality of the countries that were dumb enough to fear CO2 more than filthy air.

The great irony is now that the CO2 scam is falling apart, governments are now punishing the owners of diesel cars for being dumb enough to trust the governments recommendations to buy diesel care.

Here is the sad truth about diesel cars in the UK.

“While diesel produces lower emissions of three greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide), the report said, it produces larger emissions of ‘nitrogen oxides’ and ‘most importantly, far larger emissions of particulate matter and black smoke’.

These, it transpires, are the ingredients now causing such concern about diesel cars. Nitrogen oxides have been linked to bronchitis and heart disease, the black smoke can exacerbate asthma, while the ultra-fine particles can penetrate deep into the lungs and bloodstream.

In 2012, the World Health Organisation classified diesel fume particulates as a carcinogen, while other research suggests that they can cause brain damage and autism.

According to Professor Frank Kelly, chairman of the Department of Health’s committee on air pollution, diesel engines could be responsible for more than 7,000 deaths a year.”

And now owners will be punished:

“Islington council in London is introducing £20 on-the-spot fines for any diesel driver caught with his engine running when stationary.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has announced, in response to the threat of fines from the EU for breaching air pollution limits, that from 2020 diesel owners driving into the capital will have to pay a £10 pollution premium.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2720341/The-Great-Diesel-Scandal-Obsessed-CO2-emissions-politicians-bullied-bribed-buy-diesel-cars-knew-toxic-fumes-killing-And-guess-drivers-hit-extra-taxes.html

(h/t Climate Realists)

Previous interesting stories:

““Successive governments knew more than 10 years ago that diesel was producing all these harmful pollutants, but they myopically plowed on with their CO2 agenda,” said Simon Birkett, founder of Clean Air in London, a nonprofit group. “It’s been a catastrophe for air pollution, and that’s not too strong a word. It’s a public-health catastrophe.””

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-27/london-s-dirty-secret-pollutes-like-beijing-airpocalyse.html

 

“The small particles blighting the air of Delhi and other leading developing cities around the world are often dust from construction sites, pollution from diesel engines or industrial emissions.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/08/india-admits-delhi-matches-beijing-air-polllution-world-health-organisation-cities