London Banter - View Single Post - Walk-through trains

Bruce[_2_] · August 12th 09, 03:47 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:27:09 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:

On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:10:08 +0100
Bruce wrote:
Not only will electric cars save CO2, but there will be a massive
reduction in other pollutants, notable particulates and oxides of
nitrogen. Many UK cities are already in breach of current legal
limits on those pollutants, and the limits are about to be tightened
further.

Hmm, now I wonder why that is. Could it be the popularity of diesel engines
in cars which were the ecomentalists engine of choice only a few years ago?

What was it they all chanted? We shouldn't use nasty petrol engines which give
off tiny amounts of particulates and virtually no gases other than CO2 and
water vapour from their catalysed exhaust, no , lets use something which
belches out buckets of filth even with filters but outputs ever so slightly
less CO2 per km. *sigh*

Well, as usual, you have comprehensively missed the point. The next
round of tightening of emissions regulations for cars will make diesel
engines virtually as clean as petrol engines from the point of view of
particulates. The oxides of nitrogen are more of a problem for petrol
cars.

The legislation that is being tightened is that for pollutants in city
air. Obviously, the sources for these include cars, vans, lorries,
buses, trains and aircraft as as well as other industrial and domestic
sources. But the legislation is about air quality, not about
emissions from individual vehicles.