Thread: VW caught by the Yanks for breaking emission laws

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Sorry John you are completely incorrect. NOx has significant health impacts regardless of any secondary reactions.
...

Perhaps I should have worded it differently. It is only in a relatively few large cities that vehicle generated NOx emissions are a significant health problem, bearing in mind that they are also generated in nature, and are a significant factor in soil fertility.

And I am well aware of the human effects, which are not necessarily all negative - my wife died from a rare lung disorder that was treated in some cases (but not in Australia, mainly because of the third party risk) by NOx inhalation. So I took the effort to investigate the effects. Nitric oxide acts to expand the air passages in the lungs, and, if I remember correctly, is actually generated in the body as part of normal processes.

John

Originally Posted by isuzurover

I agree with the rest but AFAIK many of the vehicles in question have SCR (adblue) systems fitted.

No.
Vast majority have no adblue system.

JD you may have your nitros mixed up , this article explains better than I could.

VW scandal caused nearly 1m tonnes of extra pollution, analysis shows | Environment | The Guardian

So, 9 out of 10 new diesel vehicles sold in the EU are believed to breach the emissions standards by up to 7 times. NO2 does cause respiratory problems. My father had emphysema, although in his case it was caused by smoking, so I know about how it affects people.
Current EU testing does not test real world driving conditions. Obviously VW is not the only company at fault here.
Pretty clear that VW's 11 million vehicles worldwide and who knows how many other diesel vehicles were sold by companies which claimed that they met emissions standards, but they don't meet those standards in real world conditions. Sounds like a very clear case of false advertising to me.
It's hard to believe this was only a case of a 'few bad eggs' - there would have to have been widespread knowledge of this for it to happen.

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Originally Posted by frantic

No.
.......

JD you may have your nitros mixed up , this article explains better than I could.

VW scandal caused nearly 1m tonnes of extra pollution, analysis shows | Environment | The Guardian

I do not have my oxides mixed up, I am talking about NO2.

You're right, the article does explain it better -

"High concentrations of nitrogen dioxide are harmful because they cause inflammation of the airways. But it can also react to form other secondary pollutants, such as ozone, which create their own health problems."

In low concentrations they are part of the system controlling the expansion and contraction of the airways in the lungs.

And the article does give this information, but after a couple of pages which tacitly assume that vehicle emissions will result in these high concentrations everywhere. In fact, as I originally stated, this can only occur where there are high concentrations of traffic over large areas, or where weather conditions keep the air in one place for prolonged periods (or both as in California). Diesel passenger cars will only be a significant contributor where they are present as a large proportion of the vehicles, which may be in Europe, but certainly not in the USA and probably not in Australia. And in Australia, it is doubtful that there are enough VWs to impact any of the few places where it could conceivably be a problem.

The article as a whole does not actually seem to have any false statements, but is misleading in that it implies that there is a problem everywhere with NOx, and that the VW action has made a major difference (for example by giving the amount produced by them without comparing this to the total produced by both other diesels and natural processes).

The major problem in this country, apart from any government action, is that VWs are likely to have dropped markedly in value. Owners and potential buyers are unlikely to be happy about this!

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Perhaps I should have worded it differently. It is only in a relatively few large cities that vehicle generated NOx emissions are a significant health problem, bearing in mind that they are also generated in nature, and are a significant factor in soil fertility.

And I am well aware of the human effects, which are not necessarily all negative - my wife died from a rare lung disorder that was treated in some cases (but not in Australia, mainly because of the third party risk) by NOx inhalation. So I took the effort to investigate the effects. Nitric oxide acts to expand the air passages in the lungs, and, if I remember correctly, is actually generated in the body as part of normal processes.

John

Hi John,
your info is out of date. There are a large numbers of papers coming out now linking low levels of anthropogenic NOx to a range of health problems - systemic inflammatory and perinatal conditions. In many cases these are below ambient NOx limits. There are demonstrable health effects even in Australian cities.

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Sorry John you are completely incorrect. NOx has significant health impacts regardless of any secondary reactions.

e.g. NO2-induced airway inflammation is associated with progressive airflow limitation and development of emphysema-like lesions in C57bl/6 mice. - PubMed - NCBI

Thanks for the link Mate. As I read it, if you were the size of a mouse and breath air containing NOx at the same dilution as it comes out of a VW exhaust then it will be a problem.

While I agree it's bad. It's not as bad as people have made out for it to be.

I believe the authorities continue to raise the bar on all emissions. With NOx a point was met where manufactures could go no lower so one cheated then the rest followed suit and the authorities raised the bar further.

This is not just a VW problem. Others have been found to not meet the requirements either but VW just got slammed by the media because someone worked out how they cheated.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

It perhaps should be pointed out that NOx emissions, which is what we are talking about, have no impact on human health except in large cities with specific climatic conditions conducive to smog, and in ultra large cities. NOx emissions have no impact on climate change, but the measures taken to reduce NOx emissions, by decreasing maximum combustion temperatures, almost invariably increase CO2 emissions, which do impact on climate change.

But the whole point about VW's actions is not that their vehicles were emitting higher NOx levels than allowed, but that the software was designed to allow this while adjusting to meet emission standards when actually being tested. In other words, it was a premeditated evasion of the standards.

John

I disagree on a couple of points.

NOx does not cause exactly no health problems but I suspect you are right in they would be immeasurable.

And reducing NOx requires higher combustion temps or exposing the exhaust to high temps. Not lower as you say. But you are right it requires more fuel to create those higher temps and something that can't be avoided is "X" amount of fuel in relates to "X" amount of CO2 out and that ratio or fuel in and CO2 out is set in stone. So more fuel in to reduce NOx will equal more CO2 out.

Now I believe CO2 is worse than NOx. So why don't the authorities have a scale. If a manufacturer can get CO2 under "X" then higher NOx is allowed.

I'm also not convinced adblue is a solution (well it is a solution like liquid but not a solution like a fix). Adding more in has to mean more out but is it in a better form or is it just in a form that is not measured as part of emissions?

Happy Days

Originally Posted by DiscoMick

It's hard to believe this was only a case of a 'few bad eggs' - there would have to have been widespread knowledge of this for it to happen.

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I have to agree there. There are plenty of aftermarket tuners that would have played extensively with this ECU and knew what it did and how it worked.