Why do so many Americans hate European trucks?

If you burn diesel, you will create the same amount of CO2, no matter what acronym you hang behind the combustion cylinder. No matter what you do, once created, CO2 will go into the exhaust stack.

Right now, particulate emissions is talked about, but the ugly truth is that the amount of particulates coming out of the stack are smaller than ........ the amount of particulates coming off the tires of a semi truck..... In many cases, the level of emissions is such that the air coming out of the stack is cleaner than what goes in. And now the bureaucrats want to improve on that?

Speaking of CO2, it seems to be politics as usual. Since 2005, the US has reduced total CO2 emissions by 14 %, and continues to decrease.

U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions fell 1.7% in 2016 - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Germany has signed all the treaties, spouts off about all the politically correct issues, but the dirty secret (pun intended) is that their CO2 emissions are actually going UP.

German CO2 emissions up despite 'energy transition'

So, if I may summarize, the US doesn't say the politically correct things, or signs the correct (and by correct, I mean meaningless) treaties, and just goes about increasing efficiency and reducing carbon emissions. The Euros talk a lot, have a lot of meetings, create a lot of regulations, and meanwhile their carbon emissions increase, reflecting all that hot air...........

 

So 7 years later than north America.

This is a good example of why we get so irritated when someone like alpo makes a statement about dirty na engines.

 

and indicate that your manufacturers decide to go on worst way to comply with epa 2007

 

Very true.
Not just for diesel, but for any fuel that contains carbon. Gasoline, propane, coal, diesel, natural gas (CNG/LNG), etc. They all contain carbon, and if you burn carbon you end up with CO2.

The main difference between fossil fuels and bio-fuels is that in bio-fuels plants removed CO2 just recently (last few years or decades) from the atmosphere, so it is considered CO2-neutral when burning the bio-fuel. A closed loop. It simply releases the CO2 that was taken out of the atmosphere back into it.

In fossil fuels, the plants removed CO2 from the atmosphere thousands of years ago, and this is released now when burning the fossil fuel.
In a way fossil fuels have the same closed loop, but the whole process (removing CO2 from the atmosphere untill releasing it again) took much much longer.

Yes, tires, brake dust, wear of the road surface and a lot of other sources.

Antwerp (Belgium) introduced a low emission zone Februari 1 this year. Older cars and trucks, specially older diesel engined vehicles without a dpf are no longer allowed in the city.

First results/indications:
In the first half of this year the number of days in which the limits for particles in the air were exceeded was higher than in first half of 2016!
Banning the older diesels from the city most probably (certainly) had a positive effect and reduced the particles in the air, but it was more than offset by other sources, and influences of the weather (long dry spells, less wind).

And it is not just diesels that create the particulate emissions. Also gasoline engines, specially the new direct injection engines, produce particles.
In fact, in Europe (for passenger cars) there were NO limits for particle numbers up untill euro5 for spark-plug engines, only for diesels.
With the introduction of euro6 the limit for particle numbers for spark-plug engines is 10 times the limit for diesels! (to be reduced to the same limit as for diesel over a period of several years).

Gasoline engines may/will get DPF's too, or use a combination of traditional port injection (for low loads and during emissions testing) and direct injection for high loads.
Just look at the new Ford Ecoboost in the F150, or the new 2018 5.0. 2 injectors per cilinder. 1 in the intake port, 1 directly in the combustion chamber.

 

Very true. Except it was hundreds of millions of years ago. Until then, there was no biological process that could break down lignite, which gives plants their rigidity. So, plants died, and it was like they were made from plastic. Nothing could break down the carbon containing material plants were made from. They were piled layer upon layer, over geologic time, until, under pressure and heat, chemical processes could break the bonds and formed coal, oil and gas deposits.

Now, what is really, really, REALLY interesting is that even after bacteria developed the ability to recycle the carbon in lignite and so closed the carbon loop, atmospheric CO2 kept dropping steadily. As a matter of fact, we were rapidly approaching (again, speaking in units of geological time), to where the CO2 levels on earth reach the point that plant growth is limited. 100-400 million years from now, if the trend had continued, plant life would have become close to impossible. As an aside, the cause of this is the sequestration of CO2 by shelfish. Their deposits form limestone, which we then use for portland cement production, which produces about 5% of the man-made CO2.

So, even though the increase in atmospheric CO2 is going to change climate quicker than historical climate swings, the addition of CO2 to our atmosphere by man is actually going to prevent the extinction of the human species.

There are several such zones in the US, mostly centered around ports. Ships are also being limited as to fuel quality while in coastal zones. All this makes sense, where you have high concentrations of engines and humans. Nobody, nobody, nobody wants to go back to the 70's, which had air quality problems in may cities comparable to what China has today.

On the other hand, it is impossible to justify that level of emissions control on a combine on a 250 Ha wheat field, in Kansas, however, or on a long distance truck running across I-80 in Nevada or 84 in Idaho. You simply can't measure the pollution levels.

 

What so you mean our manufacturers? They are the same manufacturers that build your trucks and engines.

 

Well owners are obviously same, but local market required more complicated things. same as your market refuse to adopt proven things that exist for 20years.

i dont know exact comparison between epa2007 and euro5 but they are close.
those engines are really simple, without SCR they are on eco norm from 1990.
tatra even manage to build euro 5 engine with mechanical fuel pump without electronics and using air cooling.

at that time you needed DPF? EGR? VGT? common rail? expensive egr coolers.
scania tried to do this in europe, quite big fail. man was very close to release, at end they offered only small trucks, buses and on certain truck models in UK

if i can make parallel between your epa07 engines and scania egr engines it is than clear to me why do you want pre emission trucks.

some of those egr e5 were good, some make people bankrupt....

 

True, but there's also something like efficiency. How much diesel do you need for 1 HP so say it in very simple terms. It seems the next Euro 7 regulation will set standards for that too. For diesel engines it means increased fuel injection pressure, increased cylinder pressure, more torque at lower rpm. By the way, that is what they have done to the new versions of the MX-13.

True, with the latest standards engines are very clean.

Yes, but you didn't read the whole article. One of the reasons for the rise is that Germany is closing down its nuclear power stations.

Let me give you some figures. The carbon footprint per capita of the US is 16.5 ton per year, for Germany 8.9 ton per year. The US is producing 12.2% of its electricity from renewable sources, for Germany that is about 35%. In fact there have been short moments that almost 100% of the electricity was produced by renewable energy.

I think the previous figures show how wrong you are. The EU has set a goal to produce 20% of all energy (incl. heating etc.) from renewable sources by 2020.l

 

What proven things are we refusing to adapt?

 

I make statements about your love for pre-emission engines, not about modern engines.

A pre-emission engine would be a Euro 0 engine in Europe, and Europe had this roadmap for cleaning up truck engines:

• Euro 1 - 1992
• Euro 2 - 1995
• Euro 3 - 1999
• Euro 4 - 2006
• Euro 5 - Oct 2009
• Euro 6 - 2014 (comparable with EPA 13)

As far as I'm aware, DPF filers were introduced with Euro 4. That is why trucks need to have at least a Euro 4 engine in many cities.