Diesel Emissions.

[JennyMorgan]

Just had this circular from my insurers:

The MOT test is about to get tougher than ever – especially for diesel cars – as the UK comes in line with a European Union directive called the EU Roadworthiness package.

If you drive a diesel car, pay close attention - the biggest changes to the MOT test since it was first introduced in 1960 will see stringent new checks on cars fitted with diesel particulate filters (DPF).

From 20 May 2018, as a result of stricter emissions controls, any diesel car that is seen to be emitting “visible smoke of any colour” will fail the test. Testers will also be checking if the DPF on your car has been removed or tampered with. Unless there is a “legitimate” explanation for this, testers are required to refuse to test the car.

Could similar, indeed should similar be applied to boats? Anyone who rows or canoes on the Broads will be aware of the unburnt off exhaust that can be created by slow running diesels. That aside how long before the environmental lobby picks up on this one? Is it an issue that has been brushed under the carpet for far too long? 

 

[SPEEDTRIPLE]

It`s crap, pure lies and nothing less. Think of deisels from 35 years ago doing 40ish mpg, now think of modern day deisel s doing 80-90 mpg, and think how much revinue the governments are losing because of it. Couple that with cars that pay very little, or indeed no road tax, and you realise how much they`re loosing in tax. So they come out with loads of lies and come out with rubbish like this.

[Londonlad1985]

I think the marine industry will have to catch up. If the science can be believed diesel emmisions are extremely toxic. My windows get coated in a black soot every month. I assume as there are few coal fires around this comes from the internal combustion engines on the A13 300m away. 

I seriously believe in years to come the busy main roads that run through large cities now will be seen in the same light as the disease and death spreading open sewers from the 17th and 18th century.

[BroadAmbition]

One way to help keep marine diesel emissions down is up to date and proper servicing.  What also helps burn diesel more cleanly is to apply Soltron to the diesel tank, that is keep it conditioned with Soltron.  Most if not all of us that do apply it, it's primarily to keep the dreaded bug at bay, However a nice side effect is that is helps for a cleaner burn, therefore better economy

Griff

[JennyMorgan]

I have to say that I don't know who or what to believe. What I do know is that on a quiet evening that the exhaust fumes that lie on the water, contained there by the reeds and river bank, can be quite unpleasent for those of us in low freeboard open boats. As far as inland waterways are concerned I really do believe that Londonlads's first comment, I think the marine industry will have to catch up, is right.

[johnb]

Recently I was telling my wife about the hours I spent cycling up the old A1 road around Finchley, London. The large old lorries, trundling up the hill at night almost nose to tail, goodness knows what was coming out of their exhausts, and me breathing heavily on the bike alongside them (so close that one night I was run over and spent three weeks in hospital with fractured pelvis in three places, dislocated shoulder and no skin on one side of my face (yes, I know, that explains a lot), thousands of cyclists in those days (1950s/60s) must have inhaled all sorts, but I'm pretty sure that getting run over did me more harm than their emmissions! I may puff and pant a bit these days, but that only gets worse when 'er onboard is near enough to take pity on me!

[johnb]

Looking at this after posting, i realise I do sound like the guy who "smoked a hundred a day and it never hurt me" but I have to say that most of the recent reports come from modern day research rather than when emmisions really lived up to their name! In London it seems to me that fumes are caused by the congestion zone pushing everyone on to the nearest road outside the zone, so nothing moves fast enough to disperse the fumes, and bus and cycle lanes narrowing roads with the same effect.

OK I am a grumpy, ignorant old man. But I survived all the above!!

[LondonRascal]

The thing is marine engines (especially in small river craft) are just car and van engines at their heart the base engines on which they are built are many years old - it is why we are only now beginning to see common rail diesel engines entering the smaller marine engine market, yet these have been the mainstay of cars and vans for several years now.

I think change will come. It always does, one day.  We are aware that shipping moves many thousands of containers in one bulk carrier and they get along a fair rate of knots as they cross the worlds seas. They also pump out masses of emissions and while it is all well and good to say for the tonnage they carry per mile verses the emissions they produce for that it is not that bad, it is still bad what comes out their funnel's and there is no getting away from that. A lot of this is because heavy oil is burnt when in open seaways because it is cheaper.

Despite this, there are now murmurings about how things could be improved so if that is just beginning to be talked about for shipping I could see recreational boating finding itself being looked at for emissions one day too. I short don;t rule it out. 

I doubt anything too drastic will suddenly happen, you may get the Broads Authority want to adjust Tolls to take account of engine type, age and horsepower and calculate some crude emissions scale based on such and charge accordingly. But the bigger issue I can see is as country after country line up to ban diesel cars, and sales of such are falling through the floor, where would the base engines come from that the likes of Beta Marine and Nanni marinise?

I could see that being the bigger issue where they get harder to source and cost more whereby the likes of Toyota might eventually set an end date for the manufacture of diesel engines and then Ford, GM and so on follow suit. I am sure the Chinese would only be too happy to step in with the tooling to produce these older bases but would the buyers of Beta, Nanni, Vetus etc be so keen to buy what they may see as a cheaper 'clone' of a once reputable engine manufacture?

On a closed river system that the Broads is, I could see one day a proper infrastructure of electric charging points - in the meantime I think what will happen sooner than any of that is the resurgence of small, perhaps even turbo charged, clean burning petrol engines on boats. Morden fuel injected engines don't suffer quite the same woes in damp environments, are very quiet, offer a good amount of power for their size and weight leaving only the big elephant in the room to contend with: Highly flammable fuel in large amounts on boats.

 

[Wussername]

15 minutes ago, LondonRascal said:

 

On a closed river system that the Broads is, I could see one day a proper infrastructure of electric charging points - in the meantime I think what will happen sooner than any of that is the resurgence of small, perhaps even turbo charged, clean burning petrol engines on boats. Morden fuel injected engines don't suffer quite the same woes in damp environments, are very quiet, offer a good amount of power for their size and weight leaving only the big elephant in the room to contend with: Highly flammable fuel in large amounts on boats.

 

But not in the foreseeable future. The capital investment required is such that it would be unstastainable 

Before that becomes an eventuality of the public's awareness of NR2 emmisions, in particular of running diesel engines at a mooring, will become unacceptable and cause concern towards those who persist in carrying out such a practice.

I would support them.

This is a matter that needs to be addressed by the authorities before unrest prevails.

Andrew

[grendel]

As someone who has first hand experienced diesel exhaust poisoning on a fairground ride, I can say its not a nice experience, in that instance there was a lot of black exhaust smoke belching up through the centre of a spinning ride, struggling to get enough breath due to the centrifugal forces, we were gulping in large doses of this exhaust smoke.

will the diesel engine be outlawed - I dont think so, there are too many of them used for site work where highly flammable fuel would be banned.

that is unless an anti flammable additive could be added to the fuel in the same way that aviation fuel has to reduce its flammable properties outside of the engine. LPG is a possible alternative, but then you are storing a large tank of heavier than air flammable gas.

[ChrisB]

Living up here in North Norfolk the air quality is good as seen by the large amounts of lichen to be found. I can go months without having the inside of my windscreen cleaned.

When I return to the Home Counties within a couple of days the inside of the windscreen is covered in an oily film from driving in heavy traffic. I also can feel the difference in my throat and airways. My cars are rarely older than three years and have all the filters etc.

One of the worst places I found to stay on The Broads was Norwich yacht Station where you not only get boats running engines but you are lower than the road traffic. Once was enough for me, in the morning I felt like I had a heavy cold coming on.

[Simon]

Having owned diesel cars for years now, I do wonder if my next car will still be another diesel.

[grendel]

I had a volvo V40 with the mitsubushi lean burn engine, and for a largeish petrol car I averaged about 46mpg, on a long motorway trip I could get the right side of 50mpg. the only issue with these engines was that if the valves got coked up, it was a £2000 strip down of the engine to clean them, as a fuel additive did nothing because it was direct injection.

[Timbo]

Having just had two identical new model cars with exception of one being diesel and the latest petrol...my next car will be diesel. Two reasons. It's cheaper to run, and I get better torque so will be able to use my vehicle in light snow.

[ChrisB]

When I did in excess of 40K miles per annum I drove oil burners, then in the 90s big Peugeots. Now, being retired they make no economic sense.

We went into a local dealership to buy a new car a few years ago. The deal having been done the salesman said we had made a wise choice. He said he dreaded the retired coming in and saying " I want to do 70mpg and pay no road tax" he would get the service manager to aid him to change their mind to petrol. Sometimes they were rigid and they knew at their 4000 miles a year at average speed of 18mph around Cromer and North Walsham the car would be in and out of the workshop like a fiddler's elbow.

[ChrisB]

12 minutes ago, Timbo said:

Having just had two identical new model cars with exception of one being diesel and the latest petrol...my next car will be diesel. Two reasons. It's cheaper to run, and I get better torque so will be able to use my vehicle in light snow.

But some cars are £2K dearer than petrol so you need to be doing mileage to get your money back. Personally I do about 8K per annum so I buy the car I like, petrol driven and don't even look what it does to the gallon. If you are doing a 300 mile round trip to your boat every weekend then oil will save you a lot of money. For the last fews years I drove 4x4 but my last two cars have been plain fwd. My house can be bad to get out in snow but I now use Michelin Snow Socks, fitted and unfitted in 3 or 4 minutes they are brilliant. I also put Michelin Cross Climate on when my original tyres need replacing.

[JamesLV]

8 hours ago, LondonRascal said:

The thing is marine engines (especially in small river craft) are just car and van engines at their heart the base engines on which they are built are many years old - it is why we are only now beginning to see common rail diesel engines entering the smaller marine engine market, yet these have been the mainstay of cars and vans for several years now.

I think change will come. It always does, one day.  We are aware that shipping moves many thousands of containers in one bulk carrier and they get along a fair rate of knots as they cross the worlds seas. They also pump out masses of emissions and while it is all well and good to say for the tonnage they carry per mile verses the emissions they produce for that it is not that bad, it is still bad what comes out their funnel's and there is no getting away from that. A lot of this is because heavy oil is burnt when in open seaways because it is cheaper.

Despite this, there are now murmurings about how things could be improved so if that is just beginning to be talked about for shipping I could see recreational boating finding itself being looked at for emissions one day too. I short don;t rule it out. 

I doubt anything too drastic will suddenly happen, you may get the Broads Authority want to adjust Tolls to take account of engine type, age and horsepower and calculate some crude emissions scale based on such and charge accordingly. But the bigger issue I can see is as country after country line up to ban diesel cars, and sales of such are falling through the floor, where would the base engines come from that the likes of Beta Marine and Nanni marinise?

I could see that being the bigger issue where they get harder to source and cost more whereby the likes of Toyota might eventually set an end date for the manufacture of diesel engines and then Ford, GM and so on follow suit. I am sure the Chinese would only be too happy to step in with the tooling to produce these older bases but would the buyers of Beta, Nanni, Vetus etc be so keen to buy what they may see as a cheaper 'clone' of a once reputable engine manufacture?

On a closed river system that the Broads is, I could see one day a proper infrastructure of electric charging points - in the meantime I think what will happen sooner than any of that is the resurgence of small, perhaps even turbo charged, clean burning petrol engines on boats. Morden fuel injected engines don't suffer quite the same woes in damp environments, are very quiet, offer a good amount of power for their size and weight leaving only the big elephant in the room to contend with: Highly flammable fuel in large amounts on boats.

 

I could be (and fairly likely am) wrong but I thought all the big ocean going boats (container ships, ferries etc) had to be fitted with ‘scrubbers’ these days to bring the emissions down? This was, I believe, one of the main reasons Brittany Ferries was decommissioning some of their older fleet (which they’re now not)

[ChrisB]

10 minutes ago, JamesLV said:

I could be (and fairly likely am) wrong but I thought all the big ocean going boats (container ships, ferries etc) had to be fitted with ‘scrubbers’ these days to bring the emissions down? This was, I believe, one of the main reasons Brittany Ferries was decommissioning some of their older fleet (which they’re now not)

I think I read some time ago that ships, someting like two thirds were fitting scrubbers so they could continue to use cheap high sulpur fuels. I suppose short ferry crossings make enough to use expensive low sulphur oil.

[NeilB]

For engines in leisure boats under 24m the current UK and EU emission regulation is RCD 2 which was introduced on new engines from January 2017.  A review of this should be completed by the end of 2022 but how the UK will handle this remains to be seen due to Brexit.

There are other regulations for new engines larger than 130kW for commercial use but unlikely to affect the Broads.  The next big one is IMO Tier III which is global, it’s being phased in now depending on installed power, vessel size, location etc and will be fully implemented by 1st Jan 2021.  Recreational boats less than 24m are not affected.

Engines that are affected will be using exhaust systems similar to the one below, nothing new as they have been used by trucks for years.

As to the future, well the buzzword at the moment is electromobility, we already have electric cars and buses with trucks from 2019.   It may take a few years but it will eventually reach the Broads.

 

 

[JennyMorgan]

There are thousands of increasingly aged boats on the Broads relying on by now archaic technology, it is they that worry me.

[grendel]

Aqueous Urea solution - does that mean the exhaust will be vented through the waste holding tank?

[TheQ]

well it is Adblue

[NeilB]

Yes, Ad blue.  The gases all exit through the exhaust.  You won’t see this in leisure boats for a long time, if at all.

[LondonRascal]

58 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

There are thousands of increasingly aged boats on the Broads relying on by now archaic technology, it is they that worry me.

I agree. It is time to stop this centuries old tradition of using such an unreliable and changeable means of propulsion as the wind.

[annv]

Diesel fumes on most boats are washed with cooling water which removes a lot of the particulates this will stop or remove the need for particulate  filters which need the engine to run at 2000 revs for 15 minutes for the urea to wash  out the filter in exhaust system which needs computer controlled injection. John