[geeks] Elation... :-) a new rescue mobile?

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

On Mon, Aug 11, 2003 at 04:00:31PM -0400, Andrew Weiss wrote:
> On Monday, August 11, 2003, at 02:47 PM, Sandwich Maker wrote:
> >
> >it does, but not as good as a vw diesel - in other words, an
> >unimpressive advancement.
> >
> And what's a huge shame is they are revising the emissions standards... 
> especially in NY so that no diesel cars can meet the acceptable 
> criteria... so they are no longer shipping them here.  Some idiot 
> enviro-SUIT.

That's because US emissions laws are bloody stupid.

They only count parts-per-unit-volume when rating an engine.

The result is that an engine that has higher per-unit emissions
will fail even if it outputs a small fraction of the pollution
of another engine with lower per-unit emissions.

Example: Nader and the gang killed the VW Beetle in the 70s because it
had higher per-unit volume emissions than other cars.  What those idiots
didn't account for though, was that the Beetle's total output was far
lower than most other cars, so it really polluted less.

Any engine designer will also tell you that they could reduce emissions
on modern cars by removing the emission control system.  In many cases
it actually increases pollution instead of decreasing it.

Catalytic converters for example, are a waste of horsepower.  By
reducing power they decrease efficiency and cause more pollution.  Also,
they reduce one type of emission at the cost of increasing another.
They are only useful for complying with the law.

I'm very happy that we now have cleaner running cars, but we took the
wrong approach to getting there.

-- 
UNIX/Perl/C/Pizza____________________s h a n n o n at wido !SPAM maker.com