Air Qualityhttp://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=52801&st=0CANALWORLD DISCUSSION (DEC 2012) Canal World Discussion Forums: Do narrowboat engines pollute less than car engines? - Canal World Discussion Forums Posted 15 December 2012 Jim Batty. I read on a travel site that narrowboats emit 1/6 of pollution and use 1/3 of the fuel of a car, but I can't really find any straight forward evidence to back this up. Is this true?Partly related to this might be (?): engines put out more pollution when under load ... and there seems to be a lot of time when a narrowboat engine is just idling, such as when working a lock. Canal World Discussion Forums: Do narrowboat engines pollute less than car engines? - Canal World Discussion Forums Posted 15 December 2012 - 10:10 AM |
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Canal World Discussion Forums: Do narrowboat engines pollute less than car engines? - Canal World Discussion Forums Posted 15 December 2012 - 10:10 AM |
| #1 Jim Batty I read on a travel site that narrowboats emit 1/6 of pollution and use 1/3 of the fuel of a car, but I can't really find any straight forward evidence to back this up. Is this true? Partly related to this might be (?): engines put out more pollution when under load ... and there seems to be a lot of time when a narrowboat engine is just idling, such as when working a lock. |
| #2 MoominPapa Are the ratios per hour, or per distance travelled? They certainly use fuel slower than a car, but I reckon it costs more diesel to talke our boat somewhere than to drive the same journey. MP. |
| #3 steven wilkinson I would have thought that you couldnt easily compare the two! They operate at different ranges and loads! There are old engines and new engines! Low hours engines and high hours engines! Polution per mile? hour? mile/hour? litre? I can say I have been behind some seriously dirty and smelly cars as well as boats! |
| #5 John V I'm no engine expert but I believe a cold engine produces more emissions than one operating at the correct temperature, could it be that on average boat engines run cooler? |
| #6 Paul C A narrowboat engine is less sophisticated than a car engine, won't have a cat, or a particulate filter, and 99% likely to be diesel - I'd say that a narrowboat engine is MORE polluting than a car engine, on average. However, there are many times less narrowboats than cars, and they probably get used less (less hours/year or whatever). Also one must bear in mind narrowboats don't get congested in cities, etc in the same way as car traffic does. So overall, cars pollute more than narrowboats. It would be tricky to put actual figures on it though. |
| #7 Jim Batty It's just a generic comment about the green-ness of narrowboating. Given that boating is more about (pleasurable!) time aboard than covering distance, I suppose I would be more interested in a comparison in how much pollution (say CO2 emission) a boat and a car engine puts out. |
| #9 by'eck I think only horse boating is green - well maybe a shitty green Having said that I've heard cows pollute the atmosphere with methane. Can't imagine horses are so different. Now if you could carry the horse on board and run your engine from its pollutants??? |
| #10 ditchcrawler My car does about 10 miles to 1 lt of diesel, my boat does about 3 miles to 1 lt My car uses 5 lts of diesel per hour my boat uses about 1.25 lt per hour I dont know how much emission per lt of diesel I get from the boat but I would expect it to be much higher than the car |
| #12 Albion If you are comparing the very latest car diesel engines that comply with Euro 5 emissions regulation and the type of marinised industrial engine commonly used in narrowboats then, as others have said, that is complete nonsense. Euro 5 engines will be running extremely high injection pressures for better fuel atomisation, They have piezo-electric injectors that can give up to about 5 (IIRC) injections per firing event (reducing diesel knock, improving combustion and allowing retarded injection for the purging of catalysed diesel particulate filters Plant and industrial engines used in nbs tend to have simple, relatively low pressure injection equipment, no exhaust after-treatment and pressure operated injectors. They do not have to comply with such severe exhaust emission legislation and, although this is getting tougher, it still lags vehicle standards. Roger |
| #13 Jim Batty This is interesting. Here's what I've been able to find so far: at the Low Impact Life Onboard site (http://www.lilo.org.uk/handbook/carbonfootprint) they say: 1 litre of diesel emits equivalent of 2.68 kg CO2 1 litre of petrol emits equivalent of 2.31 kg CO2 So diesels emit a bit more pollution than petrol engines. If we're talking running time, then your car diesel engine would seem to emit 4 times more pollution than your boat diesel engine. I can see that if we are looking at covering distance, then the boat needs to burn just over 3 times the amount of diesel as your car does (to cover the same distance). But because the boat is 4x less polluting it overall puts out a bit less CO2 than the car over the same distance. (I haven't done the full maths, but it seems that a petrol engined car, emitting a little less CO2 than a diesel engined car (according to LILO's numbers above) would emit about the same as the boat over the same distance.) For me, I think it makes more sense talking about running time with narrowboats, as I rarely am trying to 'cover distance' to get from A to B. (We CC and don't have a car, but use bicycles!). Yes, I can see there are a lot of factors involved - engine type, age, how well looked after, how its driven, etc. I wonder what percentage drop in pollutant emissions the Euro 5 regulations you mention effect. 0.2%, 2%, 20%? |
| #14 carlt This obsession with CO2 distorts the pollution debate enormously. Canal boats spew out tons of particulate pollution, not being subject to the same stringent regulations that cars have to comply with. The CO2 that both cars and boats emit is insignificant, compared to other greenhouse gas sources. Local environmental damage is far more significant yet, these days, totally ignored because of the global warming fad. |
| #15 alan_fincher (re: I read on a travel site that narrowboats emit 1/6 of pollution and use 1/3 of the fuel of a car) I think they are probably having a laugh! Huge amounts are done to control emissions on cars, including, of course things like catalytic converters and checks at MOT time. AFAIK, there is little effort made to control diesels typically used in canal boats down to any level, (even the more "modern" ones), and certainly no statutory checks of compliance. Until recently the "red" diesel we were using had (IIRC) up to about 20 times the sulphur content that road diesel had to comply to - OK they have finally changed that! If I'm brutally honest, I have little doubt that my boat diesels, (one from 1960s, and one from 1970s), are far from environmentally friendly. The other thing is that when boating I can be running them anything up to ten hours a day - for me to drive more than 2 or 3 hours in any day would be most unusual. I have very little doubt that at least one of my boat diesels emits far more pollution than my diesel powered car. Probably whatever way you measure it! |
| #16 Jim Batty Yes, I never thought running an engine is particularly 'green'. I think there are many other aspects of being on a boat that are green. For example, you become much more aware of using resources such as water, electricity, coal/wood, etc. You recycle a lot more stuff. You consume a lot less stuff (if you live on board). What I'm finding difficult is quantifying how 'un-green' boat engines are. CarlT points out that CO2 isn't the only measurement in the mix, which it isn't. I guess I'm now trying to get a grip on some key measurements in order to make comparisons. |
| #17 carlt It is such a vast complicated subject though. Is Alan's smoke belching vintage engine more polluting than a modern car even though that car may have been replaced 10 times by its owner, having another engine manufactured each time, with all the pollution that produces while sickles sickly old lump coughs, burps and farts its way along the canal being maintained and revitalised with little environmental cost? |
| #18 mango As an asthmatic who is affected by exhaust fumes, engine emissions concern me every time I'm in the bottom of a lock or following other boats through a tunnel. Low sulphur diesel has made a big difference, largely eliminating sulphur dioxide from the exhaust, and I have long known that sulphur dioxide affects me. Particulates and nitrogen oxides are the other main problems for asthmatics. Hire boats tend to be fairly clean but I would love to be able to hire a boat with a diesel particulate filter. Of course I would be stuck in a lock beside a boat with a worn out SR2. As others have said, pollution has many forms but the pollution that leaves me gasping for breath is what I tend to think of most. |
| #19 carlt I never share a lock with my, let alone someone else's boat. |
| #20 Paul C The problem is, how do you assess pollution? If you incluse the whole life cycle, then you'd need to include the energy used, and the pollution caused by this, in its manufacture, and disposal (whole life cycle). Then, where do you draw the line? Do you consider the pollution caused by the truck which delivered the car? Or is that included in ITS whole-life cycle of pollution? etc Cars tend to have caused large amounts of pollution during their manufacture, especially hybrids with the chemicals required in their batteries. Its so wooly and nobody has agreed on the definitions, or where to draw the lines, that you can massage any answer to mean anything you like, if you so wished. So the original claim is just as valid as any others, in a way! |
| #23 Albion CO2 is a measure of the efficiency of the engine. The more CO2 the more efficient the engine, hence diesels emit more CO2 than petrol. CO2 isn't a major pollutant. Petrol catalytic converters change CO (Carbon Monoxide) to CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) to reduce pollution (among other changes). You might find that surprising but efficient pollution reduction equipment actually increases CO2 output. You can see, if you check the figures that Euro 5 is a major reduction of pollutants compared to Euro 4 and eventually we will have Euro 6 in 2015. See, copied from another site: Euro 5 standard Emissions from diesel vehicles: carbon monoxide: 500 mg/km; particulates: 5 mg/km (80 % reduction of emissions in comparison to the Euro 4 standard); nitrogen oxides (NOx): 180 mg/km (20 % reduction of emissions in comparison to the Euro 4 standard); combined emissions of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides: 230 mg/km. Emissions from petrol vehicles or those running on natural gas or LPG: carbon monoxide: 1 000 mg/km; non-methane hydrocarbons: 68 mg/km; total hydrocarbons: 100 mg/km; nitrogen oxides (NOx): 60 mg/km (25 % reduction of emissions in comparison to the Euro 4 standard); particulates (solely for lean burn direct-injection petrol vehicles): 5 mg/km (introduction of a limit that did not exist for the Euro 4 standard). (re: ...The CO2 that both cars and boats emit is insignificant, compared to other greenhouse gas sources...) Exactly, compared to the sheer numbers of vehicles on the road worldwide our narrow boats are a minuscule drop in the ocean. (re: ... the pollution that leaves me gasping for breath is what I tend to think of most.) The problem is that catalysed DPFs have to burn off the carbon particles every so often (every few thousand miles in the case of cars). This is done by increasing the heat in the DPF dramatically and creating an after-burn in the exhaust system by late injection of fuel. If you happened to be there when it occurred you might not like it. However, in vehicles, it can only happen when the temperature has achieved full temperature and the engine revs are sufficiently high so that is unlikely to happen in a lock for your narrow boat example. Despite this apparently polluting burn-off of the particulates the average overall emissions are reduced. Another problem that you would not like in a narrow boat (if it is ever possible to do it) is that the exhaust system will get so hot that it could be dangerous. They don't advise parking in a field of long grass if you have a catalytic converted car or catalysed DPF in case the temperature causes the grass to ignite. Roger |
| #24 Giggetty But the average narrowboat weighs about 16 x a car and is actually a sort of caravan. You have to build this into any sort of comparision. |
| #25 RLWP I need a car to work, it produces emissions I do not 'need' a boat, it's emissions are unnecessary A boat pollutes more than a car Richard |
| #26 catweasel Long Standing Member Don't forget that a boat engine is not necessarily just propulsion; mine does three important jobs. That makes a significant difference when compared to my banger. |
| #27 churchward (re: I do not 'need' a boat, it's emissions are unnecessary) Just wait until the ice caps melt we might need the boats then! |
| #30 waterworks then there is the fact that a boat can carry more weight per amount of engine power/ fuel consumtion, i.e you can bow haul a 50, even a hundred tonnes loaded barge, but not a lorry. ( not including strong man contests ) but then at 4 MPH or less it takes 10 times the hours of a vehicle to get from A to B. My brain hurts now ! Man made global warming is just a theory by the way. |
| #31 Timleech There's no obvious comparison between the two. They will be roughly similar sized engines doing very different jobs. The car engine will be producing more horsepower most of the time, but in a probably more efficient manner. You can try to make valid comparisons between narrow boats and barges carrying freight, and freight road vehicles, in terms of fuel per tonne kilometre and pollutants per tonne kilometre, and I'm sure that above a certain size of vessel the water transport will be better. Comparisons between cars and leisure narrowboats must surely be meaningless, though. Tim |
| #33 lynalldisocvery Interesting thing i learnt the other day, diesel engines euro 5 spec so clean we cannot even get a reading on the smoke meter, BUT every now and then the exhaust silencer gives itself a clean out, this is ALL the stored up particulates dumped in one go rather than all the time and because of this it gets euro 5 spec, euro 6 on the way! Lynall |
| #34 Albion (re: this is ALL the stored up particulates dumped in one go) That's not quite true, they aren't collected and then dumped untouched. They are burnt off every few thousand miles by a controlled after-burn in the DPF initiated by late injection of fuel into the cylinders (possible because of the extremely accurate injection events that can be achieved with piezo-electric injectors...see my earlier posting) causing massive heating of the matrix of the DPF. This burn off can only take place when the pressure sensor across the DPF detects that the DPF is getting fully loaded, the engine is at full working temperature, the vehicle is driving at a sufficiently high speed (to avoid driveability problems) and is at that speed for sufficient time to allow the full burn off. The average of the (relatively dirty) burn off period and the clean remainder of the running cycle is taken to give the emissions result for Euro 5 acceptance by the certifying authority. Roger |
| #36 Radiomariner The speed factor must have some significance herre like in dumpoming dirty ballast water or sewage at sea. "Parts Per million per mile" However, considering the total amount of combustion engines in the world compared to the number of engined boats in the world any polution from canal boats is surely insignificant. |
| #38 blackrose In Life-Cycle Assessment the "goal and scope" of the project is always clearly defined and it's not woolly at all. However, if different life-cycles are to be compared then they must fulfil the same function because they will be compared according to an agreed "functional unit" of measurement. Since a car and a boat don't fulfil the same function this a pointless exercise unless you're only comparing the engines without the vehicles on a bench. |
| #40 steven wilkinson simple simple test! Stand behind your boat, and then stand behind your car! See how long it takes for you to feel sick! Fastest wins! |
| #41 lynalldisocvery Im not sure if the diesel engines im talking about are a dpf as per car engines, but that is how it was explained to me by the guy who teaches people from every uk dealer From my fading memory it was along the lines of when the nox sensors start reading the nox ppm in the exhaust gas, the eas system fires into life, the system needs to see right temps, engine torque and various other bits, then it injects the adblue which is 32.5% urea the rest water as a carrier, the urea then grabs onto the nox particles and when the reach the silencer/cat the chemical process changes the nox to basically nothing. Its so effective i havent seen one make any smoke in 6 years, but they are now getting old and we are having to force the silencer/cat into a clean process by fitting a blanking plate to the tailpipe and taking it for a a good thrashing with a loaded trailer, the exhaust then gets up to approx 600degc and the ppm difference between in and out is anywhere between 1000 and 1300ppm, thats it fixed and off it goes again, this is after approx 600k. Lynall Youtube vid explains it way better than me! http://youtu.be/a_oA8H4mN1Y Lynall |
| #42 Albion Long Standing Member Urea injection is an additional aid to regeneration but isn't used commonly to my knowledge in Europe for cars at Euro 4 and maybe Euro 5 level. In fact when I was the team leader for the On Board Diagnostics (OBD) team for the 2.7 V6 diesels used in the Jag S Type, XF and XJ I can't remember many manufacturers that did use it. If the burn off temperatures can be achieved with close position of the DPF to the engine (keeping the temperature high) the passive cleansing can be achieved as I have described. If a car has urea injection then there will be a separate tank somewhere that requires refilling at extended intervals. It could be that as the drive from Euro 5 to Euro 6 progresses the requirement for even more efficient NOx reduction will require more application of this type of additional technology. I can't tell you how many meetings that I attended with the Power Train guys at Jags about DPF technology and problems that might occur with incorrect use of the car leading to non-achievement of the condition for regeneration. AS OBD engineers we had to provide diagnostic monitoring for the performance of the DPF because it directly affected emissions which were part of certification for sale and compliance with European law. It is however a good reason for perhaps not buying a diesel car with DPF if your driving style isn't likely to include sufficient higher speed, higher temperature, runs as they can block and be ruined if inadequately regenerated. Roger |
| #43 mrsmelly (re: my own opinion - cars are cleaner than boats!) Unless they have a diesel engine and feebly attempt to accelerate emitting huge clouds of black smoke !!! Diesel engine great for boats. Big smooth petrol engines for cars .. no contest. Tim |
| #44 nebulae Dont know about the technical side,but when I had Listers I could usualy be seen by my own personal fog.Changed to Isuzu.Last time we went through Stanedge,the B.W.man could not get a reading on his meter.Would that be Carbon Monoxide he was measuring? |
| #47 Peter Corbett My diesel car engine pulls a one ton car along. My boat engine moves many many more tons than my car. Is this being factored into this topic? I imagine my boat is more akin to a medium sized lorry. |
| #49 Jim Batty (re: I imagine my boat is more akin to a medium sized lorry.) Good idea: how much work the engine is doing. How many car journeys would it take to shift a working boat load of coal from Birmingham to London? But this pollution calculation is becoming very complex. |
| #50 lynalldisocvery Roger its on Daf trucks. Apparently for euro 6 which is coming early next year it urea plus egr, cant wait, that my overtime for the next few years sorted On another note what are the v6 engines like as i keep looking at the discovery 3 tdv6, missus is shaking her head already! Lynall |
| #51 Albion EGR valves give enough problems now on cars so your overtime earnings should be enhanced. Surely EGR must be on trucks by now anyway? I can't speak about the 3.0 V6 engine as I left before that was developed but I was very impressed with the 2.7 (It was known as the Lion engine). It was a beautiful sounding engine in the Jag. ISTR having to go out to a dealer to support them in the very early days on the S Type because they were having some problems with injectors (IIRC), but what its service record has been like since then I can't say. They made some tweaks to it for the LR range but, although I had colleagues in the same office alongside me working on the Disco we never crossed the marque divide. The engine was a co-development between Ford (who owned Jag/LR at the time) and Peugeot Citroen. Others involved in its tweaks for their own use were Jag and LR, of course, and Toyota but I can't remember whether it went into one of their models or not. I can't remember Ford using it in any of their models in Europe. From memory the main difference between the LR version and the Jag version was the number of turbochargers (from 2 down to 1 larger one) and mods to improve its wading capability. After I left they stretched it by two cylinders to produce the 3.6 L V8 diesel also. I'm not going to get involved in any domestic disputes that you have with your wife if you decide to go for that Disco it's for too dangerous when she says in the future "I told you so, we should never have bought it!" Roger |
| #52 The Ents EGR valves? don't make me laugh!! and injecting urea? oh come on. This is all about writing crazy limits to emissions and then bending the rules to make sure the end results are OK. Carbon particulate filters and afterburn, oh come on any engineer worth his/her salt knows a modern diesel with common rail technology will put out less, erm, pollutants as required by the EEC than an old Lister. However an old lister will go all day on 10L diesel, and all the particulates will be pure Carbon that will fall to ground. Bit of CO2, not a lot. A single wide bodied Jet will burn 150 tonnes of JP4 in 7 hours. Compare? Get real. Mike. |
| #54 Albion (re: EGR valves? don't make me laugh!! ...) I'm afraid that you are just demonstrating your complete ignorance of the limits currently existing for vehicles, the technologies that have had to be developed to meet those limits, how those technologies work and the differences between modern and ageing diesels. And you reckon that all an old Lister will put out is some solid carbon particles and a tiny bit of CO2. I'm afraid you need to do some homework on combustion processes and emissions. Where I do agree with you is the comparison between the output of a few leisure/pleasure boats compared to every plane flight but that's another argument altogether. You are arguing with someone that helped stop the requirement for emissions testing of old engines being re-used in new narrowboats by the way. Thanks to people like myself you are able to use an old Lister in a new boat because, had the proposed EU emissions and drive-by noise tests of the originally proposed RCD legislation been adopted for nbs, it would have put paid to old engines in new boats and made the production of new nbs very expensive due to the compliance testing. Roger |
| #55 lynalldisocvery Most other manufactures went the egr route Scania and Man, daf and Volvo went with scr, not sure what merc did but they are scr now. All the others said waste of money etc etc and as emissions have got tighter they are now scr Meant to be a big rush on the sales of the last of the euro5 spec as people try and avoid the higher cost of the e6 ones. Lynall |
| #56 Albion Interesting slight divergence in approach by the car manufacturers and the truck manufacturers (possibly due to engine size maybe) although I suspect that as limits are lowered even further there will be greater convergence again because of the technological solutions available to both fields to overcome those demanding limits. Roger |
| #57 mango I am aware that there are problems with DPFs and realise that a different system would be needed for a boat to achieve the high temperatures needed to initiate combustion of accumulated carbon. The big bank of domestic batteries could find a new application. A hot catalytic converter in a car is a potential hazard only because it is not insulated, whereas exhaust systems on boats are insulated. Yes there are problems to be overcome but for an asthmatic, the thought of no exhaust smoke is rather appealing. I've driven my diesel Golf for 6 months and the inside of the exhaust pipe looks as clean as the day I picked it up. On my car, the cleaning process is automatic but on a boat it could be done manually so that it doesn't happen at the bottom of a lock. |
| #58 Albion I am afraid that you seriously misunderstand the temperatures and technology involved. The temperatures at which carbon particles are burnt off adequately are very high. I'm trying to think of an analogy but it is difficult. If you have every witnessed a serious chimney fire with the huge plume of flame and sparks jetting skywards from the chimney top you might get just a hint. To think that a few strips of badly applied fibreglass tape (as seen on the majority of nb exhaust systems) is going to contain that sort of heat level is naive. Also, it isn't just a matter of choosing when the purge can be switched on manually, there are precise conditions that have to apply and it isn't a matter of flicking a switch. Luckily that technology is very unlikely to apply to nbs for some while because the industrial engines, on which most nb marinisations are based, have to comply with other less rigorous standards. It is also impossible to compare road and off-road emissions standards because they are calculated on different criteria ( g/km v g/KWhr). The Stage X requirements for off road diesels don't mention particulate filters until Stage 3B but I now notice that it mentions that 3B and upwards won't be applied for inland marine engines. Roger |