Opinion: diesel comes with both immense benefits for society and serious environmental challenges, especially in our cities
It was July 1943 and fear was widespread in California about a Japanese invasion. A Japanese submarine had been sighted off Santa Barbara and the residents of Los Angeles were complaining of a thick fog, sore throats, respiratory struggles, and stinging eyes. Talk of a Japanese chemical attack was commonplace. But there had been no such attack and fears of a Japanese invasion receded. Suspicions moved onto a local chemical plant which was subsequently shut down, but there was no improvement in air quality.
After the war, Dutch scientist Aries Jan Haagen-Smit moved to Los Angeles and was perplexed by the pollution and smog in the rapidly-urbanizing Southern California. Smog is a word combining smoke and fog to describe the hazy air pollution common in urban areas. London-type smog is due to coal, while Los Angeles-type smog is due to vehicle emissions.
With time, Haagen-Smit was able to demonstrate that the California smog was the product of a photochemical reaction between the emissions of the internal-combustion engine and sunlight to create ozone. He is known as the father of air-pollution control and mitigation.
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From RTÉ News, report on the release of an air quality map for Dublin city
Recent debates on the societal role of the car in The Irish Times, have been a timely reminder that we also have some intractable pollution problems in our own cities and towns. Una Mullally argued for the banning of the car in Dublin city to reduce congestion and noise and improve air quality, while Michael McDowell wrote that such a ban was neither sustainable nor feasible.
The diesel engine is at the heart of much of this debate and is our focus here. California was the first state to embrace electric vehicles. The origins in the late 1980s of the modern electric vehicle were based on the realisation that increased urbanisation based on the automobile would make cities unliveable. Hence, the modern electric movement, based on battery electric and hybrid electric, emerged at the time.
While the cars and light trucks in the US were based on the petrol engine, Europe with its low domestic oil production and high import dependency embraced the diesel engine with its higher fuel economy compared to the petrol engine. Just as Europeans were (are) bemused by the American fascination with trucks, Detroit was bemused by Europe's fascination with the toxic and polluting diesel for use by city drivers dropping the kids to school.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, Pat Byrne from the Environmental Protection Agency's discusses their annual air quality report
The engine invented by Rudolf Diesel in 1890 is a wonderful invention and does the heavy lifting in mechanising society. The modern large engines are significantly more efficient than petrol and make sense for large heavy vehicles. Diesel engines used less fuel than petrol, but were noisier and emitted significant pollutants in the form of particulate matter (soot) and nitrogen oxides, commonly known as NOx. In addition to being heavy, they require significant and expensive emissions control, and are not really suitable for stop-go nature of city driving in term of pollution and reliability.
In Ireland, diesel cars have been the transport of choice for the long-distance salesman looking for high fuel economy or the farming families needing to tow trailers. The role of the diesel engine in Irish society for the everyday motorist was transformed by well-intentioned (but ultimately misguided) Green government policy in 2008.
Over the next several years, the sales of diesel engines dominated the Irish car market. Ireland featured as the top adopter in Europe of the diesel engine until the news of the Volkswagen scandal broke in September 2015. This was a seismic event as the earlier teachings of Haagen-Smit were belatedly relearnt in Europe and beyond.
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From RTÉ Radio 1 in 2016, motoring journalist Geraldine Herbert on the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal
Just like California, modern Ireland is highly urbanised for much of the population, and the car has been widely embraced for personal mobility. According to the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI), there were about 2.3 million cars in Ireland at the end of 2022, of which over half are diesel. Overall, more of half of all Irish cars are pre-2016 and have emission systems, known as Euro 1 to Euro 5, which are inadequate by today's standards. The current standard is Euro 6, which better filters the most harmful pollutants.
About a quarter of these vehicles are registered in densely-populated Dublin, which has just over 1% of the Republic’s land mass, but there are likely to be hundreds of thousands of older more polluting vehicles. These cars have many more years of driving in them and are necessary for their owners’ mobility.
Battery and plug-in hybrid electric cars really benefit the urban environment by shifting the emissions away from the point of use to the electricity generator, which can also be renewable with wind or solar. While electric vehicles are being well embraced in Ireland, they remain inaccessible and unaffordable for much of the population at this time. Overall, battery, plug-in and hybrid electric accounted for about 1.6%, 1.4% and 4.5% respectively, of all cars in Ireland at the end of 2022.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime in 2020, would a car ban near schools address air quality concerns in towns and cities?
The diesel engine also plays a significant role in public transportation. While the public has been slow to return to mass transportation post pandemic, demand is returning and exceeds supply in some communities. Electric vehicles can play a role, but availability and cost are again problematic compared to diesel vehicles.
Diesel plays a significant role in powering our air and sea ports, which are typically based in or close to our cities, and whose activities are rapidly returning and expanding. Beyond transportation, diesel directly powers or acts as backup for many of our industries, agriculture, businesses, universities and hospitals, and especially so in our high-tech data centres.
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From RTÉ News in January 2020, draft legislation to ban sale of petrol and diesel cars is published
We are all well aware that Ireland is going through a population expansion and a housing scarcity, with suggestions of up to a million homes being built in the next decade. The diesel engine is the beating heart of the construction industry. Significant congestion, noise, carbon dioxide and pollutants will be generated and green space lost in urban environments as Ireland expands economic activity to build much-needed housing.
Irish society and its cities are heavily dependent on Rudolf Diesel's engine to meet society’s needs, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. This vital role of diesel comes with immense societal benefits and serious environmental challenges, especially in our cities. While their debate was broader than the impact of cars, both Una Mullally and Michael McDowell are providing a public service by highlighting and debating these benefits and challenges.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
