NOx Emissions Cited By Report As Cause For Deaths in 2015
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A new study published in the journal Nature has now calculated the effect of lax practices in regulation of diesel vehicles which during some real-world driving conditions run dirtier than they do during the lab tests. A body count—38,000 people around the world prematurely died in 2015 as a result of excess particulate matter (including nitrogen oxide or NOx) and ozone emissions from diesel vehicles.
In the U.S., federal emissions testing of light-duty vehicles (including passenger cars and some small commercial trucks) includes a 31-minute test in which an engine is hooked up to a dynamometer in a lab. Test administrators study tailpipe emissions from a cold start, then while the car is running, and finally after a hot start. There's room for an automaker to pass such a test without using secret software to turn on and off its emissions control system, as Volkswagen did.
In 2015, a researcher from the University of Colorado Denver noted, regarding the emissions compliance test, that the testing conditions are well known to auto manufacturers before the day of the test, and manufacturers will even go so far as to hire drivers who can "drive" the car most efficiently while it’s hooked up to lab equipment to produce the lowest emissions possible. Since the amount of emissions which a car gives off can be variable, regulators know that many diesel vehicles that pass the extremely narrow requirements of the EPA lab test will produce emissions in excess of what’s allowed while a real-world driver is, say, chugging up a steep hill or driving in cold temperatures.
The authors found that "nearly one-third of on-road heavy-duty diesel vehicle emissions and over half of on-road light-duty diesel vehicle emissions are in excess of certification limits."
Similar studies have been done to quantify the effects of the Volkswagen scandal in the U.S. alone. In an October 2015 paper in Environmental Research Letters, researchers determined that the extra emissions from the nearly 500,000 diesel VWs and Audis sold in the U.S. would cause about 60 premature deaths.
In the U.S., federal emissions testing of light-duty vehicles (including passenger cars and some small commercial trucks) includes a 31-minute test in which an engine is hooked up to a dynamometer in a lab. Test administrators study tailpipe emissions from a cold start, then while the car is running, and finally after a hot start. There's room for an automaker to pass such a test without using secret software to turn on and off its emissions control system, as Volkswagen did.
In 2015, a researcher from the University of Colorado Denver noted, regarding the emissions compliance test, that the testing conditions are well known to auto manufacturers before the day of the test, and manufacturers will even go so far as to hire drivers who can "drive" the car most efficiently while it’s hooked up to lab equipment to produce the lowest emissions possible. Since the amount of emissions which a car gives off can be variable, regulators know that many diesel vehicles that pass the extremely narrow requirements of the EPA lab test will produce emissions in excess of what’s allowed while a real-world driver is, say, chugging up a steep hill or driving in cold temperatures.
The authors found that "nearly one-third of on-road heavy-duty diesel vehicle emissions and over half of on-road light-duty diesel vehicle emissions are in excess of certification limits."
Similar studies have been done to quantify the effects of the Volkswagen scandal in the U.S. alone. In an October 2015 paper in Environmental Research Letters, researchers determined that the extra emissions from the nearly 500,000 diesel VWs and Audis sold in the U.S. would cause about 60 premature deaths.
