diesel fumes contribute to 3400 deaths per year

kasper

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/premature-deaths-linked-to-poor-air-quality-1.1354032

don't think this could be true but its in the Irish times today

aman23

I see a new diesel health tax in our future!!!

creedp

aman23 wrote: »

I see a new diesel health tax in our future!!!

Low Carbon is King ... so diesel is safe for the time being!

pred racer

They are talking about introducing a scrappage scheme in paris, to get older diesels off the road because the pollution levels are so high.

RobAMerc

pred racer wrote: »

They are talking about introducing a scrappage scheme in paris, to get older diesels off the road because the pollution levels are so high.

AFAIK - Diesel is banned in Greece except for agri and commercials ( as it should be ) because of its pollution.

As someone else said - I see a diesel tax comming !

BMJD

What this country needs is a special incentive scheme to encourage people to buy petrol V8s.

dgt

kasper wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/premature-deaths-linked-to-poor-air-quality-1.1354032

don't think this could be true but its in the Irish times today

Sorry everyone

Killinator

BMJD wrote: »

What this country needs is a special incentive scheme to encourage people to buy petrol V8s.

A man ahead of the curve, bravo I say!

mathepac

The Irish Times hasn't been a good "paper of record" since Geraldine Kennedy turned it into a women's magazine. Some ex-Sun girlie subbie elected to use a picture of a car emitting water vapour from the exhaust to illustrate an article on diesel emissions - s/he/it probably liked the body-colour. C'mon lads, please!!

Interesting how an Tasce try to do their simple sums for simple ministers. Stats / maths is not my forte but surely there are other pertinent factors apart from population to be taken into account, for example, number of diesel vehicles of the roads, prevailing winds / weather, quality of the diesel on sale / "available", quality of the vehicle stock, speed limits, traffic jams, etc. etc.

Can we get Jeremy Clarkson as short-term editor to try and adjust the balance please?

Ronnie Beck

kasper wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/premature-deaths-linked-to-poor-air-quality-1.1354032

don't think this could be true but its in the Irish times today

Exhaust fumes contribute to some ball park figure of deaths in Ireland, based on claims by some European environmental protection group. :eek:

post june 08 diesel tax band increase propaganda?

ironclaw

If your going to quote or scare monger, at least quote correctly.

3,400 Irish people die each year from poor air quality

Which is hardly groundbreaking or newsworthy in my opinion. Diesels are not the only or highest contributor to poor air quality. For instance, Ireland burned large amounts of turf in the previous 20 years, a fuel which is beyond useless in terms of efficiency and catastrophic in terms of pollutant output.

challengemaster

I reckon they've gotten a 2 year old as head of their logic department in an Taisce/Irish times.

Mongarra

I heard a figure of Euro 60 billion mentioned as the cost of the 3,400 deaths. I make this around €17 million per person. Now I know you could count loss of productivity, loss of earnings (and possibly there is an element of double counting there), medical/health/hospital expenses, and maybe other Government services costs, but I would love to know how each person could cost €17 million.

It has been known for many years that diesels caused cancer, lung disease and heart disease. It gets into your blood through your lungs and it effects cells.

There have been many cover ups over the years though to try and dismiss that fact. But then why was diesel banned in most U.S states ?

Diesel is completely unnecessary Everything can be converted (or made) to run on LPG a much more environmentally friendly fuel, but of course we are taxed based on C02 and Diesels emit less C02 but for human health and air quality diesel is the worst. What would the worlds vegetation do without Co2 ?

I presume that is one of the reasons they never made LPG cars is because of the higher Co2 ?

Don't get me started on coal the filthiest of the lot, and it's allowed to be burned in Irish homes all over this Island, and for someone who suffers with sinus, it's incredibly uncomfortable.

I have an air filter in my bedroom the one in the pic below,



It's actually shocking what this thing collects, and apart from normal dust, what it collects is pure black like soot and I can only guess it comes from solid fuel fires and diesel exhaust. Shocking.

The sensor has a filter to detect air pollution and if you fart, depending on how bad it is the thing lights up and goes nuts hahaha.

Leonard Hofstadter

aman23 wrote: »

I see a new diesel health tax in our future!!!

There should have been one from the very beginning of the introduction of the CO2 based emissions tax. Going on the old system, I would have given petrols a 2% discount (at all emissions rates), and diesels a 2% increase. I would also have changed the road tax system so that diesels pay more even when in the same CO2 band, like what is done in the UK. The bands should also be much tighter, something like the following would have been much more sustainable:

0-80 g/km - €300
81-90 g/km - €325
91-100 g/km: €350

and €25 increases as CO2 goes up by 10 g/km all the way up to 230 g/km, so anything in the 221-230 g/km bracket would be charged €675, anything above 230 g/km would be charged €700. Then because diesels are more polluting, they would have to pay a €50 surcharge on top of all rates.

This would have a number of advantages:
- it still encourages people to buy more environmentally friendly vehicles given the Irish obsession with saving 10 cent a day on motor tax
- it doesn't excessively penalise people who actually want to buy a nice car and don't want the poverty spec rubbish that most people buy here, which would make owning properly nice cars like an M3, Audi RS etc etc much more attractive, so more people would buy them, and give the Government more money
- it would also make tax revenues much more sustainable because even the cheapest rate under my scheme is at least €20 more expensive than any band A or band B rate at the moment (and a band B2 car under the existing scheme would be €450 under my proposed system for petrols and €500 for diesels so that's a lot more than €280 obviously), and something like 90% of new cars this year are in either band A or band B, and again result in more money for the Government
- it would massively narrow the gap between the rates most people under the old system are paying versus those on the new system, which would make pre-08 cars much more desirable relatively speaking, and this would result in owners of these cars getting more for their trade ins, which would encourage more new cars sales, which is more money for the Government
- it would limit the sales of diesels, so again more money for the Government in fuel revenue and would be better for all of our health. It would also be much better for the average motorist, who simply does not need a diesel to go 1 mile down the road to the shops and back

I would just phase diesels out all together.

Euro 6 Emissions regulations will be a lot tighter for diesels but they should be phased out.

I would rather see more hybrids, Electric and LPG.

Certainly the Renault Zoe and Leaf 2nd gen are more than good enough for most people. Certainly Zoe can benefit hugely from the charging infrastructure the ESB already have in place.

After having the Prius over 2 years and after driving diesels for over 350,000 miles, I can without doubt say I'll never go back to Diesel.

Leonard Hofstadter

Euro 6 will increase the cost of diesel so much that even with our taxation system, diesel will only make sense for many motorists if they are considering cars from the Mondeo/Avensis size and above. The likes of Qashqais, Jukes, Golfs, Aurises, Focuses, Fiestas etc will all be usefully cheaper on petrol. Plus the fact that several manufacturers now sell petrols that are in tax band A, so the tax difference between petrol and diesel on many brand new cars is only €20 or €30 a year, whereas in 2008 it was hundreds.

Euro 6 will only bring diesels up to Euro 4 petrol for Particulates and Nitrous Oxide, which are the emissions that predominantly affect human health. So, in 2014, diesel will only be where petrols had to be eight years prior to that. It should be pointed out that petrols do in general pollute more Carbon Monoxide (CO) than diesels, which is also dangerous to humans, but CO is not a cancer causing gas the way PM and NOx are.

Autosport

Diesel was the better option for me as I do alot of mileage and it costs me less to run the car than petrol and i had petrol cars before i changed over so i'm sticking with my diesel

kona

Who didn't know this!? It's one of the first things that comes up when you read up about diesel.

Plus they sound ****e.

Doublelime

Meh diesel is better than petrol because diesel engines never stop running.

ninty9er

Nox is the issue with diesel. Less if it is consumed per 100km on the open road (though around the same as petrol in traffic), however per litre it is more pollutant than petrol, so the need is not to increase motor tax, but the cost of a litre of diesel.

Cookie_Monster

Deleted User wrote: »

Certainly the Renault Zoe and Leaf 2nd gen are more than good enough for most people. Certainly Zoe can benefit hugely from the charging infrastructure the ESB already have in place.
.

and you don't think there is equally massive environmental impact from mining & refining all the required rare earth metals required for battery systems?

For heavy vehicles and locomotives diesel will remain the fuel of choice for the medium term, but there is plenty of scope to remove it as a financially viable alternative for cars.

dr.fuzzenstein

Utter Sh*te Talked In Newspaper!

Some new cause was discovered by our ethnic, gay, vegan, Birkenstock wearing Bloodhound for an emotive issue editor who will not hesitate in wasting column inches that otherwise would have been filled with other sorts of utter drivel on a slow newsday. (newseditor may also be a besuited, shrewd businessman who has about as much soul as he has care for anything besides money, zero.)
We think that 50 million billion deaths are caused by whatever it is we're writing about here and since that is evidence enough, we will also state that each death costs a gazillion Euros and releases 70 billion tons of CO2 and kills baby seals.
We will now insert a random stock picture into the article that further underlines the irrefutable nature of our wild assumptions.
Stern looking people in dungarees wearing sandals have expressed strong support for tax/ban/imprisonment of the issue, the product, the culprits and surely this should convince the government to immediately put everything else on hold and dedicate the resources of the entire state to whatever we're whining about.

It just translates as "We're on our period, someone is going to get handbagged and the government will be pathetically grateful that we have handed them another excuse to screw people for more money"
I have long since learnt that it's all just to screw people for every penny that they have and to survive, especially in the current climate, you have to lie, cheat, evade, and use every trick to stay afloat. Cause if you're honest and make the mistake to think this all done because someone cares for the people (bahahahahaaaaa!) you will get gutted like a kipper.

Solair

The only serious air pollution I've encountered in Ireland is from smokey fuels being burnt in homes.
It's still a major issue in a lot of medium sized towns where there is no smokey fuel ban.

I'd reckon that's probably more of an issue than diesel fumes as the fuel is being burnt in a totally uncontrolled, unscientific manner and there would be loads of partial / incomplete combustion, particulates possibly even dioxins and all sorts of gunk going up the chimney.

Tails142

Have you ever been behind a pajero or some other jeep when they put the boot down after being stuck in a bit of traffic, you'll be left behind in a big cloud of smoke, aka diesel particulates.

We all know that MPG figures for cars are a load of horsesh*t so why do we assume other figures such as particulate emissions are any more realistic to real world performance.

The governments push towards lower co2 emissions which has resulted in more diesel cars on the road has had the effect of increasing future lung cancer rates nationally as it is proven that diesel particulates are carcinogenic.

piston

Tails142 wrote: »

Have you ever been behind a pajero or some other jeep when they put the boot down after being stuck in a bit of traffic, you'll be left behind in a big cloud of smoke, aka diesel particulates.

We all know that MPG figures for cars are a load of horsesh*t so why do we assume other figures such as particulate emissions are any more realistic to real world performance.

The governments push towards lower co2 emissions which has resulted in more diesel cars on the road has had the effect of increasing future lung cancer rates nationally as it is proven that diesel particulates are carcinogenic.

Putting my cyclist's hat on, it is one of my pet hates when the driver of a diesel vehicle puts his boot down when overtaking and chokes me with a lung-full of sooty sh!te. It's all diesels, from old timer Pug 405/306 and 1.6D VWs to all the modern "clean" diesels, I see little or no difference.

Only happens with petrol cars if they are in chronic need of an engine rebuild.

Tails142

Tails142 wrote: »

Have you ever been behind a pajero or some other jeep when they put the boot down after being stuck in a bit of traffic, you'll be left behind in a big cloud of smoke, aka diesel particulates.

We all know that MPG figures for cars are a load of horsesh*t so why do we assume other figures such as particulate emissions are any more realistic to real world performance.

The governments push towards lower co2 emissions which has resulted in more diesel cars on the road has had the effect of increasing future lung cancer rates nationally as it is proven that diesel particulates are carcinogenic.

That's because the E.U got on the Man made Global warming band wagon. But it's okay to give us heart disease and Lung cancer instead.

Solair

Deleted User wrote: »

That's because the E.U got on the Man made Global warming band wagon. But it's okay to give us heart disease and Lung cancer instead.

Yeah, I agree the drive towards diesels has a lot of serious consequences in terms of air quality that were just forgotten about / ignored.

It's actually far worse in cities like Paris where you've huge populations and a much higher % of diesels than here.
The air quality in some of those cities has really badly reduced due to the change from petrol to diesel.

Tails142 wrote: »

Have you ever been behind a pajero or some other jeep when they put the boot down after being stuck in a bit of traffic, you'll be left behind in a big cloud of smoke, aka diesel particulates.

Incidentally, 'Pajero' has to be the worst name for a car ever! In Spanish (as spoken in Spain) it translates as a word that rhymes with banker and starts with a 'w'.

So, if you're ever driving one to Spain, expect to get pointed and laughed at! (They're not sold under that name in España)

Cookie_Monster

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

and you don't think there is equally massive environmental impact from mining & refining all the required rare earth metals required for battery systems?

For heavy vehicles and locomotives diesel will remain the fuel of choice for the medium term, but there is plenty of scope to remove it as a financially viable alternative for cars.

There is an environmental impact in the mining of minerals to make any car, not just electrics or their batteries.

Lithium car batteries can also be recycled and their minerals reused.

Even after their life in cars they still hold plenty of charge for several years as storage for renewable energy.

Trains can be electrified, I don't see why our tiny rail network can't be electrified and use some of our wind energy. And trains use the filthiest of Diesel and ships also use the filthiest of fuel.

Trucks can run on LPG.

kneemos

Piece on the radio yesterday about it apparently Dublin has the cleanest air quality of any capital in Europe and the the figures relate to air quality diesel being a factor amongst many coal being a major factor in Ireland.The newspaper article is completely misleading as diesel doesn't cause 3400 deaths a year,air quality they "estimate"may hasten the deaths of those with serious heart or respirtory conditions.

Solair

Deleted User wrote: »

There is an environmental impact in the mining of minerals to make any car, not just electrics or their batteries.

Lithium car batteries can also be recycled and their minerals reused.

Even after their life in cars they still hold plenty of charge for several years as storage for renewable energy.

Trains can be electrified, I don't see why our tiny rail network can't be electrified and use some of our wind energy. And trains use the filthiest of Diesel and ships also use the filthiest of fuel.

Trucks can run on LPG.

Train diesel's probably clean enough, the modern ones have small engines under each coach (several in some cases) that aren't a whole lot different to a car or a truck.

The new intercity trains also have pretty serious amounts of particulate filtering and exceed standards on that.

Ships definitely use different grades of diesel though.

In an Irish context, the biggest risk is probably badly maintained cars. We don't really have all that many trains and the ones we do have a extremely new compared to most countries (the whole fleet was replaced) but we do make a LOT of car journeys.

Solair

Solair wrote: »

Yeah, I agree the drive towards diesels has a lot of serious consequences in terms of air quality that were just forgotten about / ignored.

It's actually far worse in cities like Paris where you've huge populations and a much higher % of diesels than here.
The air quality in some of those cities has really badly reduced due to the change from petrol to diesel.

Yes I did read on a U.S forum where they were shocked with the air quality in Paris and in European cities in general.

The E.U has failed to rid cities of these toxic emissions.

The E.U NEDC test of cars is also flawed because it's seriously out dated and if you look up the tests you will know what I'm talking about but basically the test in no way reflects normal driving and it even makes cars slowly accelerate to 100 kph in 14 seconds or so, complete BS as it uses a tiny part of the cars HP.

Cars claimed emissions are seriously wrong and our air quality and health is suffering because of it.

Cars should be tested on the open road driving normally using the full HP of the vehicle and then those results published and I bet they would be twice or more higher.

Solair

The only substantial difference between the US and the EU on this would be that the EU has driven people towards diesel cars. They're not all that common or popular in the USA as there's really no financial incentive to use them where as there's a big one in Europe.

Europe was also extremely slow to remove leaded petrol compared to the USA. I don't understand why we delayed for so long, there was no reason to other than powerful lobbyists clearly got their way over here more so than in the US.

ironclaw

Even after their life in cars they still hold plenty of charge for several years as storage for renewable energy.

Current battery tech at present are unusable for such storage. Yes they can hold a charge, but they cannot supply high current for long periods of time, something that is critical for use in power applications. Efficency is also a concern. Powering a car is a far cry from powering a truck, bus or city.

Solair

Solair wrote: »

Train diesel's probably clean enough, the modern ones have small engines under each coach (several in some cases) that aren't a whole lot different to a car or a truck.

The new intercity trains also have pretty serious amounts of particulate filtering and exceed standards on that.

Ships definitely use different grades of diesel though.

In an Irish context, the biggest risk is probably badly maintained cars. We don't really have all that many trains and the ones we do have a extremely new compared to most countries (the whole fleet was replaced) but we do make a LOT of car journeys.

While I'll agree that passenger trains are a lot cleaner freight trains are not, the older ones that is. But cleaner doesn't mean good, any diesel is not good. Just because you can't see the smoke means nothing. While cleaner is always good, it isn't nearly good enough.

Has anyone ever seen an older train cold starting ? :eek:

In an Irish context any diesel vehicle is very bad as it's not just the particle matter that's the problem, the worst of it no filter can absorb.

Ozone is also never mentioned here as a result of diesel exhaust but the problem with Ozone is that It can be generated thousands of miles away and end up effecting us here.

Solair

Deleted User wrote: »

While I'll agree that passenger trains are a lot cleaner freight trains are not, the older ones that is. But cleaner doesn't mean good, any diesel is not good. Just because you can't see the smoke means nothing. While cleaner is always good, it isn't nearly good enough.

Has anyone ever seen an older train cold starting ? :eek:

In an Irish context any diesel vehicle is very bad as it's not just the particle matter that's the problem, the worst of it no filter can absorb.

Ozone is also never mentioned here as a result of diesel exhaust but the problem with Ozone is that It can be generated thousands of miles away and end up effecting us here.

Yeah, I've had the misfortune of being in a train station in London when the old high-speed diesel intercity trains start up. You'd nearly think there was an old steam train in the station. Smoke everywhere, to the point I started coughing!
A lot of the UK's high speed trains are approaching 40 years old (even if they've had a bit of a refurbishment) but the smoke from them is unbelievably bad in a lot of cases. Really never seen anything like it in Ireland or elsewhere.

Irish stations have nothing on the London ones when it comes to diesel pollution!

ironclaw

ironclaw wrote: »

Current battery tech at present are unusable for such storage. Yes they can hold a charge, but they cannot supply high current for long periods of time, something that is critical for use in power applications. Efficency is also a concern. Powering a car is a far cry from powering a truck, bus or city.

Wrong, Absolutely wrong.

A car battery on it's own for instance is more than capable of powering a home. And Nissan successfully proved that after the earth quake and are now looking into this so that you can store or sell your renewable energy to the grid or use it in the event of a power failure.

For instance my house consumes on average 6 kw/hrs per day and if at the end of, say, a Nissan leaf's battery life it holds 10 k/hrs or roughly half, that can still provide me with 1.6 days of energy.

If I need more I would parallel another pack.

So on it's own a pack might not be good for a power grid, they will use hundreds or thousands paralleled together.

A Truck or bus for now can be powered by LPG, City buses can be powered by electricity and this has been demonstrated in some countries ( I'll see if I can find the article ) at every stop it super charges off over head lines something similar to a tram, so I see no reason that can't be done in Ireland. Might get some of those filthy Dublin buses off the road !

Even better found a video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3rg-SsPJuU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xohNl7iB2o

ironclaw

Deleted User wrote: »

Wrong, Absolutely wrong.

A car battery on it's own for instance is more than capable of powering a home. And Nissan successfully proved that after the earth quake and are now looking into this so that you can store or sell your renewable energy to the grid or use it in the event of a power failure.

For instance my house consumes on average 6 kw/hrs per day and if at the end of, say, a Nissan leaf's battery life it holds 10 k/hrs or roughly half, that can still provide me with 1.6 days of energy.

If I need more I would parallel another pack.

So let me ask you, why arn't there battery packs on the Irish grid? The simple reason is the cost and the technical performance. Its not economical to use them for power storage nor can they provide the current applicable.

Run an electric shower, boil the kettle a few times, flick on the immersion and come back to tell me your getting 1.6 days out of your battery. The most recent spec I could find was the Nissan Leaf has a 77 Amp/Hour battery. That's almost laughable from an electrical eng. standpoint. If you began pulling even 30 amps from them at a constant rate, you'd generate a shed load of heat, something batteries hate.

They are great for cars but are not a solution to storing renewable's at present.

Dartz

What doesn't cause premature death?

I mean seriously.

Everything's killing people slowly. And yet somehow people are living longer than they ever did.

Bull****.

ironclaw

ironclaw wrote: »

So let me ask you, why arn't there battery packs on the Irish grid? The simple reason is the cost and the technical performance. Its not economical to use them for power storage nor can they provide the current applicable.

The reason they are not on the Irish grid is because there are no batteries available yet and unlikely for up to 10 years because that's how long it will take for the current leaf, Fluence, I-mev etc batteries do become unusable on average, and there are few of them about, so it will take time.

The ESB are looking into this.

ironclaw wrote: »

Run an electric shower, boil the kettle a few times, flick on the immersion and come back to tell me your getting 1.6 days out of your battery. The most recent spec I could find was the Nissan Leaf has a 77 Amp/Hour battery. That's almost laughable from an electrical eng. standpoint. If you began pulling even 30 amps from them at a constant rate, you'd generate a shed load of heat, something batteries hate.

They are great for cars but are not a solution to storing renewable's at present.

Amp hours matter to some degree but it's the kw/hrs that is more important, that determines the amount of power you have in storage.

You see the battery would be used in conjunction with the mains power so even if you turn on everything at once and if the battery can't take it then it will draw power from the mains.

To be honest though most homes will just connect their renewable energy straight to the grid and use the ESB as a Giant cheap battery as is done now and the ESB would really only use batteries.

But to get back to what you say about turning on all appliances, shower etc,

You could have a battery capacity of 77 ah and a voltage of 340 volts or so such as the Leaf, that gives you 26,180 kw/hrs of storage. So for instance my home uses an average of 6 kw/hrs per day, that's 3.3 days use.

You got the electric shower on ? a 9 kw shower uses 37 amps, oven on and 2 rings of the hob ? = 25 amps throw in the toaster is you want. That won't even stress the battery.

The Motor in the Leaf is 80,000 Watts and so the battery is capable of providing that power for acceleration, over taking or mountain climbing.

So even the Leaf's battery would have a far easier life in your house so good are batteries these days !

I don't know any home that will use 80,000 watts of electricity in one go.

Dartz

Dartz wrote: »

What doesn't cause premature death?

I mean seriously.

Everything's killing people slowly. And yet somehow people are living longer than they ever did.

Bull****.

Who says they are living longer ?

1,708 people died in 2010 in Ireland with lung cancer, is this acceptable to you ?

And it's not all down to smoking !!!

Some lucky few are living longer but cancer in Ireland is rampant.

Dartz

Deleted User wrote: »

Who says they are living longer ?

1,708 people died in 2010 in Ireland with lung cancer, is this acceptable to you ?

And it's not all down to smoking !!!

Some lucky few are living longer but cancer in Ireland is rampant.

And ultimately there're so many factors governing cancer and so many environmental factors that may have a carcinogenic effect.... and so many of them that might be important to survival on monthly scales as opposed to in fifty years time.

Radon also causes lung cancer
Radon is rampant.

Pay a scientist enough and he'll find a way to suggest excessive flatulance causes cancer. That's the magic of statistics.

Never mind that the article image is of condensation from the exhaust and consists of little more than water vapour rather than 'fumes'.

Dartz

Dartz wrote: »

And ultimately there're so many factors governing cancer and so many environmental factors that may have a carcinogenic effect.... and so many of them that might be important to survival on monthly scales as opposed to in fifty years time.

Radon also causes lung cancer
Radon is rampant.

Pay a scientist enough and he'll find a way to suggest excessive flatulance causes cancer. That's the magic of statistics.

Never mind that the article image is of condensation from the exhaust and consists of little more than water vapour rather than 'fumes'.

I suppose you never say the black smoke ? that's harmless I suppose.

So what are you saying ? All reports scientists publish are untrue or corrupt ?

Should we just allow things continue as they are and to hell with it ?

Yes there are so many contributing factors to cancer, so we should ignore them because there are so many ?

So you think diesel exhaust is actually not that bad and don't worry about it ?

Radon is a good example but you can do something about it most of the time.

mitosis

Contribute and caused are not the same.

mitosis

mitosis wrote: »

Contribute and caused are not the same.

Diesel exhaust causes cancer, despite what people want to believe.

Dartz

So what?

Ban all Diesel vehicles?

Dartz

Dartz wrote: »

So what?

Ban all Diesel vehicles?

Exactly !!!!!

Solair

Dartz wrote: »

So what?

Ban all Diesel vehicles?

Perhaps the solution in the short to medium term is more likely to be the production of more efficient petrol engines?

A lot of people don't like diesel cars, even refuelling them can be a bit messy and most of them (apart from some very recent developments) tend to be a little more tractor-like to drive.

I borrowed a diesel Volvo recently (relatively new) and it was not nice to drive relative to petrol and had a ridiculously powerful turbo-kick in at about 60km/h which was pretty disconcerting as you feel the power jolt.

I honestly think if manufacturers offered petrol cars that were meeting the A-rating criteria and fuel efficiency levels they'd sell like hot cakes compared to a diesel counterpart such is the bias away from diesel.

People are buying diesel because of the economics, not because they love the technology.

LPG is IMO a better alternative than even petrol.

Electric even better if I had the cash.

There are alternatives to Diesel. But Euro manufacturers aren't bothered because Co2 is all that matters, well mostly to them anyway so they are not going to make anything but the lowest Co2 vehicles.