Bonjour, Chapitre de Boston!

This June I was in France, Italy, and Switzerland for a few weeks, and I can say that the European driving culture is quite different from ours. To start, cars are about half the size of the typical American car, and even much smaller than most imports you see around here. Roads are narrower, but people treated anything except for a completely blind curve as a passing zone, whether in the country or in the city. In Italy, hordes of underpowered motor scooters zoomed around like maniacs, squeezing every last ounce of performance out of their little engines and skinny tires. They seemed to treat every road trip as a race, zipping in and out of traffic like you wouldn't believe.

As a pedestrian, crossing the street in France and Italy was very interesting. Waiting at a crosswalk for the cars to stop just doesn't happen. The technique is to simply step out into the road at the slightest break in traffic and keep walking. The cars all come to a halt at the last moment, let you pass, and then go zooming off. All this without screeching tires and blaring horns - it's just part of the culture.

Indeed, even though most of the drivers are fairly aggressive (or shall we say, "efficient") in general I did not hear the honking of horns, cursing, and raised middle finger that you will see in the Boston Area. At the same time, I was careful not to step out in front of cars that looked non-local (like that black Mercedes bearing down on me), as they might not be "familiar" with the culture!

Diesel was about 30% cheaper than gasoline, so the majority of the cars on the road were diesels. Most of these were small displacement, and many of them were turbocharged. While I didn't see a lot of BMWs, I did see European models such as the 324td, 520d, and 720d. That's right, a 2 liter diesel in a 7 Series!

We were driving a 2000 Renault Laguna 2.2 DT, which was very nice. For a four door touring car the suspension was quite stiff, the handling very good, and the G8T turbodiesel engine provided decent power. I was with my folks, and the car was so stable that they didn't even complain when I was piloting them along at 160 kph (100 mph) on the Autostrada. Enjoyably, one American "feature" that was refreshingly absent were the traffic revenue police. In 4 weeks of driving at speed on all sorts of roads, I did not see a single traffic police officer, any cars stopped for speeding, or any accidents.

Diesel vs. Gasoline

A club member recently asked me about the use of diesel as an alternative to gasoline, both in terms of price and environmental effects. I didn't know the answer off the bat, so I did a little bit of research. In terms of greenhouse gases, diesel emits more carbon dioxide when combusted (21.6 lb. CO2 per gallon) than gasoline (19.7 lb. CO2 per gallon) on a strictly per-gallon basis (Union of Concerned Scientists, 1991). However, according to the Environment Transport Association (UK), diesel cars have a fuel efficiency which is commonly around 30% better than gasoline powered cars, and thus emit somewhat less CO2 per mile traveled. Diesel engines are currently the most efficient power plant among all types of internal combustion engines.

The environmental benefits of diesels, such as low greenhouse gas emissions, are balanced by growing health and environmental concerns. The sulfur content of diesel is much higher than gasoline, which can lead to acid deposition in soils and waterways via sulfur oxides (SOx). Diesel emissions of unburned carbon particles or PM10s (soot) are carcinogenic. These small particles can travel deeply into the lungs where they become lodged. Finally, diesel cars emit more volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and more nitrogen oxides (NOx) than gasoline cars, both of which contribute to "ozone smog", which can exacerbate breathing and other health problems. This is not to say that diesel is necessarily better or wore than gasoline as an automotive fuel, but that many factors need to be taken into account when comparing the impacts of these fossil fuels. (Data sources: Union of Concerned Scientists,  Environment Transport Association, Dieselnet)

Diesel powered generators are also used to generate electricity, often in remote locations where it is uneconomic or geographically infeasible to tie into an electric power grid. Of the four fossil fuels commonly used for electrical power generation (natural gas, fuel oil, coal, and diesel fuel), diesel emits the most CO2, and therefore has the highest impact on climate change on a per-unit basis. As a data point, estimated CO2 emissions of World Bank-financed power plants over 20 years of full capacity operations for each of these fuels are, in metric tons of CO2 per megawatt generated:

Diesel: 174,061

Coal: 159,968

Oil: 135,118

Natural gas: 79,484

These data show that diesel-powered plants emit almost 2.2 times the CO2 of natural gas powered plants on a unit basis. Coal, which is used as the fuel for many baseload power plants around the world, emits twice the CO2 of natural gas for these power plants. Natural gas is thus often referred to as a "clean" fossil fuel, and will certainly play an increasing role in the US and world energy economy for the foreseeable future. (Data source: The World Bank and the G-7: Changing the Earth's Climate for Business 1997-98, Appendix B: Emissions estimates methodology)

As always, if you have a comments or suggestions about the Boston Chapter or its activities, please do not hesitate to contact me or any of the staff members. I can be reached evenings at (781) 979-5686, or by e-mail at fbeck@boston-bmwcca.org.

September 2000 Bimmer

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