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Iodine129 t1_iur7tlx wrote

The article is not about pre-heating the car with its own engine before starting driving. That is allowed for two minutes in Finland, likely based on some EU regulation. The article is about small aftermarket heaters that use gasoline or diesel to heat an engine like an electric block heater heats the engine. Those are well abundant in the Nordics especially in diesel-fueled vehicles.

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projecthouse t1_iusi6wj wrote

Thanks for the clarification.

I was wondering how idling your engine for 30 minutes produced as much carbon as DRIVING for 90 minutes.

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Rhenic t1_iuty56f wrote

Even to that sounds counterintuitive, it's not impossible!

First off; It's about particulate emissions, not carbon. Incomplete/inefficient combustion produces much more particulate (think of a fire smoking badly when it's not getting enough oxygen, the smoke consists of particulate).

Engines tend to produce much more particulate as well when not running without a proper load, at an efficient RPM, just like a badly burning fire.

Then the devices that are tasked with catching and nullifying that particulate (like the catalytic converter), can also potentially rely on sufficient pressure (and thus RPM/load), to function properly.

And then to finish that; A modern car uses about 0.5l/hour to idle. A modern diesel would use about 0.75l to 1.0l of fuel to drive 20km (which would take 15 minutes at 80km/h, against the 30 minutes of idling).

So with about 50% to 100% more fuel used, but burned much less efficiently (because no load, inefficient RPM, no turbo pressure); It's not at all unlikely for a car to emit more particulate emissions in 30minutes of idling, than in 15 minutes of driving at an efficient speed.

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-YELDAH t1_iuv874w wrote

This wasn't an essay but ok

You basically proved more = more

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FingerTheCat t1_iusah71 wrote

Two minutes of preheating your car before it's illegal? So idling is illegal?

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403Verboten t1_iusf5x5 wrote

Yes in a lot of places. It's illegal for trucks to idle in NYC and Europe has regulations around idling. This of course does not apply to sitting at a traffic light although they are making auto start/stop mandatory in newer cars at some point I believe.

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[deleted] t1_iusv23c wrote

[removed]

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Rainstorme t1_iuszfj9 wrote

Considering we're talking about a study analyzing an entire market that has sprung up from the law, I'd say the people subject to it consider it a bit more enforceable than you do.

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bboibrandon t1_iut8sd0 wrote

I'm sensing major authoritarian vibes from you , and people like you

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perec1111 t1_iutrtiq wrote

It’s ok. People are often afraid when they see something new.

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bboibrandon t1_ivwlvjp wrote

I don't expect redditors to understand anything anymore

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403Verboten t1_iutcz82 wrote

If you mean the NYC law it's super enforcable. If you see a truck idling in NYC and record evidence of it and it gets ticketed, you share in a percentage of the ticket revenue. So it get regularly enforced. I don't agree with having people rat on each other but money is a very powerful motivator.

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Act-Math-Prof t1_iuug09i wrote

I lived in an apartment in the downtown of a small town. Semis used to idle outside my building for 1/2 hour while waiting to unload stuff for the stores on the first floor. The fumes and the noise were terrible. If it were illegal, I definitely would have turned them in, even if there was no cash involved.

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