You're absolutely right Buddy, and it's worse'n that.
Nitrous oxides are not something magically formed by the Diesel cycle. NOx emissions come from high combustion temperatures. What do high combustion temperatures in a heat engine imply? High thermal efficiency. Diesel engines make a lot of nitrous oxide because they burn hotter and therefore use the energy more efficiently … burning more efficiently means that they produce far fewer amounts of other pollutants, such as greenhouse gasses. Go figure, an engine that's using 25 percent fuel is probably producing 25 percent less carbon dioxide.
High temperature equating high efficiency isn't something you can abracadabra away --- even Harry Schoell kept bragging about the high temperatures his engines would operate at in order to have revolutionary efficiency. Of course, he had no engineering skills, so he couldn't make it work --- but you don't have to be an engineering genius to quote something that almost everyone knows.
So, does this mean we let diesels get away with producing large amounts of NOx because they are so efficient and actually produce fewer amounts of other pollutants? Of course not! That's where DEF, Diesel Exhaust Fluid comes in. DEF contains urea which mixes with NOx before entering the catalytic converter. A few chemical reactions occur in sequence but the output is largely nitrogen (the largest natural component in the atmosphere), water vapor (which is also always naturally present in the atmosphere) and a relatively smaller amount of carbon dioxide.
So, my question is this:
"If Cyclone is bragging about low NOx production, are they admitting that Harry has been lying about the efficiency for many years?"
