Engines of change  

The Guardian notes that "As the price of oil continues to rise, low-emission diesel cars are being seen as a cheaper, greener alternative, and demand is soaring". Ever one to find a dark cloud for any silver lining, John Vidal warns there are fears that the fuel's health dangers are being ignored.

Breathe deep outside Ford's new engine plant at Dagenham in east London and you are likely to choke on a mix of pollutants. Minute flecks of soot and ash from the clogged traffic on the nearby A13 get up your nose and down into your lungs; acrid whiffs of burning sulphur and nitrogen drift in from ships on the Thames and planes flying into City airport; and nearby sewage works and power stations all pitch in to make a foul atmospheric soup. Postcode RM9 6SA stinks.

But it is another world inside the factory. While Ford Dagenham makes Jeremy Clarkson-approved, gas-guzzling, V8 turbo-powered petrol engines for Land Rover and Jaguar cars in the traditional dirty way, a separate area of the factory, about the size of six football pitches, is quite spotless. Here, breathing only filtered air, 500 people wearing gloves, masks and special shoes turn out vast numbers of low-emission car engines for all Europe. "It's like a hospital, but without the MRSA," says one of the men on the factory floor. "We don't even have to start the engines. We simulate running them without any fuel."

Jim Austen, a test engineer, says: "In the old days, you used not to be able to see from one end of the line to the other for the fumes and dirt and the chimneys. It was very noisy, and you went home stinking of diesel. It's good to be on the side of the environment. It makes what you are working for more meaningful."

Europe's cleanest, and one of its largest, diesel engine factory can barely keep up with new orders. Ford, which sells one in six of all the vehicles in Britain, last year built 150,000 low-emission diesel engines for the European market. This year, it will be over 450,000, and in 2009 it expects to ship 575,000 of these sub-130 gram per kilometre (g/km) engines out of Dagenham to assembly works in Spain and Germany. Nearly one in four of the engines will come back to Britain as Ford Fiestas, Fusions and Focuses. Some already do 65 miles per gallon (mpg), but later this year there will be models that return 70-plus mpg. All will qualify for London's new low-emission zone, and an attractive government tax break.

The shift to diesel is a direct response by the car makers to climate change concerns, but especially to oil prices, which last week again set new records. "We are being overwhelmed by demand," says Oliver Rowe, communications officer for Ford Britain. "Sales [of 'green' cars] rose 33% last year and we expect the trend to accelerate. A major change is taking place in Europe, away from bigger engine petrol cars to smaller diesel cars. It's being driven by high energy prices, and budget changes in favour of small engines.

"The EU is driving manufacturers to get under 130g/km CO2 emissions. Competition from other companies and public demand all are making us improve fuel consumption and lower [carbon] emissions. People are downsizing. Small cars means small engines means small emissions. I cannot see it changing. It's a real race to get small."

War on traffic

Britain is leading the global rush to diesel, Rowe says, partly because it has always lagged behind Europe and is now catching up, and partly because Ken Livingstone, London's ex-mayor, waged a long war on traffic and emissions with the world's first congestion charge and now a low-emission zone. The westward extension to the London congestion charge and planned changes to penalise gas guzzlers will almost certainly be scrapped under new mayor Boris Johnson, but the soaring fuel price rises alone are expected to drive demand for small cars and diesels that can achieve 20% more miles to the gallon in particular.

"Diesel is getting as good as hybrids," says Rowe, who promises that later this year Ford Dagenham will start building one of Europe's "cleanest" mass produced engines, which will produce CO2 emissions of less than 100g/km and do more than 70 mpg. By comparison, the Toyota Prius, widely billed as the world's greenest mass production car, switching from electric to petrol, clocks around 105g/km of CO2. The Smart car, with limited production runs, is lower at 90g and the average of cars in the UK is 164g.

Britain expects diesel emissions to grow by about 50% between 2002 and 2020, but the relentless drive away from petrol has one major downside, overlooked by the government, ignored by many environment groups and barely known by the public. A written answer last year by then transport minister Stephen Ladyman showed that diesel engines for passenger cars produce 16.9 times more particulate matter and over 83% more nitrogen oxides than the petrol equivalents, albeit with 4.3% less carbon dioxide.

Indeed, the rise of diesel engines is the principal reason why London and possibly other UK cities have breached legal air quality legislation every year since 2005. Air pollution near many of London's busiest roads averages well over twice the World Health Organisation's maximum recommended levels.

Concern centres on particulate pollution - the tiny specks of dust, ash or soot spewed out by vehicles, homes and industry. ...