Phila. Inquirer: Diesel Is Going Greener, Cleaner And Less Smelly
A New Formulation Could Reduce Pollution More Than 90%
By Sandy Bauers
Diesel - the pairing of cheap fuel and reliable engines that belched black pollutants skyward over a century's growth in the transportation industry - is turning greener.
A cleaner fuel, mandated to be in wide use by Sunday, has paved the way for the 2007 debut of new engines with vastly better emission controls.
The result is "the single greatest achievement in clean fuel since lead was removed from gasoline more than 25 years ago," Stephen L. Johnson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said in a teleconference yesterday.
Scientists project that over the next quarter-century, the amount of particulates, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants spewed into the atmosphere by trucks and buses will be reduced by more than 90 percent.
The linchpin is fuel from which 97 percent of the sulfur has been removed. It burns cleaner, allowing a 12 percent reduction in emissions even in old engines.
The EPA's phase-in mandated that the "ultra-low sulfur" fuel account for 80 percent of highway diesel sold by Sunday.
Critics predicted that the huge logistical changes required for refineries and fuel transport systems could not be completed in time to meet the deadline. In fact, deliveries began over the summer and the new formulation now makes up about 90 percent of highway diesel sold nationwide, the EPA said.
But the biggest benefit of the low-sulfur fuel is that it allows for new technology that traps and filters pollutants before they exhaust.
That is a mega-shift for refrigerator engineer Rudolf Diesel's 1892 invention, which proved that fuel could be ignited without a spark. A diesel has pistons and cylinders much like a gasoline engine, but no spark plugs. Diesel fuel ignites when the air-and-fuel mixture is compressed, raising the temperature.
Diesels are so fuel-efficient, powerful and durable that diesel trucks, trains, boats and barges move 94 percent of the nation's consumer goods today, according to the Diesel Technology Forum, an industry trade group. Diesel buses transport 14 million people to their jobs and untold millions of children to their schools.
In May, early models of the 2007 trucks rolled into Washington. While workers gave the exhaust pipes a white-handkerchief test, EPA administrator Johnson spoke of the "economic workhorse expanding into an environmental workhorse."
"It was an opportunity to get together some real unusual bedfellows," Kassel recalled.
Jim Winsor, executive editor of Heavy Duty Trucking magazine, refers to the improved engines as "a quantum leap forward."
The fuel will cost more, too, although how much is uncertain. Any increases could ripple out to many goods and services.
The EPA has estimated an increase of between 4 percent and 5 percent, which it says will be offset by lower maintenance costs and increased engine life.
Krapf Bus Cos. of Exton has been using the new fuel in its 1,000 suburban school buses since August. Fuel so far has cost about 10 percent more, and equipment costs are likely to rise 10 percent as well, board chairman Dale Krapf said.
"It's a cost that's affordable because it's an improvement to our quality of life," Krapf said.
Encouraged by government grants, the company has begun voluntarily installing new emissions equipment possible only with the ultra-low sulfur fuel on some buses bought since 2000. Similar grants are being awarded to school districts and municipalities to do likewise.
After the phase-in for trucks and buses, officials will next focus on non-road diesel: construction equipment, ships and trains.
Since diesel is 25 to 40 percent more efficient than comparable gasoline-powered engines, clean diesel "allows us to get the type of passenger vehicle that people will buy and drive," said EPA spokesman John Millett.
Article available at: www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/health/15727522.htm
Print This
