"Today's diesel trucks and buses are so clean it would take 60 of today's models to have the same soot emissions as one 1988 model," remarked Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum. But how many people know that?
In an effort to highlight the benefits of today's diesel technology, the Coordinating Research Council, in cooperation with the Health Effects Institute, has released a report from phase one of the Advanced Collaborative Emissions Study. The ACES is a multi-party five-year study intended to test the emissions and health effects of new diesel technology. The study found that emissions had been reduced by more than 90 percent compared to diesel technology from 2004, and the reductions "exceeded substantially even those levels required by law."
Schaeffer attributes the near-zero levels of emissions to improving clean diesel technology, cleaner low-sulfur diesel fuel, and increasingly advanced engine technologies and emissions control systems. With the 2010 emissions regulations right around the corner, he is looking for new 2010 engines to reduce nitrogen-oxide emissions by another 50 percent.
The ACES was limited to highway diesel engines, but non-road diesel engines and equipment are expected to follow suit in the area of emissions standards over the next five years. The project was sponsored by the Coordinating Research Council and Health Effects Institute, with funding provided by the American Petroleum Institute, ArvinMeritor, CARB, Corning, the Department of Energy, the Engine Manufacturers Association, and the EPA. Testing was performed by the Southwest Research Institute and the Desert Research Institute.