Calf. Changes view on diesel - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

richard u · #1 10-24-2002, 10:57 AM

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1035412833468232231,00.html?mod=home%5Fpage%5Fone%5Fus

a bit of story....

Clean-Air Czar of California
Shifts to Accept Diesel Engines

In Controversial Turn-Around, Regulator Sees
Diesel as Alternative in Global-Warming Fight
By JEFFREY BALL
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

For years, Alan Lloyd has regarded diesel as a dirty word, synonymous with brown haze and cancer-causing black soot. It's a view he has shared with environmental activists across the U.S.

But in a striking change of heart that could alter the kinds of cars and trucks Americans drive, the chairman of the powerful California Air Resources Board is taking a new look at diesel vehicles. He thinks they're poised to emerge as part of the solution to a different environmental problem that's gaining more attention in the U.S.: global warming.

Coming from the head of California's famously pugnacious clean-air agency, that amounts to environmental apostasy. In the decades following World War II, California was a main instigator of the world's fight against smog, and it has waged that battle aggressively ever since. CARB's mandates for pollution cuts in everything from gas cans to lawnmowers to 18-wheelers have been celebrated by environmentalists, criticized by industry and mimicked by national governments from Washington to Europe.

Nowhere has CARB been more aggressive than in its campaign to clean up automobiles -- a priority that reflects California's position as the nation's biggest single auto market, accounting for 12% of U.S. sales. Over the years, CARB's edicts have often shaped Environmental Protection Agency policy and thus the way Detroit designs cars.

But now, Dr. Lloyd is being forced to address the issue of global warming, and here, diesel engines are the greener option because they don't pump out as much so-called greenhouse gas as gasoline engines do. Diesels still aren't as clean as their gasoline-powered cousins in terms of smog pollutants. But Dr. Lloyd says he has concluded that a new generation of high-tech diesels developed for Europe bear little resemblance to the smoke-spewers that Americans remember from the 1970s and 1980s. He says he thinks it's possible that within five years -- tomorrow in the world of cars and trucks -- the auto industry will have bridged that gap.

"Ten years ago, I wouldn't have believed what I'm telling you now," says Dr. Lloyd, who in the past several weeks has begun a series of closed-door meetings with auto-industry officials to discuss several clean-car technologies. "However, we have confidence that, given past history, the auto industry will rise to the challenge, and we will have light-duty diesel in the U.S. and California."

Dr. Lloyd isn't the only environmental official reassessing diesel. Earlier this year, the EPA tested a new version of a diesel car from Toyota Motor Corp. that's under development for future sale in Europe. The agency concluded that the car already meets a round of tough new antismog standards that are set to phase in between 2004 and 2007 in the U.S. EPA officials are scheduled to explain those test results Thursday at an auto-industry conference in San Diego. And they expect to test more diesel cars, as well as sport-utility vehicles, from other manufacturers before the end of the year.

"Clean diesel sounds like an oxymoron," says Margo Oge, director of the EPA's office of transportation and air quality. "It's not."

Not everyone is so optimistic that the technology to make diesel engines as clean as gasoline engines will fall into place. No one knows, for instance, whether the Toyota tested by the EPA will stay clean enough as it ages to comply with the new antismog rules. But the progress in diesel engines is setting the stage for yet another fight in California between green activists and auto makers. And this time, caught in a shift in the environmental movement's priorities, CARB finds itself in the uncomfortable spot of having to negotiate with the auto industry it has long ordered around.

That's because a new California law requires that the agency now address automobiles' effects on global warming, not just on smog. The means of fighting these two very different environmental enemies aren't always compatible.

Smog is the foe CARB was founded to fight, and diesel engines produce more smog-causing pollutants than gasoline engines do, which is why diesel has been anathema to U.S. environmentalists.

But there's another environmental concern on the horizon. Carbon dioxide, called a greenhouse gas because of mounting evidence that it contributes to increases in the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere, is produced when any fossil fuel burns. Limiting carbon-dioxide emissions requires burning less fuel. And diesel engines require less fuel to produce a given amount of energy than gasoline engines do.

Growing Pressure

Detroit's Big Three and their European and Japanese rivals face growing pressure to make their vehicles more fuel-efficient to reduce dependence on Middle East oil and help slow global warming. Though the U.S. has said it won't ratify the Kyoto treaty to curb global warming, the specter of the California automotive greenhouse-gas law -- the first in the nation -- and the likelihood of tougher federal fuel-economy standards have the auto industry scrambling to make its vehicles more efficient. As "light trucks," a category that includes SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans, have soared in popularity in the U.S., they've dragged down the average fuel economy of the fleet to the lowest level in two decades.

The industry argues that esoteric technologies such as battery-powered vehicles are impractical and won't sell. With increasing frustration and urgency, auto makers are making the pitch to American regulators that a smarter response to the country's fuel-consumption problem can be found in the success of diesels across the Atlantic.

In Europe, tax policies have favored diesels for decades as part of a broader push for energy efficiency. By the time Europe began regulating smog-causing auto emissions about 30 years ago, diesel was entrenched, so the Continent wrote its rules to prod the industry to clean up the technology -- not outlaw it. Today's diesel vehicles in Europe are cleaner and quieter than their predecessors, though still not as clean and quiet as gasoline models. They're also often more fun to drive. Diesel power now commands about one-third of Western Europe's new passenger-car market, and most industry analysts expect that share to grow.

In the U.S., where gasoline is relatively cheap, diesels never caught on, except in commercial vehicles. Today, diesel accounts for less than 1% of U.S. car sales.

But that could change as pressure mounts on Dr. Lloyd and other environmental regulators to go after greenhouse gases. In 1998, the year before Dr. Lloyd joined CARB's board, the agency approved the new antismog regulations that are set to take full effect by 2007, tailoring those rules to try to keep out dirty diesels. A year later, in 1999, the EPA followed suit with similar regulations for the rest of the country

rickg · #2 10-24-2002, 12:32 PM

Can't get there. Needs a password.

#3 10-24-2002, 01:38 PM

Interesting article. Thank you for posting it. It appears the Europeans are taking the lead all the way around in the push to move ahead with diesel technology. As I recall when the GM version of the ill fated Olds Rocket 350 warmed over diesel conversion came on the scene, a lot of people thought they were in fact very much superior to a gas powered car. Unfortunately the failures there undid the early enthusiasm for anything diesel powered. Maybe the new TDI diesels will make a strong comeback in this country. Hope so. Our rides are all getting older.

Alec · #4 10-24-2002, 04:30 PM

here is a site with some more info and no password req'd...includes press release that in the foundation of the WSJ article.

http://www.dieselforum.org/

good stuff.

The Warden · #5 10-24-2002, 06:10 PM

Well well well...so the CARB's finally beginning to see the light. Maybe later on, they'll realize that diesels are actually cleaner than g@$$ers...

This could be the start of something good.

GO DIESEL POWER!!!