Suggest that you find a place of employment where clean air and water is not important.
The Amount of Reductions in NOX CO2 CO and all Particulates Overall in the OTR side from what a 1999 Engine Produced to what a 2013 Model Engine Produces is less than 30% overall reduction. That 30% has cost my Industry close to 4 Trillion to comply with. Yes the Engines may Produces Less Emissions but as they BURN More Fuel OVERALL. The EPA and CARB have NEVER BEEN told what are their Limits. Look what the EPA tried to do with the Coal Fired Power Plants in this Nation and is Still Trying to do they will never stop in this nation.
Sigh…
While I wait for this thread to be closed, I will point out that there ARE Delta Smelt in the Sacramento delta, so that’s some misinformation there.
AND, the law protecting them has cost very few jobs. More job losses have been caused by the ongoing drought.
Further, I have no problem with all that produce moving by rail instead of truck anyway, so that’s fine with me. long strings of reefers heading east is a tradition around here.
Anyway,
It sounds to me, based on what I’ve heard from Railroad people, not truckers, that EGR and Particulate filters are a bit of a long shot, but big old two cycle low speed 3000-4000 HP diesels aren’t truck engines. They aren’t run like truck engines, their duty and maintenance cycles are different, they are shopped differently. The experience of truckers in this area is valuable, but far from exhaustive and when you add on the inability to discuss this topic without getting into politics…rudely, well, you can understand why I’d just as soon not have to hear about it every time we bring these things up.
Due to changes in FRA regs., the Class 1 railroad maintenance cycle is going to evolve from quarterly inspections to a semi-annual inspection. So, any aftertreatment device that cannot endure for 6 months is going to be a non-starter.
I agree, there is a big difference between a high speed truck engine, and a medium speed railroad unit. SCR may or may not bee needed, and EGR valves may survive longer in the cooler exhaust. EMD may need to switch to a four stroke engine, and idle reduction gear may need to be added to reduce engine wear. One thing I can say that will happen, the learning curve will probably be steep for all involved…
I for one welcome any and all discussions regarding the challenges that truckers, owner-operators or fleet operators, are having in complying with emission standards. What is being told here is information I am not getting anywhere else, and it is explaining volumes of why the produce aisle in the supermarket has gotten so pricey as of late.
As to being welcome to effect change, I am reading that people are trying to effect change but encountering roadblocks at every turn. As to asking truckers not to do business with your state, are you also asking consumers in other states not to do business with your state? I am in an agricultural state that competes in certain products with your state, and I would be glad for people to do more business with my state.
And when your state tax base collapses, are you asking taxpayers in other states for an eventual Federal bailout?
As to the complaint of other responders that the trucking people want us to breathe filthy air, yes, there are engineering, economic, and social tradeoffs in many matters. I would also like to eat food that isn’t tainted when “reefer” units start breaking down from ill-conceived emissions regs.
As to another post welcoming the difficulties that truckers are encoun
Saying that some environmental regulations are getting out of control is not the same thing as saying that clean air and water are not important. IMO, regulations are dysfunctional when an already controlled source (e.g. diesel engines used in transportation) becomes even more tightly controlled, when a significantly larger source (e.g. particulates from cooking, especially grilling meats) is left unregulated.
The optimal regulation strategy from an economic standpoint is where the cost per pound of emissions reduction is equal for all sources. Getting away from that ideal is wasting money and likely to result in more pollution rather than less.
+1[tup]
The last two sentences of the quote above are an extremely important message for us all.
Bruce
Well Paul, All I can say is that if the discussion on these topics is as well thought out as yours generally is, I’d agree with you. Unfortunately, I’ve found that these topics tend to involve a lot more keyboard smashing than thoughtfulness.
It may all be justified, it’s true, but it is not very useful for a forum that is here to inform.
And I didn’t invite the moderators to shut this thread down. I was merely expressing my opinion that the political content of the posts had reached the point where it would be shut down.
Personally I would tolerate more political content than the mods, because these topics cannot help but be political.
But again, this is the locomotive forum and I have far more interest in knowing the details of this and similar locomotives the behavior of CARB is really a side topic to that.
I would like to see some statistics on the harmful effects of cooking. In particular in the Central Valley. The air Quality in Roseville is significantly worse than the air quality in other parts of the state I’ve lived in and visited…more populous parts of the state. Are you saying that it isn’t that giant hump yard down the block, but rather backyard bbqs causing this? And that the problem isn’t as bad in LA because…well, the only thing that could fix it is the ocean breeze. But there are so many many more people cooking there.
I’d honestly love to see some stats on this.
AESS (automatic engine start stop) has been standard equipment on new locos for years…there are a number of suppliers of retrofit kits.
EMD designed the 4-stroke-cycle 265H engine under GM owndership. It did not fare well in the field here in NA, but has found acceptance in China…in the form of 300 locos.
http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/8896 (sorry for unactivated link)
The UCR study was for the south coast air quality basin, which is a different beast from the San Joaquin Valley. The report states that cooking is the second largest source of particulates and unfortunately is silent on the largest source in the south coast. The problem with cooking isn’t so much the amount of particulates from a single source, but the sheer number of sources.
I’d be interested in a ranked list of air pollution sources in the San Joaquin Valley.
I remember what the air in the San Diego area looked like in the 1970’s, especially when the air from LA was blown south. Probably the most significant reason that the air is cleaner now is that cars are a lot cleaner and the older, dirtier cars are off the road. Getting the older cars off the road is a lot easier if the new cars are reasonably priced, have reasonable performance (which includes gas mileage - note that the mid-70’s cars were notorious for poor mileage due to emissions and safety regs) and have the desired features. It wasn’t until the early to mid-80’s that engine performance (both power and mileage) returned to early 1970’s levels and it was the early to mid-80’s when the air started to become noticeably cleaner.
- Erik
I would bet #1 is the refineries
For particulates?
EMD supposedly did do some research on getting the 265 engine to meet the more stringent air emissions requirements. EMD could also use the CAT C280 series engine which is comparable to the 265 H…
There was a 1 cylinder test 265h at Argonne right next to the 710.