Copyright 2000 / Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles
Times
View Related Topics
June 26, 2000, Monday, Home Edition
SECTION: Business; Part C; Page 1; Financial Desk
LENGTH: 1069 words
HEADLINE:
THE CUTTING EDGE: FOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY;
AUTO INDUSTRY TEAMS WITH CLEAN-
AIR GROUPS TO CUT SULFUR IN DIESEL
BYLINE: JOHN O'DELL, TIMES STAFF WRITER
BODY:
In an unlikely pairing of usually warring
interests, automobile industry executives will be standing shoulder to shoulder
with environmentalists in Los Angeles on Tuesday to argue for a federal rule
that would slash the sulfur content of diesel fuel.
They will join forces at a public hearing on the Environmental
Protection Agency's proposed emissions rules for heavy-duty on-road
vehicles--the long-haul trucks that move most of the country's goods and the
buses that provide most public transit.
Car makers, however, are
entering the fray because they believe low-sulfur diesel is
essential to their ability to continue producing low-emissions
internal-combustion-engine passenger vehicles that can also achieve greater fuel
economy.
"Sulfur reduction is critical to us being able
to achieve tighter emission standards in cars" with gasoline or
diesel engines, said Greg Dana, vice president for environmental affairs for the
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a Washington trade group that represents
13 major car makers. Diesel engines are as much as 20% more fuel-efficient than
gasoline engines. They are largely scorned in the U.S. as
noisy, smelly and sooty, but they are widely used in passenger vehicles in
Europe and Asia, where low-sulfur diesel fuel predominates and
where technological advances have made the engines cleaner and quieter.
In this country, the EPA seeks to cut emissions from diesel-burning big
rigs and buses by 95%. Like gasoline, diesel produces
smog-causing nitrogen oxides; in addition, particulates from diesel engines have
been linked to lung disease.
The problem is that the
sulfur that occurs naturally in crude oil--and thus in
distillates such as gasoline and the fuel oil used in diesel
engines--reduces the effectiveness of engine emissions systems.
The
proposed federal rules would require fuel refiners to reduce
sulfur in diesel to a maximum of 15 parts per million, down
from about 500 ppm today. Although some naturally low-sulfur
crude oil is available, in most cases the sulfur reduction is
accomplished in the refining process.
California already leads the
nation in adopting stiff curbs on sulfur in
gasoline but has only recently begun acting unilaterally to
regulate diesel's sulfur content.
The EPA estimates
that reformulated diesel fuel would cost about 4 cents more a gallon, while fuel
refiners have said it would add up to 10 cents a gallon to the retail cost.
Additionally, the agency says, the more efficient emissions systems needed to
meet its proposed standards would add about $ 1,500 to the price of a $ 150,000
diesel truck.
In California, the state Air Resources Board recently
adopted rules requiring use of low-sulfur diesel in public
transit buses in some areas beginning in 2002, and several refiners, including
BP Amoco, Chevron Corp. and Tosco Corp., have told state air-quality regulators
that they can provide the fuel by then.
California refiners can more
easily make the change to low-sulfur diesel, and can keep the
price down, a BP Amoco spokesman said, because the companies have already
installed and paid for much of the necessary equipment in order to produce the
low-sulfur gasoline the state requires.
Under the EPA
proposal, diesel refiners would have to begin providing
low-sulfur fuel nationwide in mid-2006, and diesel engine
manufacturers would have to provide engines equipped with high-efficiency
emissions systems beginning in 2007.
Diesel engine makers support the
new rules, while refiners, except those in California, generally oppose them.
Environmental and community health groups and the nation's auto
makers--on opposite sides of the aisle in the continuing debate over
California's zero-emissions vehicle rules--are also pushing for adoption of the
diesel regulations.
The auto manufacturers and health
groups such as the California Coalition for Clean Air, in fact, say they would
like to see diesel's sulfur content cut even further, to about
5 ppm.
"It absolutely has to be done if we are ever going to correctly
address pollution from diesel sources, the dirtiest on the road today," said
Todd Campbell, policy director for the clean-air coalition. "And the means to
handle pollution from heavy-duty trucks has to come from a national rule because
of interstate trucking. It is impossible to expect the California Air Resources
Board to do it all internally."
About 25% of the diesel truck emissions
in California come from trucks that travel in from other states, according to
the air board.
But the national refiners group claims that purifying
diesel to the extent demanded by the EPA would be prohibitively expensive and
would reduce diesel refining output by as much as 30% because some
high-sulfur crude oil cannot be cleaned sufficiently to meet
the standard.
"We believe that refining diesel's sulfur
content to 50 ppm will meet the EPA's target for particulate matter reduction by
2007, and we believe we can meet 70% to 80% of the nitrates of oxygen limits
that EPA has set," said Bob Slaughter, general counsel for the National
Petrochemical & Refiners Assn.
Increasing demands for better fuel
economy are what bring the auto industry into the debate. Without
low-sulfur fuel, the auto makers argue, diesel engines for cars
and light trucks--pickups, minivans and sport-utility vehicles--can't meet the
federal and California passenger vehicle emissions standards that would take
effect beginning with 2004 model-year vehicles.
The EPA's diesel rules
"are very similar to what California did with gasoline sulfur,"
said Dana, the auto alliance environmental specialist.
"And as in the
gasoline sulfur issue, we are closely aligned with
environmental groups and organizations like the Washington-based State and
Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators to push for EPA adoption of the
clean diesel rules."
Campbell, the clean-air coalition's policy
director, called the pairing of environmental and auto industry interests "a
pretty powerful coalition."
The EPA plans to complete the standards by
the end of the year after a series of public hearings around the country,
including Tuesday's session in Los Angeles.
The hearing is to be held
from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, 711 S. Hope St.
Information about the EPA proposal is available on the agency's Web site
at http://www.epa.gov/otaq/diesel.htm.
LOAD-DATE: June
26, 2000 
