New Low-Sulfur Diesel Fuel Less Polluting

[suziedemocrat]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/washington/11diesel.html?ex=1318219200&en=21bafbc36bd68d44&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss


Law from Clinton Administration finally allowed to take effect. (Bush takes credit of course!)
Good, short article worth reading.

October 11, 2006
Low-Sulfur Diesel Fuel Is Reaching Market
By FELICITY BARRINGER
WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 — The biggest revolution in highway fuels since lead was removed from gasoline will be nearly complete on Sunday as a vast majority of trucks and buses will be able to fill their tanks with diesel fuel with just 3 percent of the sulfur content in the older fuel.

Like lead, sulfur generates air pollution that leads to severe health consequences. Like lead, it also gums up the works of fine-tuned pollution control devices, making it exceedingly difficult to produce cleaner-burning engines. So the new fuel will pave the way for new generations of diesel engines that experts say will eventually cut lethal particulate pollution from diesel tailpipes an estimated 95 percent.

...

Richard Kassel, a senior lawyer and air-pollution specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, said that when planning for the rule began in 1995, gasoline-powered cars outnumbered diesel-powered trucks and buses by 190 million to 6.7 million. The diesel vehicles emitted 43 percent of the smog- and particulate-forming nitrogen oxides and more than two-thirds of the soot. Even though the diesel-produced particulates were 3 percent of the total particulate matter in the air, most of which was from industrial sources, Mr. Kassel added, “tailpipe particulates are coming out right where we breathe.”

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