VERT/AKPF expert says black-carbon/global warming link should prompt Diesel Particulate Filter mandate

Diesel Fuel News, Nov 25, 2002

If the recent Stanford University findings linking diesel combustion black-carbon emissions to global warming can be considered as proven (see Diesel Fuel News 9/16/02, p5; 1/7/02, p13), then "DPFs should be made mandatory," says AKPF Secretary Fritz Legerer in the AKPF's summary of the 6th Conference on Nanoparticle Measurement earlier this year (see www.akpf.org).

Europe's AKPF is the industrial offspring of the VERT project, which pioneered the verification of DPF technologies and helps organize the annual nano-PM conferences in Switzerland. Some other major conference findings: DPFs apparently are effective in trapping the most dangerous PM, and a Swiss health study shows that DPFs can help prevent worker health problems that otherwise would cost more than triple that of putting DPFs on construction engines in Switzerland. Hence, DPFs not only can cut pollution, protect workers and reduce global w arming threats, but apparently can more than pay for themselves by reducing social costs, Legerer points out.