April is latest deadline for EPA's non-road diesel rule

Diesel Fuel News, March 3, 2003 by Jack Peckham

Phoenix -- U.S. EPA aims to unveil its proposed rule for non-road diesel fuels/emissions limits by April, then follow with public hearings this summer, according to EPA deputy director Karl Simon.

Speaking to the Clean Heavy-Duty Vehicles Conference here, Simon said that EPA expects engine makers to transfer technologies used for nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) control in the highway diesel sector (2007-2010) to the non-road diesel sector.

Enabling those technologies will be the 15-ppm sulfur ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) that EPA already prescribes for highway diesels between 2006-20 10. EPA still hasn't decided whether to prescribe ULSD for non-road diesels in 2008 or 2010, with a possible two-step move to 500-ppm sulfur in 2007, followed by a 15-ppm step in 2010.

Not every non-road diesel engine necessarily can be fitted with a Nox/PM trap, but maybe some alternative technologies can be developed, he suggested. "It's not sensible to put a $1,000 NOx adsorber on a $500 engine, so maybe something else is practical," he said.

To encourage early and cleaner technology introductions, EPA aims to include an emissions averaging/banking/trading scheme in the upcoming rule. The agency is also mulling a possible sulfur credits trading scheme between highway and non-road diesel, but Simon didn't say anything about it.

Refiners will be spending about $25 billion to comply with EPA's gasoline reformulation arid diesel desulfurization rules during this decade, he said. Now, the agency is asking for industry, public health and environmental advocate input on how best to establish the final rules.

For cost-efficiency reasons, most refiners favor the "two-step" non-road desulfurization approach, but some "small" refiners favor "one-step" for large refiners.