Oil & Fuel Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel Fuel

[doneill127]

never actually heard the term until I read this thread. That’s the reason I liked the Chevron report so much. Learned a lot about diesel fuel. I’m really a technical geek at heart. Spent 35 years servicing large power plants. Can tell you what the impact of #6 oil and coal analysis would have on performance now I can do the same for my diesel
Thanks for the info

 

[doneill127]

Just to be on the safe side I’m going to grab some Opti lube seems like cheap insurance.compared to the cost of pump/injector rebuild

 

[searcyfarms]

is the sole reason for ulsd because of pollution?

 

[LouNY]

is the sole reason for ulsd because of pollution?

That and too raise the cost of refining West Texas crude.

 

[searcyfarms]

ahhh but yes makes perfect sense SMH - ever so brilliant we are

 

[RayfromTX]

This is similar to the pain we went through when we got rid of leaded gasoline. Nobody really laments that change anymore and who would want to still be using it. The health benefits of getting rid of airborne lead from cars is realized by people who will never know that they were susceptible to it's harmful effects. This is the same deal. The machines and the fuel have to go through a transition period so that we can arrive at a place where the magic of the internal combustion engine doesn't hurt our elderly, young, workers and others that would otherwise have health problems that seem mysterious but were caused by what they breathed in over the years. If you work in an environment where you often smell diesel fumes, you will benefit from reduced particulates, perhaps in a big way. That will depend on your physiology and your exposure. Let's not pretend that this is something that is being forced on us for no good reason or for nefarious purposes. Think of it like asbestos. We learned there was a problem. The actions taken to solve that problem seemed like government trying to cheat us out of a great product. DDT? Chlordane?

We can't just stop using fuels but we can find technological ways to make them less harmful to our bodies. It's not like we evolved to be able to process that stuff through our livers. Until we evolve to handle modern toxins we have to keep working to keep them from killing us. It's the cost of progress. I'm old enough to have watched this same fight play out many times. When I was a kid Los Angeles had air that you find in Mexico City now. I'll take the clean air and what it takes to achieve it before I'll live like they do in Mexico City.

But I could be wrong.

 

[searcyfarms]

I don't disagree there needs to be some effort to reduce ill effects on most anything ( such as a lb of bacon a day will cause death sooner ) but it seems we get carried away sometimes and to our own demise we create more situations and add new long term issues such as cost/benefit - how clean is clean enough? how fast is fast enough, how pure is pure? how white is white?

we create plastic bags that don't do well in landfills, we create disposable diapers that don't work well with our landfills, even glitter is the NEW top disaster of things to try to rid from our environment

Each change has created more issues of a different type and the foresight/lack there of, tends to lean in more costs, more unknowns, more issues, more challenges, to circumvent what we gained in one thing but we lost in another - nothing is perfect and while I agree we need to always strive to do better it seems we get some wild idea and run with it, continue to get more wrapped around the axle about it, and then pick up the pieces later -

in the case of ULSD and unleaded now with ethanol blends, I think we have gone a little overboard and where are the definitive conclusive undeniable piles of evidence that people were dying in droves because of the effects of base fumes? I am one of those and so are my parents who breathed all that stuff and used all that stuff you mention, our Life Expectancy has increased and we absorbed that stuff for more than half our lives be it from air/absorption -

I am with you in that a reduced amount of anything has helped but just how much and again at what cost? I think of the benefits of our new fuels every time I go out to run my small gas engines and or my family/neighbors have to have me work on theirs because of the damages to the fuel systems it causes. We can do better but those wrapped around the axle are **** bent on some agenda vs reality and practicality.

Don't get me wrong, less pollution is better, less toxic liquids are better, less of most anything is better however I think we can do a better job of what we have proven to be hypersensitive/overzealous in our past

not that I can do any better just making observations

 

[finn1]

Sounds like the typical and pervasive deniers argument. “we’ve gone too far “.

The science is clear with regard to health effects of airborne particulates and Diesel exhaust, so let’s not debate that here. It gets to be an argument similar to religion and science, where one side argues fact and the other emotion and opinion.

Anecdotal for sure, but every time I have a chest X-ray, the first question is “when did you stop smoking?”

I smoked a total of three cigarettes in my life, back in college, but I worked in a Diesel R&D laboratory environment for thirty five years, with 40 engines running 24/7. I am sure the scarring on my lungs are related to that exposure.

An inordinate number of my co workers have died from leukemia or respiratory issues.

The primary issue with the introduction of ulsd was that the aromatic makeup of the fuel is different, because of the hydrocracking process employed in removing sulfur.

The change in aromatic causes the old seals, conditioned with the old fuel, to harden and shrink, causing leaks.

New seals are compatible with the ulsd. That bridge has been crossed by now, though.

The lubrcity issue is overblown. Prior to the introduction of ulsd, there was no universally recognized standard for lubricity. Actual lubricity was all over the map, and some refineries employed hydro cracking years ago.

A lower limit spec was established with the widespread adoption of ulsd to address this.

European are fuel, if I recall (i’ve been out of this for many years since I retired) has a higher spec for lubricity . US fuel producers and suppliers refused to implement the higher spec, although we in the Diesel industry lobbied heavily for it at the time.

 

[ray66v]

It's been well over 10 years now, since ultra low sulfur diesel was mandated.

Every thread on ULSD seems to indicates there are people who are putting ATF in it. While I am not an advocate for doing so, it would seem that it has now been long enough to see some evidence of problems caused by adding ATF, to ULSD in equipment, without pollution controls.

Has anyone actually seen any first hand evidence?

 

[searcyfarms]

next thing is we will probably see a report out on health hazards on adding ATF to ULSD - I say we forgo this crazy fuel stuff and go back to steam power no wait can we breathe steam, what if we absorb it? oh my.......where's my report!!! ;-)