Oil & Fuel California's Tough new rules for Diesel Engines

[SkyPup]

I'll have to agree with that assessment.

The image I'll always have in my mind of LA is stepping off a jet at LAX and gagging my way through town.....

 

[ccsial]

As long as we keep electing the Left wing bleeding heart libs we can look for more.

They will be elected as long as they, and their friends in the media, keep scaring the public to near panic. That's how they stay in power.

As Skypup says, China is a far bigger and faster growing problem but our EPA must keep trying for that last few percent to stay in power.

 

[Cap-n-Cray]

I recently relocated from CA to WA. I had a CA contractors license and still get notices from the Air Resources board (California Environmental Protection Agency). From a mailing:

"The regulation would apply to backhoes, loaders, scrapers and other self propelled diesel powered off-road vehicles (25 hp and up) and would phase in requirements to install exhaust retrofits on existing vehicles and accelerate turnover to newer, cleaner engines for many fleets."

There will be smog tests for tractors. There will be a larger demand for CUTS in California. Large road projects with a fleet of Kubota BX24, working like ants. I left CA for many reasons.

Cary

 

[ultrarunner]

SkyPup... I wish it was so...

Right now, I have a 10 year old, 334 hour, Onan 125KW GenSet with a Cummins Turbo Diesel I bought new for the Hospital where I work.

Ten Years ago, all I needed was a City Permit... now I have to pay the Bay Area Air Quality Mgmt District a yearly fee of several hundred dollars and submit to yearly inspections AND I am limited to running it 25 hours max per year for anything other than a "Documented" Emergency... I must have supporting documents of Emergency to prevent my operating permit from being revoked.

The Federal Standards required me to run the generator to operating temperature once every 7 days... which worked out to about 30 hours per year... I had to apply for a waiver since I can no longer do this and be in compliance... I now run it every other week.

The Air Quality District said that I always have the option of replacing my "Obsolete" Genset... Obsolete that is with 334 hours!

It's ironic, because next to the Hospital is a large grocery store and it is not uncommon for refrigerated tractor trailer rigs to run day and night.

The California Legislature can't even agree on a State budget... but they seem to always find time for this kind of stuff.

History has proven these kind of laws to be incremental, in that this is just one of many steps to follow... They've already succeeded in banning 2-stroke outboard engines from most my States waterways.

 

[MrJimi]

Living in Florida, I don't think CALIFORNIA is the place for me?
(beverlyhills) The TV show thing ?

 

[Z-Michigan]

On the one hand I am all for reduced air pollution. I don't have an issue with a reasonable, phased-in standard that applies to newly purchased equipment. But all the stuff about getting rid of old equipment that may not be all that old seems like a bad idea.

To cut to the chase, I think any decent person should get the @#$ out of Kalifornia as quickly as they can. That state is nuts. An increasing number of states are nuts, but Kali has always been on the bleeding edge of nutso ideas.

As another noted, much of California's pollution comes from China (similar to how much of my state's pollution is blown in from Chicago and Gary Indiana). California could probably clean its air more by refusing entry to Chinese goods and therefore causing their factories to shut down (since California ports are the entry port for so much of the Chinese stuff sold across the US, and the US is one of if not the biggest consumer of Chinese products) than by anything they can do with their own emissions.

I don't see any brains in exempting diesels below 25hp either. California and other states already regulate lawnmowers and weed whackers to a high degree; why exempt small diesel equipment? The idea of an ant army of BX24's seems entirely possible. The introduction of the federal gas guzzler tax back in 1991 pretty much killed the luxury car market while creating the luxury SUV market - even bigger vehicles getting even lower mileage per gallon. Yeah, brilliant.

 

[sandman2234]

I would be willing to bet, if just off the top of my head, that most of the reefer units you are talking about are actually running on a start/stop mode, only running as required to sustain the temperature at which the thermostat is set at, which is regulated by the shipper of the goods in the trailer. Plus they will probably be excluded due to the fact that the ones I have seen are only 2 cylinder diesels, which could vary easily be under 25 hp. The actual trucks are probably mandated to a maximum idle time, something like 5 minutes in some states, so they are starting to put gensets on them which run heat/air and charge the batteries. Most of the time the a/c output sucks but it is better than nothing.
David from jax

 

[IH3444]

As Skypup and others have stated, up to 50% of Kalifornia's pollution is blowing in over the Pacific from China. But I am glad that they have enacting such very strict air standards for engines. It means that no additional mass pollution will be created by Kalifornia, and what China pollution does make it over will hopefully be mostly "scrubbed" out of the atmosphere before any of my engines can have a chance to huff in any of that foul air into their combustion chambers here on the east coast. Uppps, gotta get back to operation clear cut. Earth First! We'll log the other planets later........

 

[daTeacha]

It wasn't too long ago (okay, maybe it was 15 or 20 years) that Saab engines were capable of producing exhaust that was cleaner than the ambient air in some of our more polluted cities. Doesn't that seem a bit wrong in some way?
Were you guys around when the Cuyahoga River caught fire and burned down a bridge in Cleveland? People complained about water pollution controls on the Great Lakes tributaries, but now they're happily fishing for walleyes and perch or swimming and boating when before it was dangerous to your health to go in the water.
Without some environmental regulations, the entire world would be like industrial regions of China and the Soviet Union. Who needs that? Even now, driving along the Ohio River valley near a coal burning power plant is a highly unpleasant experience. We only have one planet, so why pollute it when we have the technological expertise to live cleanly? A phase-in of cleaner running engines will have a cost, but the long-term benefits far outweigh it.

 

[cp1969]

A phase-in of cleaner running engines will have a cost, but the long-term benefits far outweigh it.

For someone who is unaffected financially by the cost of compliance, I guess that would be a predictable position to take.

Someone who is out a lot of money to replace perfectly good equipment that is nowhere near the end of its useful life may take take a totally different stance.

I for one am VERY skeptical of the cost/benefit analysis. Most of the assertions are, to say the least, difficult to prove.