Editorial: The Diesel Engine Emissions Summit
img src="/sites/default/files/images/articles/printeditiontag_new.gif" width=120 align=right>We believe there is no issue facing the trucking industry that is more important than the new pollution standards the Environmental Protection Agency will begin enforcing with 2007-model diesel-powered trucks.
The highly restrictive standards are going to require a new generation of trucks, powered by a new generation of heavy-duty diesel engines burning a new generation of cleaner-burning fuel. To meet the deadline, all of this “newness” will have to be perfected over a very short time.
Because trucking is the premier delivery mode of virtually all of the nation’s goods, it is vitally important that the new trucks work properly. If there’s one lesson to be learned from the fiasco that surrounded the introduction of the 2002 diesel engines, it’s the need to be adequately prepared.
This meeting is designed to put executives of all the major companies and industries that will be affected by the new rules in the same room to discuss what needs to be done, how it can be accomplished and when.
Many industry executives are already expressing doubt that there is enough time to design and produce everything that will be needed to cut key diesel emissions, already vastly reduced, by another 90%. The summit is designed to bring all of the parties together to examine that doubt and address the questions.
Participants will provide an overview of various technologies that manufacturing companies are working on, as well as the enforcement strategies being planned by the regulatory agencies.
The summit will be a forum for the concerns of fuel refiners, suppliers of lubrication and cooling products, engine and component manufacturers and truck makers. Central to the discussion will be the views of executives from trucking fleets and top-level representatives of the regulatory agencies.
The summit also will provide a look at what European regulators and companies are doing to achieve their newest pollution standards. The summit should offer opportunities to find common solutions to common problems.
We believe this will be a critical meeting in the process of complying with the new regulations. We hope you’ll be there.
This article appears in the April 8 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
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