E-mail story
Printer friendly page
Subscribe to PrintBy Russell Clemings / The Fresno Bee
Southern California entrepreneur Phil Roberts thinks he has a solution for the San Joaquin Valley's air pollution. His company has a device that he says can clean up any diesel vehicle's exhaust. It works something like a catalytic converter on a gasoline engine. [See an animation of the device]Roberts says tests show the device can cut emissions of two major pollutants by 90% or more. But you won't find it in the new ozone plan that the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District approved earlier this year.One reason: Until state regulators finish reviewing how well it performs, they won't approve the device's use. And until that happens, the district can't claim credit for any resulting cuts in emissions.Such is the state of air pollution regulation. Having promise isn't enough to bring an innovation to bear on the nation's stubbornest smog. Approval from higher levels of government is also needed.In fact, reducing smog is not even the district's only goal. Its officials say they serve another master as well -- a web of federal and state laws that sometimes ties their hands.In the case of the ozone plan, the Clean Air Act requires the district to explain what steps it will take to clean the air. Those steps generally have to be approved in advance by higher levels of government.If the cleanup measures aren't approved, the plan won't be approved. If the plan is not approved, the district is not complying with federal law.And if the district is out of compliance, federal highway funds can dry up. Businesses can face higher fees for new or expanded facilities.All that is true. But critics say the air district should do more to challenge the roadblocks that prevent it from embracing new ideas such as the device Roberts has come up with.That device uses a method called selective catalytic reduction, or SCR. It reduces emissions of nitrogen oxides, or NOx, one of ozone's main building blocks.SCR is not a new technology. It is already widely used on stationary diesel engines, such as large industrial boilers and gas turbines.But it has been used only recently on cars and trucks. From a regulatory point of view, new means uncertain -- and unacceptable."We couldn't take credit for a widespread application of SCR retrofits for the simple fact that there is none certified at this point," said Scott Nester, the air district's planning director. "There is not a system out there that's available that we could even point to, to take credit for in this plan."Roberts thinks that shouldn't matter.His device uses a special type of catalytic converter and a chemical reductant, such as urea or ammonia. The reductant is injected into the exhaust before it reaches the catalyst, which consists of a metal that sets off a chemical reaction.The process converts smog-forming nitrogen oxides, or NOx, into water vapor and nitrogen, a safe and common atmospheric gas.The chemistry is fairly straightforward. But it is a challenge to fit the device on a vehicle engine.Mobile engines speed up and slow down as power demand varies. When that happens, the amount of reductant injected into the exhaust needs to change as well.That's a tricky technical issue that previous generations of pollution controls for diesel engines have been hard-pressed to overcome. Roberts said his firm has perfected a way to measure NOx levels in the exhaust and fine-tune the reductant to match.It works something like a gasoline engine's oxygen sensor. That device makes constant adjustments to the engine's air-fuel mixture to reduce emissions.On diesels, the system Roberts has developed can yield 92% reductions in NOx and 96% in particulate matter, mainly soot, he claims.That doesn't mean much until Roberts can get his test results "verified," to use the official term, by the state Air Resources Board and federal Environmental Protection Agency."Without verification, you really don't have anything," Roberts said. "ARB is doing everything they can, but they're somewhat overwhelmed and understaffed."State air board officials declined to comment on the status of their review, or even to confirm that one was underway. They cited an agency policy to shield such information from business competitors.Roberts said he began the process two years ago and hopes to complete it next spring. At present, he said, one of the devices is installed on a Santa Monica garbage truck for a 1,000-hour durability test, its last major hurdle.In the meantime, without verification, air district officials say they can't promote add-on control devices like the one Roberts is promoting.So their new ozone plan focuses instead on a more expensive option. Under the plan, diesel owners would be paid to replace their vehicles with new, less-polluting models. Where that cash would come from is not yet clear. Nester says only that the air district is "working very diligently" to find the money.The district may yet include retrofits in its ozone strategy. But if it does, they will likely be part of a proposed fast-track program consisting of "measures that cannot currently be defined" and are not included in the official, federally mandated ozone plan."This is the first of a lot of plans to come," Nester said. "We're going to be pushing, and we're looking more closely to see what we can do with retrofits for trucks."The pressure is on to cut emissions from old diesel engines. But how?Beginning in 2010, federal standards will require new diesel engines to run 90% cleaner than 2004 models. As a result, every time a new truck replaces an old one, emissions drop significantly no matter what the district does.But diesel engines can last 20 years or more and can be driven more than a million miles. So even with the new standards, old engines will continue to pollute the Valley's air until they are junked.The Valley ozone plan aims to speed up that turnover from old diesels to new ones. But the price is high.To replace 28,000 old trucks, about half the current population, would cost $4.2 billion, or $150,000 per truck, between 2010 and 2023, the district estimates. In contrast, Roberts estimates that his device can be installed for $25,000 to $35,000 per truck.In fact, in its ozone plan, the district calls pollution-control retrofits the "most cost-effective incentive option" for reducing diesel truck emissions. But having said that, district officials didn't include the cost comparisons in the plan.Instead, they cited the drawbacks. Chief among them was "disinterest by the public in installing retrofit devices." In other words, opposition from diesel vehicle owners, based on past projects using more primitive devices."The disadvantages were so overwhelming that I think our staff felt like it was really not a viable approach," Nester said.It's not clear how widespread that opposition is, however.Fresno trucking company owner Jim Ganduglia, chairman of the California Trucking Association's environmental policy committee, says he's mystified by the district's talk of industry opposition.The trucking industry isn't opposed to retrofits. It just doesn't want to pay all of the costs, said Ganduglia, who has retrofits on 15 trucks."They work fine," he said. "I'm not quite sure why they say there's a problem from the industry. The only issue the industry has is the cost. We'll put them on all day if somebody wants to pay for it."Nevertheless, Jeff Findley, the air district's incentives program manager, asserts that diesel owners are worried about maintenance costs and fuel economy.And he said that past incentive projects using an earlier type of retrofit on diesel school buses flopped so badly that the operators "actually wanted to take the devices off."The Southwest Transportation Agency, which runs buses for 15 Fresno County school districts, used $532,000 in air district money to retrofit 30 buses with particle filters.Kirk Hunter, its chief executive officer, calls it "an absolute waste of money" and says the funds should be spent on new buses instead. The devices clog and seem to be aggravating engine wear, he said.But Sam Armentrout, director of student transportation for the Madera Unified School District, which installed the same devices, has a different view: "They work well. The nuisance that goes along with the maintenance of them is worth it" for the benefit of reducing pollution.The devices that Ganduglia and the two school bus operators used were mainly traps for small particles of diesel soot. They don't do nearly as much to reduce NOx as the more advanced device Roberts is trying to get approved.Other companies are developing devices similar to the one Roberts has. One person who's sold on their promise is Alvin Valeriano, who worked in the air district's planning division until last spring.Even allowing that entrepreneurs like Roberts may overstate their claims, Valeriano said, "I came to the conclusion that SCR could knock out NOx by 80%."Valeriano said he discussed that conclusion with Nester -- only to learn that his boss didn't share his enthusiasm."He said it was an idea whose time had not come yet," Valeriano said."I said, 'Our job is to find ways to deploy this.' He said, 'I see you feel strongly. But I hope you're not disappointed if nothing comes of it.' "Nester said his reaction to Valeriano's pitch was based partly on the lack of state air board and EPA verification. Beyond that, he said, he and other district staff members sensed that the SCR technology was still too immature to be widely accepted by truck owners and operators."I hope that the time does come for it," Nester said. "I would like to see a quick and cheaper way of getting NOx reductions from diesel trucks. But it's not there at this point in time."Acceptance by truck owners is crucial to the district's plan because of its reliance on incentives. In the past, the district has targeted stationary sources, such as irrigation pumps, using a "carrot-and-stick" approach. It coupled enforceable emission limits with incentives for early compliance.With diesel vehicles, however, there is no stick -- just a carrot. The district maintains that federal and state laws bar it from issuing enforceable rules on mobile sources.Some critics think the district is interpreting those laws too broadly.The relevant section of the law says that it applies to setting standards for "new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines." It says nothing about whether states and districts can regulate vehicle use after manufacture.And while one provision of the state health and safety code says that state air board has responsibility for controlling motor vehicle emissions in California, such as California's smog check program, other sections also give the air district power to mandate reductions in vehicle use. In Valeriano's view, that means the district could create a "stick" for its diesel incentive program by simply restricting use of high-polluting vehicles on bad air days."The district does have authority to say you can't run dirty equipment on a bad pollution day," he said. "It's just like the fireplace rule. You can't run your fireplace on the worst pollution days in the wintertime."In the face of the uncertainty, he said, the air district chose to play it safe instead of proposing new rules that might be challenged.Valeriano quit the air district a few weeks after the district's governing board approved the new ozone plan.Nester had assigned him to critique an independent alternative ozone plan funded by the Hewlett Foundation. Now Valeriano works as a consultant for the organization that wrote that alternative plan, the International Sustainable Systems Research Center.The alternative plan was a wide-ranging attack on the district's ozone plan. It urged the district to persuade fleet owners to add SCR-based catalysts or other advanced pollution controls on existing trucks. It also proposed, in its initial version, a "fix it or park it" program requiring add-on devices or other measures for high-polluting diesel engines.Valeriano said he quit the district because he agreed with the findings of the report he was being asked to evaluate."If I kept working there, I would just be making excuses," he said.Roberts, meanwhile, continues to wait for the state air board to finish reviewing his device.He wonders why it is taking so long, since the heart of his process -- SCR -- is not really that new. Only its application to motor vehicles is new. And even that has been done on a limited scale in Europe."SCR has been the standard in NOx control in large power applications for over 30 years now," he said. "We do believe that the technology is commercially ready and we hope to get it through the verification process as soon as possible."