Cleaner Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel debutes today
Posted By RichC on October 15, 2006
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) significant reduction in the sulfur content of highway diesel fuel take effect today, October 15th, 2006. The new measure reduces sulfur from its current level of 500 parts per million (ppm) to 15 ppm, an aggressive 97 percent reduction. The new fuel known as Ultra Low Sulfur diesel (ULSD) will be available for cars, trucks and buses with or without the advanced pollution controls. The will be immediate improvement in emissions, but when fully implemented the actions are expected to have significant environmental benefits.
According to the EPA, by the the year 2030 the fleets of diesels will completely be replaced and the US will have reduced 2.6 million tons of smog-causing nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions each year. Health benefits from the reduction of harmful particulate matter (PM) will also be reduced by 110,000 tons per year and result in more that $70 billion dollars annually in environmental protection and public health benefits. For addition information the EPA has published a PDF document on this change.
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