User-agent: Mediapartners-Google* Disallow: Trucks World News: EGR or LNG * USA
Google
 
Loading

Feb 23, 2012

EGR or LNG * USA

* Navistar's EGR-only strategy enters new phase

(Photo: Navistar 4x4 TerraStar Trucks)
Seal Beach,CAL/ Warrenville,ILL,USA -Automotive World, by Alan Bunting -February 21, 2012: -- Seal Beach, California-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp (CEFC) and US truck manufacturer Navistar have launched a 'joint offensive' to promote the use of natural gas (NG) as a heavy-duty truck fuel. By way of an incentive, CEFC says it is prepared to install, at its expense, NG storage/refuelling facilities at fleet depots where trucking companies commit to purchasing (unspecific) 'large numbers' of gas-fuelled trucks... Interestingly, the NG engines installed in pre-production class 8 Navistar vehicles are from Cummins-Westport. This represents a re-establishment of customer-supplier relations between Navistar and Cummins, which were broken off, somewhat abruptly, about three years ago when the engine maker decided to adopt urea-fed SCR (selective catalytic reduction) technology for controlling its diesels' NOx emissions. That move went against Navistar's loudly-trumpeted policy of relying on EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) alone to hold down NOx levels...  Navistar says it has submitted its 12.4 litre MaxxForce 13 diesel, built under licence from MAN in Germany, for full EPA 2010 certification. It expresses confidence that the latest version of the engine, still without the SCR employed by all its rivals, will meet the requirements...   It is worth pointing out that, in Europe, MAN has largely abandoned its 'EGR only' NOx control strategy in order to meet Euro 6 emission limits, which are roughly comparable to those of EPA 2010. Its D26 engine in Euro 6 form, virtually identical to the MaxxForce 13, features SCR as well as EGR. Many predict that Navistar will, before too long, follow suit...


* DC - Truck, Engine Makers Challenge EPA Fines For Navistar

Washington,DC,USA -Fox Business/Dow Jones Newswires -February 23, 2012: ... Illinois-based Navistar has been relying on pollution credits for the past two years to comply with the EPA's regulation of 0.20 gram of nitrogen oxide per brake-horsepower hour. Navistar's heavy-duty engines are believed to be at about 0.50 gram. The EPA has acknowledged that it suspended its regular rule-making procedures to enact the fines because Navistar is on the verge of running out credits for heavy-duty engines. That would effectively force the company to stop building engines and selling heavy-duty trucks...  Navistar has struggled more than other truck makers to meet the 0.20 gram standard, although the company insists that its engines will soon comply. Navistar reduces nitrogen oxide through exhaust-gas recirculation, or EGR, which recirculates exhaust through an engine's combustion process, burning the nitrogen oxide that otherwise would be sent into the atmosphere from a truck's exhaust pipe... Critics of EGR say the process makes engines less fuel efficient than selective catalytic reduction, or SCR, which is used by other engine makers in North America and Europe. SCR filters engine exhaust through a urea solution that turns nitrogen oxide into water and nitrogen. Nitrogen oxide is an ingredient in the atmospheric greenhouse gas that's blamed for global warming... The EPA's maximum fine on a noncompliant heavy-duty engine is just below $2,000. Navistar's competitors maintain the fines are too low, thereby rewarding Navistar for not making the same investment in pollution reduction as companies whose engines already comply with the standard...  Navistar alleged the EPA submitted to pressure from truck and engine makers to authorize the use of SCR and disregarded evidence that trucks could operate without a functioning SCR system... The company sued the EPA last year to force a recall of engines with SCR and to compel the EPA to surrender documents that Navistar claimed would demonstrate flaws and mistakes in the agency's evaluation of SCR. But a U.S. district court judge dismissed the case in January, saying she would not "allow Navistar to go a fishing expedition in the EPA's records simply because Navistar is dissatisfied" ...

Labels: ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home