EPA Moves To Cut Sulfur In Gasoline
 

EPA Moves To Cut Sulfur In Gasoline, Reducing Emissions Further

Not sure if the article writer really knows what he/she is talking about. On one hand he says that sulfur deteriorates catalytic converters over time and on the other hand he says a 2/3rds cut in sulfur in gasoline will reduce NOx, HC, etc. emissions of millions of cars overnight.

...it's the GASOLINE equivalent of what they (EPA) did 'to' DIESEL fuel a few years ago, demand that refineries get the sulphur OUT of the fuels.

...if you've ever pulled up to a late-model GM vehicle with your windows down you'll recognize their "rotten-eggs" aroma for sure...due to sulphur in fuel getting "catalized" in the catalytic converter.

It should've been done before :turtle:

They already did in 2004:

...question is, however, WHEN does the EPA (if ever?) consider consequences to the consumer? At what point does "diminishing returns" become acceptable--or, bluntly--when does the government LEAVE people alone? When is enough, ENOUGH?

I'm gonna have to say never.

...obviously, it was a retorical question without an expected rational answer.

But usually EPA goes harder for Diesel standards than for gasoline. Well, actually I might admit I'd be favorable to remove all the sulfur from both gasoline and Diesel fuel :D

But what, exactly, are the consequences to the consumer likely to be here? A few cents rise in the price of gas, which is already so cheap in this country that the vast majority of people have no problems with driving excessively large, inefficient vehicles that use far more gas than necessary. (And which cause innumerable problems, from congestion to exhaust fumes, that rebound on me.)

If that's what it takes to get rid of the rotten egg smell I get when climbing long grades in the summer, fine.

...the "hidden" answer is that the EPA mandate affects BOTH the gasoline refineries AND the automobile manufacturers...just like what has already happened with current diesels and the SCR-catalytists and DPF-fluids (urea, AdBlue, etc) crap being foisted onto diesel engines...it's NOT just a gasoline-side mandate as most people are assuming.

When they believe they have taken it all! Just so they can be the perceived hero and extract blood to get it back....But don't get me started!

Actually, for the automakers, it's a good deal. You might remember Volkswagen just uses the 2.5L 5-banger in some of its US-spec models because it's supposed to deal better with the higher sulfur amounts of the gasoline in America than those 1.6L and 2.0L FSI do.

Regardless of what they would LIKE you to believe, but Volkswagen isn't the ONLY automobile manufacturer in the world, or USA.

GM has to import a FIAT-designed 2.0LT diesel for the 2014 Cruze because none of the current european (GM-Opel) 2.0LT diesels meet the current EPA requirements, much LESS the newer 2017 limits.

And so? I'm sure you've been around long enough to know that the automakers (especially the US ones!) ALWAYS scream and whine about how they can't possibly meet emissions (or fuel economy standards). Then they spend a few years foisting crap on the public (remember e.g. smog pumps). When/if they discover that their whining doesn't have any effect (and the foreign automakers are cleaning their clock), they finally straighten up and do things halfway right - then the cycle starts all over again.

In other news, I see that Tesla's 1st quarter sales of the Model S have exceeded their target. Wonder why...

It is not as simple as you make it out to be.
 

I applaud the efforts. The required changes are mainly to older refineries. Many already contain low enough levels of sulfur in the gasoline they produce. This move is mainly to bring all refineries to the same level.

Gasoline and diesel engines of today are far cleaner than just 20 years ago. Basins such as Los Angeles and Denver are far cleaner for these efforts. The billions spent in cleaner fuels and vehicles is offset by the billions saved in healthcare.

So, who will regulate industry . . .
 

. . . when industry fails to regulate itself?

Your impassioned venting may be right from your perspective, but utterly wrong from the viewpoint of public health.

...sorry, but California's problems are NOT always the problems of others, regardless of CARB or EPA; they simply "strong-arm" and financially "saddle" EVERYBODY because they can.

Health is EVERYBODY's problem.
 

Think of riding the bus to school. That is found in most ALL our school districts. The most vulnerable of our population is on those buses - growing children with a LIFETIME to go. Now you want to place them on a bus that spews particulate matter at high rates - particulate matter that has been connected with all sorts of long and short term problems.

Why don't we go back to regional fuel and emission standards like we had a few years ago? That would make it FAIR? Correct?

Except vehicles move. And so does the pollution.

I live on the border of Mexico in the beautiful city of San Diego. We adhere to the stringent regs of the EPA and CARB. Mexico doesn't. Consequently, we live with bad air days depending on the prevailing winds. We live with Mexican registered trucks driving our roadways belching pollutants. We deal with the occasional sewage on our beaches because of tides that have shifted for the day.

I guarantee this measure will not effect you in any significant fiscal way - in the immediate. But over the lives of people who succumb to pollution health effects, the costs can be enormous. China is finding this out. They are going to have to pay a vast healthcare cost over the next couple generations.

The majority of people are much happier with our cleaner air and water. The bellicose rants of the NIMBY population has gradually given way to the understanding of the individual's responsibility to society as a whole.

...sorry, but those "insignificant" costs due to CARB and/or EPA have affected every car I've bought, and I do not feel that I should be MADE to pay for the problems of others, especially when I don't even live in their states. NIMBY is part territorial and part parochial...

Name ONE emission device on your 50 state Vibe that is NOT worth the cost?
 

Let's go back to 1960's shall we?. No emission controls at all. At least where you live out in Tucson. Now, when trucks and rail transport cross into other states . . . How about your personal vehicles? Why don't we make it simple. Why don't you make it law that you breath the emissions out of your personal vehicles tailpipe, and I'll breath the emissions out of mine. Except that is impossible isn't it? The air in Tucson affects the air quality EVERYWHERE! If 300 million Americans believed as you, we would live in a cesspool of a continent. Multiply that by 7 billion people and where will that leave us in a short time?

Name ONE singular 50 state emission requirement that has been such an awful burden to you? Digital control of fuel, timing, power transfer, catalytic efficiency . . . these seem more like performance advances. Or do you want to go back to points and carburetors? I've struggled with Holley Double pumpers and Carter Thermo Quads. I'll take digital MPI and OBD2 any day.

I live in San Diego and run a business in the AQMD controlled LA basin . Everything is controlled down to what comes out of an aerosol can. Off road and on road diesels, lawn care equipment, barbeque fluid . . . and on and on. Draconian measures that are needed because of our unique situation as the "sunshine fishbowl". Every little bit of pollution is trapped and magnified. These measures are not all to be foisted on your area. To say so or even imply as such is disingenuous and exaggerated theater.

Measurable amounts of air pollution now cross the pacific rim to our shores. "No man is an island," is a saying that is ever more true today than ever before. Many of your emission problems are my problems when measured as a whole in the context of the biosphere that is our earth.

Well put, RustyLugNut.

A few years ago I went to a training class in a certain factory in a certain southern state. The class was about the latest Diesel emission reduction technology - EGR, SCR, DPFs, etc., all of which I think is a good step to clean up stinky, disgusting diesels. The entire class could be summed up with a "we wouldn't have to do all this if it wasn't for stupid old California." It struck a real nerve with me as I learned how ignorant these people actually are.

Many find it easy to look outside in the middle of their prairie (or even a nice clean west coast city like where I live) and think pollution control is pointless and a waste of money, and I do not understand it.

Many still hang on the the early-70s mentality that if there is an emission control we must tear if off, and I do not understand it.

In 50 words or less, can someone please summarize what positive purpose sulfur does in an ICE and what damage will result from its reduction in a gasoline ICE application?

I am aware of the downfalls to diesel (pump failures, etc.) from the reduction in sulfur in that application.

Thank you.

But so have the benefits, which go far beyond cleaner air. Did you really enjoy adjusting ignition points and cleaning/replacing spark plugs every 10K miles or so? How about adjusting carburetors? When was the last time you had to crank & crank on a carbed engine to get it to start, instead of the first turn start of a modern EFI engine?

Speaking of which, there was an example in the news today. Redneck reality TV star takes his SUV out playing in the mud, gets stuck in a hole with the exhaust below the mud, sits there with the engine running, dies of carbon monoxide poisoning. Darwin strikes again.

Sulphur is not 'added' to either gasoline or diesel, it is intrinsiclally a part of the crude oil itself, a component of the biomass decomposition into oil.

RustLugNut -- As I said, CALIFORNIA does NOT rule the United States, regardless of what *it* might think, and making everybody else suffer for their problems is neither democratic nor beneficial.

The CALIFORNIA mindset of "...what's good for US is good for YOU (whether you want or need it or not)" is self-centered and haughty.

Do what you want *IN* California, but leave the rest of us alone! Maybe we should cry to the BLM to "cut" the Colorado River water flow into Los Angles whenever Arizona (or Nevada) has a drought or water problem?

Let me phrase my question differently - other than the added expense that will result from the costs to reduce the amount of sulfer, are there negative impacts on the engine that will result from reduced sulfer content?

As yet unknown...sorta like when they took the lead out of gasoline, then discovered afterward that without the presence of lead, the valves were "sinking" into their head seats because previously the lead-oxide had acted like a "sponge-cushion" to prevent this from happening. An example of EPA's "Unintended Consquences" from not thoroughly investigating (understanding) the ramifications of their hasty mandates.

But, we *do* know that it should help prolong the life of catalytic converters, because it (suphur) is something else that they would NOT have to "burn" during their useful operating live span.

Thank you. I have been told that the reduction in sulfer in diesel fuel caused premature pump failure, therfore some are adding additives (including TC-W3 ashless two stroke oil).

...sounds like the infamous VW diesel pump problems of lately.

The entire reason of going to ultra low sulfur diesel in the fall of 2006 was because the manufacturers demanded it for EPA2007. ULSD is <15 PPM sulfur; LSD is <500 PPM.
LSD poisons the precious metal coating on DOCs/DPFs in very short order.
Stamped right on the Caterpillar DPF I was servicing the other day: "<15 PPM ULSD".

I always considered it quite strange when older folks quoted sulfur as a lube for the injection pump, complaining about low-sulfur Diesel lack of lubricity. Well, it's actually more related to the Diesel fuel getting thinner than it used to be, for example biodiesel is sulfur-free and in some lower blends such as B2 and B5 it's usually quoted as a "lube additive".

The only problems I have witnessed as the result of ULSD are fuel leaks - gaskets that had swelled because of the quantity of sulfur in LSD and then shrank once they were subjected to ULSD.

Myth. There was no mystery that removing the lead would remove the lubrication supposedly needed for the valve seats. Additionally, studies have shown that running an engine designed for leaded fuel with unleaded fuel under normal conditions caused no more failures than average, and could even saved the owner money since leaded fuel can be more damaging to other parts of the engine (spark plugs, exhaust system, valves). The reason to get the lead out was, of course, to allow the use of catalytic converters, as the leaded fuel would have destroyed them.

The damage to human health that the leaded fuel has caused is still being uncovered, however...

Strange, then, that so many older cars seem to be able to run just fine on unleaded gas, and some have been doing so for hundreds of thousands of miles. When's this mysterious sinking valve problem supposed to show up?

You have utterly confused politics with a socio-economic discourse.
 

I think I have answered this more than adequately. Your answers are devolving into bar-room politics with little thought and a lot of beer. But as clarification for the reader . . .

The intensity and density of settlement, industry and agriculture in places such as California and several large metro areas such as New York and it's surrounds, has required environmental measures of equally intense resolve. Most of these measures will never see implementation outside the respective zones. California pays a high price for this. Look back on the difference between 49 state and 50 state ( California ) certified vehicles. The difference was not just technical but financial. From several hundred dollars to roughly 1500 dollars at it's peak. At a certain point, the EPA spreads select mandates to other/all regions when the overall environmental and economic benefits dictate. For the most part, they do a good job. The resurgence of the American Muscle Car is a side benefit to this. Clean, green and kick-ass Mean can co-exist together.

And so must we all. Not just because our environment is tied together, but because our economy is tied together.

Choke off the water to California and you choke off one of the worlds largest agricultural food baskets. You also choke off significant sources of Bio-tech and pharmaceuticals. We could continue with electronics and defense. On and on.

The same could be said for all regions - to a larger or smaller degree. Local uniqueness is what makes traveling worth while - the differences we have. But as we hold on to those differences, we must balance that with our larger responsibilities.

There are no negative results whatsoever.
 

The sulfur coats and neutralizes the catalytic coating in the converter. This often results in a properly operating gasoline fueled engine being unable to meet emission standards well before the required 100K mile warranty runs out.

In diesel engines, sulfur provides a core during combustion for nucleation to start resulting in the large amount of smoke pouring out of old diesels of the past. Low sulfur diesel allows the DOC's and DPF's that someone else mentioned, to have a reasonable operating life between burn off purges or mechanical cleaning.

Can not speak for others, but I've had to replace valve seats in early Plymouth/Dodge 318 engines because the valves pounded themselves into the heat/seat...and personally know of similar problems happening with early Ford 6-cylinder engines...and, was TOLD (I know, 2nd hand) of similar problems with GM products.

Moreover, the private pilots were/are totally afraid of valve problems, hence their delayed transition to Low-LEAD (and NO-lead!) gasoline even now.

Today, the valve seat area of heads are inductively 'hardened' because of the loss of valve "cushioning" that lead-oxide (the end result during combustion) provided.

It happened to my 283, big time. Some of the seats receded so much the valve didn't even reciprocate anymore. At the time I too thought that since I wasn't working that engine real hard, that it would be OK. It wasn't.

To fix the older heads, hardened seats must be installed.

I'm glad my antiques don't have valves.