By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

LEBANON, Ind. — As the federal government requires ever cleaner exhaust from heavy duty diesel vehicles, engines need to be outfitted with more and specialized parts. Fuel providers, too, have had to step up with more refined product.

In 1993, Mick Calvin said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began requiring production of low-sulfur diesel fuel; in 2006, refiners had to start producing ultra low-sulfur diesel fuel, which is only 15 ppm (parts per million) sulfur compared to low-sulfur’s 500 ppm. By 2014, he said all diesel engines will all have to run on the ultra low-sulfur fuel.

As business development manager for CountryMark, an American-
owned oil refining and marketing company operating in four Midwest states, Calvin talked at last week’s Farm World Expo about the Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) CountryMark will be selling next year. DEF is part of the latest in a chain of required improvements to heavy duty (3/4 ton or more) trucks designed to create exhaust that will, in Calvin’s words, pass EPA’s “white glove” tailpipe test.

“That’s how extensive these regulations are in regards to the 2010 engines,” he added. These include the diesel particulate filter and parts for exhaust gas recirculation, crankcase ventilation and, next year, selective catalytic reduction (SCR). Calvin said SCR technology uses DEF to cut down on harmful emissions.

DEF is made of urea and water, according to its Material Safety Data Sheet, and is so far thought to be nontoxic and nonflammable. It produces an ammonia smell and freezes at 11 degrees Fahrenheit. Calvin said it has a shelf life of 6-12 months and begins degrading at 86 degrees.

A tank will have to be mounted on truck engines to deliver the DEF – a small tank, with the SCR hardware, will add about 200 pounds to vehicle payload, according to Calvin’s information. He said this technology has been used in Europe for the last few years. Usage has shown an increase in engine efficiency of 3-5 percent, he added.

A gallon of DEF goes much further than the diesel fuel with which it works. Calvin gave an example of driving 20,000 miles a year in a truck that gets, at worst, 10 mpg – in a year, that would be 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel. For every 1,000 gallons, he said, the truck only needs 20-30 gallons of DEF. (He did say trucks manufactured before January 2010 will not legally have to be retrofitted with SCR hardware.)

With more cost in manufacturing for this new technology and the cost of the DEF – Calvin said it could be $2-$6 per gallon, but that “the market will set the price” depending how widely it’s distributed – why would anyone want to buy a 2010 or later model heavy duty truck before they need to? Calvin said fuel efficiency and cutting down on pollution could be two motivators. “The whole thrust behind this is cleaner air,” he said.

He gave a rundown of what some equipment manufacturers will be doing with SCR. John Deere will not be adding SCR technology to its diesel engines until the 2011 models, though it is incorporating other aforementioned technology next year. AGCO will incorporate SCR hardware into some of its 2010 engines.