Major advances in fuels and engine technology have helped New Zealand close the gap on overseas developed markets as fuel quality has increased and emissions have decreased, as a result of Government regulation, driven by international emissions reduction compliance.
Over a six year period from 2002, sulphur levels in NZ’s diesel fuel reduced from 3000 parts per million (ppm) to 10ppm, which allowed for Euro 4 & 5 diesel vehicle technology to become a part of today’s regulatory framework, but complacency is not an option for the diesel industry.
As widely reported in June last year, Diesel emissions, long suspected as being linked to cancer were reclassified by the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, as being a Group 1 carcinogen – a reclassification that meant that emissions from diesel exhaust could be directly linked to causing cancer in humans. The previous 1988 classification placed diesel emissions as Group 2A: ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’.
Of particular concern are the particulates diesel emits which are usually composed of carbon and trace toxic substances. Some of these very fine particulates can get into the lungs, causing a range of symptoms including, in the extreme, premature death.
That finding increased pressure on diesel engine manufacturers to go even further in reducing harmful heavy vehicle emissions.
The diesel emissions cocktail also includes NOx (oxides of nitrogen), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and Nitric Oxide (NO). NO2 is known to cause lung damage in children. With New Zealand’s high asthma rate, this concerns health officials as a public health and cost issue.
So while real progress over the last ten years has been made in reducing harmful emissions, it remains incumbent on manufacturers of diesel powered vehicles to do more.
Diesel Engine Fluid (DEF) or Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) products are increasingly used in the battle to reduce emissions of harmful particulates in developed markets, including here in New Zealand.
This growing competitive NZ market around DEFs includes major names such as Z, GoClear, SCR Solutions and Chemgroup, with more certain to follow as transport and agriculture looks to comply with tightening emissions regulations. Urea solutions are beginning to get under the industry’s skin as SCR and DEF becomes a part of the industry’s lexicon.
If being linked to cancer was not enough to contend with, just over the horizon, according to Marcus Butterfield, Orica Chemicals’ GoClear market manager, European consumer trends increasingly lean toward buying local products, or being able to quantifiably measure(using advanced RFID technology) the energy output expended along the supply chain to bring that product to market.
Butterfield believes that in addition to emissions reduction being a current and on-going issue, energy output management will also become an issue for NZ exporters, and this will distil down to impact upon transporters and hauliers.
The conversation will become one of both macro and micro energy management along the supply chain, as much as emissions reduction says Butterfield.
“It will be increasingly incumbent on producers to ensure that they have managed their energy output as efficiently as possible,” Butterfield states.
“The energy efficiency of the transporter will be a key part of that picture, so an exporter with robust energy management processes will not use a transporter with poor energy management.” says Butterfield. Much as farmers need to look beyond the farm gate, so transport will be required to look beyond the horizon and prepare for such market-driven regulation.
Look out for DIESELtalk’s Focus on Diesel Engine Fluids and emissions in May.
