The Log
26 December 2020: Friction and Ancillary Losses—a new Technology Guide paper discusses engine mechanical losses from friction and ancillary loads.
14 December 2020: Non-exhaust emissions will soon overtake vehicle exhaust as the leading source of fine particles released into the air by road traffic, according to a new OECD report. Heavy electric vehicles with long-distance batteries could compound the particle pollution problem, despite the fact they produce no exhaust emissions [more ...]
10 December 2020: Total GHG emissions reached a new high of 59.1 GtCO2e in 2019, according to a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Fossil CO2 emissions dominate total GHG emissions (65%) and the growth in GHG emissions [more ...]
7 December 2020: Emission standards: added summary of China Light-Duty Vehicle Test Cycle (CLTC).
4 December 2020: The hte company—now on DieselNet—develops high throughput reactor systems and processes for catalyst screening and evaluation.
27 November 2020: A new report by the US EPA’s Air Enforcement Division finds that more than half a million diesel pickup trucks in the United States have been illegally tampered with their emission control systems [more ...]
26 November 2020: Updated Technology Guide paper on EGR Systems & Components—added section on two-stroke low speed dual fuel engines, where EGR is used to reduce methane emissions and fuel consumption.
24 November 2020: CDTi Advanced Materials—now on DieselNet—supplies catalyst coating technology, fuel borne catalysts, and emission control systems for heavy-duty engines.
23 November 2020: The 2020 ASME Internal Combustion Engine Fall Technical Conference (ICEF)—originally scheduled to take place in Denver, Colorado—was held on November 4-6, 2020 as a virtual event. For your reading pleasure, this is a summary of the ICEF 2020 technical papers and presentations [more ...]
16 November 2020: More updates in the Technology Guide paper on Diesel Filter Regeneration—added section on emissions during DPF regeneration.
9 November 2020: Updated Technology Guide paper Common Rail Fuel Injection—added more discussion of injector drift compensation.
30 October 2020: The Technology Guide paper titled Fossil Fuels and Future Mobility has received several updates and edits. This is a top level article that makes the point that the economy is a physical system that uses energy to convert natural resources into products and services. The quality of (fossil fuel) energy has now been deteriorating for years, which appears to be among the key reasons behind the weakening economy—a background that has been cheerfully ignored by most transportation policies and ‘new green deal’ projects.
27 October 2020: We’ve rearranged and updated some of the Technology Guide material covering diesel particulate filters with active regeneration. The former paper ‘Filters Regenerated by Catalytic Combustion of Fuel’ has been retired. The material has been moved to a new paper on thermal management using Heat-Up Catalyst Systems and to the updated paper on Diesel Filter Regeneration.
23 October 2020: Summary of the technical papers and presentations from the SAE Powertrains, Fuels and Lubricants Digital Summit held on September 22-23, 2020 [more ...]
21 October 2020: The Health Effects Institute released its annual State of Global Air (SoGA) report for 2020 (see also HEI press release). In 2019, air pollution accounted for more than 1 in 9 deaths globally, and contributed to 6.67 million deaths worldwide. For the first time, the report also includes new data on the impact of air pollution on newborns.
14 October 2020: Bankruptcies in the US oil & gas industry have hit a new milestone—the amount of secured and unsecured debts, such as loans and bonds, listed in bankruptcy filings in Q1-Q3 2020 has reached $89 billion, according to data by law firm Haynes and Boone, analyzed and reported by Wolf Richter. This nine-month total already surpassed the full-year total during the record oil-bust year of 2016. The total number of oil & gas bankruptcies so far this year, at 88 filings, remains a lot lower than the 141 filings in 2016. Back then, scores of small companies were shaken out. Now the bigger ones with multi-billion-dollar debts are letting go as the crisis is working up the ladder. The cumulative amount of secured and unsecured debts that the 490 US oil & gas companies disclosed in their bankruptcy filings from January 2015 through September 2020 has now jumped to nearly $300 billion.
13 October 2020: Our summary of China’s emission standards for nonroad engines has been updated with the recently proposed delay of China Stage IV standards and other clarifications.
9 October 2020: The 2020 ASME Internal Combustion Engine Fall Technical Conference (ICEF) will be held on November 4-6, 2020 as a virtual event. The registrations are now open! [more ...]
29 September 2020: The 11th edition of the THIESEL Conference on Thermo-and Fluid Dynamic Processes in Direct Injection Engines organized by the Universitat Politècnica de València was held September 8-11th 2020 as a virtual event. Sessions covered alternative fuels, new combustion concepts, injection and combustion, CO2 reduction and emission abatement [more ...]
24 September 2020: California governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that requires 100% of in-state sales of new passenger cars and trucks be zero-emission by 2035 [more ...]
23 September 2020: The 2020 CLEERS Workshop organized by the US DOE was held last week as a virtual event. The workshop covered all types of automotive emission control catalysts, with focus on low-temperature catalyst activity, particle filters, SCR, and passive NOx adsorbers [more ...]
16 September 2020: Weichai has officially launched the first commercial, heavy-duty high-speed diesel engine in the world to have a brake thermal efficiency above 50% [more ...]
14 September 2020: BP released the 2020 edition of its Energy Outlook, which projects that peak oil may be very close, or already happened in 2019 [more ...]
Diesel Engine & Emissions
The diesel engine is the most efficient power plant among all known types of internal combustion engines. Heavy trucks, urban buses, and industrial equipment are powered almost exclusively by diesel engines all over the world. For the foreseeable future, the world’s transportation needs will continue to rely on the diesel engine and its gasoline counterpart. However, both engine technologies have been evolving to meet two major challenges: lower emissions and increased energy efficiency.
Internal combustion engines are significant contributors to air pollution. In response, clean diesel technologies with near-zero emissions of NOx and PM have been developed and introduced in regions with the most stringent emission standards. As this trend spreads to other parts of the world, the environmental focus has shifted to climate changing emissions and energy efficiency. The environmental benefit of low greenhouse gas emissions, traditionally associated with the diesel engine, is no longer sufficient. To meet future greenhouse gas and fuel economy regulations, new technologies are being developed—low temperature combustion, waste heat recovery, powertrain electrification, to name a few—that further increase the efficiency not only of the diesel engine powertrain but the entire vehicle as well. Under low-carbon regulatory policies, the scope for potential improvements is no longer limited to engines and vehicles, but also includes life cycle effects of fuel production and vehicle manufacture.
DieselNet, the only information service exclusively devoted to internal combustion engines and emissions, is an internet knowledge base for technical and business information on diesel engines, fuels, emissions and technologies required by the clean and efficient diesel engines of the future.