California Budget Deal Recognizes Diesel’s Powerful Position
Lately, there has been a smell of discrimination rising in the air above California, where some regulators would love to completely ban some internal-combustion engines in favor of cheerful electric motors. But for most heavy-duty applications, there still is no viable alternative to the diesel engine. It is the most efficient way to move earth, build bridges and pave roads after more than 100 years of improvement including turbochargers, electronic boards, exhaust-gas recirculation coolers, high-pressure fuel injectors, particulate filters and catalytic convertors.
Few people are against cleaner air, but California’s general policy of treating diesels as though they cause black-lung disease ignores basic facts that speak for themselves: Diesel engines today are just as clean as other engines, if not cleaner. Modern construction machines equipped with clean diesels are more productive than older, dirtier ones, and therefore the incentive to replace, retrofit or repower already exists under the federal Clean Air Act. Finally, electric "hybrid" vehicles are rarely any more clean or efficient than a diesel, unless, of course, your electric hybrid is a diesel.