Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 08:22:40 -0800
Reply-To: Stuart MacMillan <stuart@COBALTGROUP.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Stuart MacMillan <stuart@COBALTGROUP.COM>
Organization: The Cobalt Group
Subject: Re: New EPA rules for gasoline
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
What I have heard the environmentalist say is that by the time the law
is fully implemented in 2010 it will have reduced air pollution at that
time AS IF 50 million fewer were on the road than actually are in 2010.
The words sometimes not spoken or heard are "as if."
This will not obsolete anyone's Vanagon or any other car! The biggest
impact will be on new SUV's and vans that will now have to comply with
the same emission standards as cars, and that will provide most of the
decrease in pollution. It is a good thing, as Martha Stewart would
say. It will just cost us a bit more at the pump and hopefully stop the
trend towards bigger and bigger SUVs like the Ford Excursion, which
ought to require a commercial trucker's license to drive.
Sulfur is what gives the rotten egg smell (hydrogen sulfide) you
sometimes get out of a catalytic converter, especially when new.
Sulfates are also formed which produce sulfuric acid in the air. Not
good.
Alan Bosch wrote:
>
> You may have heard by now the Pres. Clinton has signed in to law a bill that
> will tighten the pollution laws for cars, light trucks, & SUV's. Included in
> the law is a mandate to Big Oil that allowable sulphur levels in gasoline must
> fall from 300ppm presently to 30ppm somewhere around 2006.
>
> Now, I'm not an expert on this law. Don't know the details, etc., but I have
> heard the following two points and it has me concerned:
>
> 1) A spokesperson for some anti-pollution group stated that this is "tremendous
> legislation...it will take 54 million vehicles off American roads almost
> overnight when fully enacted..." Huh? Does this mean that any vehicle over X
> years old can not be driven? Isn't there some kind of grandfather clause?
>
> 2) The auto industry and the oil refining industry are not fightin this tough
> new law as they previously have other pollution and safety legislation. If 54
> million vehicles are made obsolete over night, I wouldn't fight it either, for
> one simple reason - $$$$$ - and a lot of them.
>
> (Here's the required Vanagon content)
>
> Is the lower sulphur levels is the next generation of gasoline going to do
> terrible things to our WBX engines? I seem to recall that there was a lowering
> of sulphur levels in Diesel fuel some years ago. It supposedly played hell on
> VW, Volvo, MB, and other automotive Diesel engines because the sulphur was
> acting as a fuel system lubricant (?) and the lack thereof caused injector and
> injector pump failure (at least that's how I remember it).
>
> Alan Bosch
> & Phred ('88 Wolfsburg)
> Rochester, NY
--
Stuart MacMillan
Manager, Case Program
800-909-8244 ext 208
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