ICCT in the media

Asian Clean Fuels Association: In Conversation with Michael Walsh

ICCT Chair Michael Walsh is featured in the Asian Clean Fuels Association News in the most recent issue (May 2011). An excerpt:

“I think the lead fight is pretty much done,” Walsh said. “I consider that a major success story. Lots of people played very important roles in that. Not just me.

“Sulfur is the big fuel challenge we are facing around the world right now,” Walsh said. “Some use the phrase, ‘Sulfur is the lead of the 21st century.’ In order to use advanced diesel control technology, the particulate filter which gets all the very small and hazardous particulates, we have to have sulfur down to 10 ppm.”

It appears the world has a ways to go. China and India have gone to 350 ppm sulfur content in diesel fuel nationwide, with a few of their big cities down to as low as 50 ppm. Brazil is scheduled to introduce very low sulfur fuel in 2012, but will still have high sulfur fuel available. In Mexico, sulfur is limited only along its U.S. border. The rest of the country is still 500 ppm.

Walsh said that in Asia, Beijing is leading the way toward cleaner fuels and tightening emissions standards, along with Japan and South Korea, which also have aggressive standards and policies.

[…]

Asian countries need to alter fuel content to effect change, Walsh said.

“The key to cleaning up vehicles is now clearly linked to the fuel. Vehicle pollution standards andfuel quality have to be treated as a system. Fuel quality itself has become the biggest impediment to cleaning up the vehicle pollution because the most sophisticated control policies rely on clean fuels and if you don’t have clean fuels, that will damage or in some cases destroy” vehicle pollution control technology and equipment, Walsh said.

See the full interview here.

Fuels