THE DEBATE OVER DIESEL
Washington Post
By Warren Brown
(September 6, 2002) "Still want to pimp diesels for your industry friends whose shortsightedness promotes only modest efficiency gains?" --E-mail note from "Optimator," a diesel critic who prefers not to use his/her real name.
This note was attached to a copy of an Associated Press dispatch headlined: "EPA: Diesel Exhaust May Cause Cancer. " The story reported the Environmental Protection Agency's findings that diesel emissions from large trucks, school buses, and off-road construction vehicles "probably" contribute to cancer and respiratory illnesses. It reiterated demands from environmentalists that the auto and petroleum industries work to clean up diesel exhausts.
It seemed a straightforward story to me. Diesel emissions from large vehicles, primarily those with old-technology diesel engines, are problematic. No one wants to drive or walk behind a bus billowing black smoke. But there is no argument anywhere in the auto industry that more low-sulfur diesel fuels are needed to help bring cleaner, advanced, direct-injection diesel engines to market in the United States. Certainly, no one argues with international automotive test findings that better fuel economy can be had with diesel/electric hybrids than with gasoline/electric hybrid vehicles.
Yet Opimator's missive represents the kind of single-minded bias that hampers the development and introduction of these new diesel engines in this country, while automakers in Europe and Japan rapidly are introducing that technology in their home markets. The Optimators of America seize on any opportunity, including an EPA report that specifically cites old diesel technology and high-sulfur diesel fuel, to lambaste anything and everything connected with diesel. Only pimps would advocate using that fuel, eh Optimator?
Environmental groups and public advocates such as the Sierra Club, the Public Interest Research Group, and the Union of Concerned Scientists are less adolescent in their condemnation of all things diesel. But they are just as obtuse.
Although advanced-diesel cars have become the vehicles of choice in Europe and Japan, U. S. environmentalists steadfastly oppose diesel technology growth here largely because they want automakers to develop zero emission vehicles, otherwise known as pure electrics.
I want pure electrics, too. But I'd also like a market to go along with them. So far, that hasn't happened in the United States, Europe or Japan.
Indeed, Ford Motor Co. late last month announced that it was pulling the plug on its Norway-based Think electric vehicle division because there were not enough buyers for the cars to support a tiny production run of 5,000 vehicles per year. Since Ford took over Think in 1999, the company had managed to roll out only about 1,050 of the little plastic-bodied electric mobiles.
Critics and conspiracy theorists argue that Ford took over Think as a public relations ruse, a gimmick to look green while chasing red-hot profits in sport-utility vehicles. Some kind of a ruse! Ford paid $23 million to take over Think, which was struggling to stay alive at time of purchase. Ford invested another $100 million since then in electric vehicle battery technology. Ruse? I think not.
The problem is that the European market rejected a car that had a driving range of 53 miles before discharging its battery and that needed as many as six hours to recharge, but that cost almost as much as a fuel-efficient, long-range, decidedly more attractive and comfortable Volkswagen turbo-diesel.
What needs to occur in the United States is a more open, less politically charged discussion of new diesel technology, its benefits and drawbacks. Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich. ) has introduced a bill that he says will bring cleaner diesel engines to America. But the bill would give tax incentives to oil companies to reduce the sulfur content of their diesel fuels.
The Optimators of America are not likely to stand for that kind of tax break, even if it amounts to nothing more than a diversion of some funds from the Bush administration's $4-billion worth of subsidies for the development of more politically acceptable hydrogen fuel-cell and gasoline-electric alternative-fuel vehicles. Instead of giving a fair hearing to the Dingell proposal, Ol' Optimator probably would launch a campaign to "Throw the Pimp Out. "
Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
