The diesel engine. Without it, goods
couldn't be transported across countries, construction, farming, and mining equipment
wouldn't be as efficient, public transportation wouldn't be as good, and so much more. While the
internal combustion engine is quite literally one of mankind's most important inventions to
date, the diesel internal combustion engine takes it even further, and even though the diesel
engine has been incredibly vital to transportation and dozens of other industries, the environmental
protection agency, also known as the EPA, has spent the last 35 years slowly destroying
the diesel engine and plan to force it out of commission as soon as possible. Now, you've often
heard that the EPA has forced manufacturers to change their products or introduce new emissions
components, ultimately ruining engines and so on and so on and so on. But, nobody really goes
into the details, nobody really goes into the specifics about what years changed what and forced
manufacturers to take certain actions. So, I think it's time we get into it and find out how the EPA
has nearly completely killed the diesel engine. And before we get into this, I do want to
highlight that although the EPA has spent a lot of time basically destroying the diesel
engine and gas engines for that matter, they have done some good in this world by helping to
greatly reduce city pollution, because ultimately, that's the air that you and I have to breathe.
And if it's full of chemicals and particulates, it's really not good for our health. So, although
I don't like what they're doing as far as automobiles and forcing companies to take certain
actions, I do think that they have good intentions with what they're doing. That being said, they
are still a branch of the US government, which means at some form there's going to be corruption
and bias. So, take that for how you will. To fully understand how the EPA has slowly destroyed the
diesel engine, we need to rewind the clock to 1963 to the EPA's inception. Well, technically, in 1963
we saw the Clean Air Act of 1963, which was really just an extra step after the Air Pollution
Control Act of 1955. The clean air act was later modified to give the Department of Health
Education and Welfare, also known as the HEW, the authority to set federal standards for
vehicle emissions output as soon as 1967. Then, California, being one of the most forward-thinking
states, set out their own efforts in 1967 to curb smog, with the California Air Resources Board,
also known as CARB. Other states were also dealing with smog issues at the time, but nobody wanted
to set emissions standards in place for fear of driving away automotive manufacturers. Ultimately,
this led to the Clean Air Act being modified again to prevent states from being able to set more
restrictive emission standards than the federal government. But, because California created CARB
before this ruling, they were grandfathered in and they were allowed to keep CARB around. That takes
us forward to 1970, with air pollution across the US becoming a major political focus, which led
to president Nixon signing an executive order to create the EPA, which combined all environmental
related programs into a single entity. Just like before with the HEW agency, the new
EPA had authority to set emission standards for road-going vehicle pollution output. Now, for the
remainder of the video we're going to be looking at how the EPA has affected diesel engines,
so we're not going to be looking at road-going gasoline engines, rather we're only going to look
at road-going diesel engines. And we're not even going to look at any non-road applications, so
something like a stationary generator is really not even part of this conversation. Starting with
the very first change that the EPA made for heavy duty diesel engines we have to jump up to 1985,
which is when they first put into place a NOx output limitation, as well as a particulate matter
output limitation. Keep in mind, before this went into place carbon dioxide output from diesel
engines was limited as per the EPA since 1974, and it actually got quite a bit tougher in
1979, but it wasn't until that 1985 date that we had mentioned that we saw NOx emissions
output. These standards were set in 1985, but didn't go into effect until 1988, giving diesel
engine manufacturers just three years to come up with a plan to have their engines meet these new
standards. Keep in mind that you don't technically have to meet these standards, as you could still
build and sell non-conforming engines, however, you'd have to deal with some pretty big fines that
would more than offset any profits you generated from those non-conforming engines. As to where
those fines go and what they're funding, it's not exactly clear, but monetary fines are the simplest
and logistically the simplest form of punishment for a company building engines that fail to meet
the EPA standards. So although money won't fix the environment, it's basically the EPA's only
logical form of punishment. Keep in mind, though, diesel engines were really only used in heavy duty
applications as far as road going applications and they weren't really used in pickup trucks. Yes the
pickup trucks existed, but they barely sold and hardly anyone bought a diesel pickup truck all
the way back then. And interestingly enough, there was actually limitations on the opacity of smoke
coming out of your exhaust, so depending on if you are accelerating, if you were in peak power, or
if you were lugging around, there was a limitation to how much smoke could be output at a single
time and the opacity of that smoke depending on each mode. Fast forwarding up to 1987, we
saw another big change for heavy duty engines with the introduction of particulate matter
limitations, which was then reduced even further in 1991 and broken apart to separate general heavy
duty engines from urban bus engines, with the bus engines being required to have even lower
particulate matter output. Then again in 1994 heavy duty truck engines were once again forced to
comply with even lower particulate matter output, which was about 50% reduced as compared to the
1991 to 1993 regulations. And to help all engines meet this new standard, we saw the introduction
of low sulfur diesel fuel one year prior in 1993, which limited diesel fuel to 500 ppm. From 1994
to 1998, there were very minor changes to the requirements for heavy-duty diesel engines, but
that being said, in 1997 the EPA set standards that wouldn't take effect until 2004. These new
standards were created with the goal to reduce NOx emissions output to 2 grams per brake horsepower
hour, which was a fairly big jump, around 50% percent reduced as compared to the 1998 standard.
And in order to meet these new restrictions, pretty much every single diesel engine
manufacturer had to introduce an exhaust gas recirculation system to their engine, as well as
many of them also introducing a diesel oxidation catalyst. Interestingly enough, 1998 also had a
handful of court issues between the EPA, the DOJ, CARB, and engine manufacturers such as CAT,
Cummins, Detroit, Volvo, Mack, and more. Pretty much all of them had been caught using engine
control software which improved fuel economy but increased NOx emissions output on the highway and
the EPA ultimately considered this an emissions defeat device, and all companies involved were
punished with penalties and also forced to meet the upcoming 2004 standards by October of 2002.
Jumping up to 2006, we then saw the introduction of ultra low sulfur fuel which was limited to just
15 ppm, which is a far far cry from the 500 ppm that we saw with low sulfur diesel fuel,
and by 2007 fuel regulations were put in place with ultra low sulfur diesel fuel basically
becoming the standard across the entire nation. 2007 also brought with it the standards
that EPA had set back in December of 2000, with a massive decrease in particulate matter
and NOx emissions output. These changes were set to be phased in from 2007 to 2010, and I'd have
to suspect that window was so large because the change was so drastic that companies didn't
exactly know how to meet these standards. Technically speaking, the NOx standards were the
only part of the standards that were phased in, as the particulate matter standards were
immediately enforced in 2007. And funny enough≤ most engines actually struggled to meet the phase
in period, which is often where you see the 2007 and 2010 standards being referred to as different
standards, even though they're the same just with a ramp from 07 to 10 because of that phase-in
period. And because the 2007 standards were such a big change, this is when we saw the introduction
of the dreaded diesel particulate filter, which is actually part of the reason for ultra low
sulfur fuel's introduction, as things such as DPFs and NOx catalysts are very sensitive to sulfur
content and ultimately don't work properly with high sulfur content fuel. Jumping to 2015, we
saw NOx standards massively decrease yet again, but since then we haven't seen any changes on
the heavy duty side of things. However, looking forward, the EPA has standards set for 2024 and
2027 that will cut particulate matter standards in half or more. I'd also like to highlight that in
2017, heavy-duty engine manufacturers had to meet greenhouse gas emissions standards for fuel
economy on top of the emissions output. And up until this, point we've been looking at emissions
output limitations for heavy-duty vehicles, which the EPA defines as anything with a GVWR of
8,500 pounds or more. On the non-heavy duty side, things are even more confusing, with multiple
tiers which are then broken out into bins and honestly it's a little outside the scope of
this video as we're really more or less looking at diesel trucks and not diesel cars. That being
said, many of the emission systems that were introduced on heavy duty diesel engines were also
introduced on light duty diesel engines, as the standards were generally changed at the same date
as heavy-duty diesel engine standards. And again, while I think the EPA's efforts are a good thing
on paper to clean up the air that you and I breathe, my issue is with how they're forcing
automotive manufacturers and automotive diesel engine manufacturers to completely change their
product and introduce new emission systems that ultimately give the end consumer a significantly
worse product. Exhaust gas recirculation systems are well known for struggling with stuck valves,
clogged coolers, cracked coolers, and much more. Extreme examples of this include the six liter
Powerstroke, where the EGR system causes massive issues and can literally cause catastrophic engine
failure. And guess who has to pay for that when it happens? Not the EPA, the end consumer. Then
other parts, like the diesel particulate filter get clogged up with time and those are incredibly
expensive too. Then you have the annoying diesel exhaust fluid system, which is yet another fluid
you have to regularly refill on your truck, else your car will stop working entirely. And
really, a lot of these systems have made diesel engines so unattractive, that in industries
such as transportation, we're seeing a record number of owner operators keeping their existing
trucks on the road rather than upgrading to a newer truck with newer systems, as keeping their
current truck on the road is ultimately cheaper and their old trucks can often be more reliable
than brand new trucks. Then we have the issues such as really old diesel engines, which were
designed with high sulfur diesel fuel in mind, which are now struggling to operate at 100%
with modern ultra low sulfur diesel fuel, as the reduced sulfur content means the fuel
lubricity has been reduced dramatically. And that can ultimately lead to a lack
of lubrication across the fueling system and even more problems. And moving forwards,
we can see that these standards are getting stricter and stricter and stricter. And now we
have president Biden signing in executive orders which sets stricter targets for passenger
vehicles, light duty trucks, and heavy duty trucks. All with the goal of ultimately forcing
the road-going diesel engine out of existence by introducing standards that are so strict
that no internal combustion engine can meet. Even if diesel engine manufacturers were able
to meet these crazy strict upcoming standards, what cost would it come at? What other reliability
plaguing emission systems will be introduced? And then with diesel engines becoming so expensive
to research, design, and now construct, as you have to meet these crazy standards, who's going
to pay for that? If the engines are going to get more expensive, the person who's going to pay for
that is ultimately going to be the end consumer. Which means any goods that have to go through
transportation are going to become more expensive, and you and I are gonna have to pay for that. And
I know you might be thinking, okay well who cares? Yes, diesel engines will have to be phased out,
so we'll switch to electric or hydrogen trucks, but then there's the issue of infrastructure
which we've covered in depth in other videos, and simply put, there's a long ways to go before
electric or hydrogen-powered trucks become a reality. Including thousands of new charging
stations specifically for electric semi trucks, massive new power generation facilities, a massive
uptick in lithium mining, and so much more, which ultimately won't create a net positive on earth
for literal decades unless our power generation is almost switched entirely to renewable
sources. And all of that ultimately means that no matter how this goes down, whether the EPA
successfully kills the road-going diesel engine or not, the end result will always be an increased
cost of goods to the end consumer. Add that on top of the existing record-breaking inflation and
impending recession and you can see a long-term disaster brewing in the near future. So, that's
our breakdown on how the EPA has nearly entirely killed the road-going diesel engine over the last
35 to 50 years through over-reaching emission standards that regularly change, forcing the
automotive manufacturers to go through a lot of research, design, and development fairly
regularly, making their engines more expensive, less reliable, and ultimately the person
who pays for it is not the EPA, it's the end consumer. If there's anything you want to add
to this video, anything that you think I forgot, or any links to any studies or other EPA report
or other relevant information to this video, please drop it down in the comments below, I'd
love to hear what you guys think about this and what you think about the EPA and what they've
done. While you're down there, get subscribed so you don't miss out on future videos, check
out some of the other stuff on the channel, smash the thumbs up button if you enjoyed the
video, and I'll see you guys in the next one.
