State of the Industry 2011: An Interview with Allen Schaeffer, Executive Director, Diesel Technology Forum (DTF)

How is the diesel engine and diesel-powered equipment markets trending?

Overall reflective of economic conditions—fewer new technology/vehicle acquisitions; slowing on replacements—extending lives, tighter access to credit and uncertain business environment. On-road HD trucks showing good improvements, up to 15,000 sales August, a level not seen for over two years. Higher sales now due to uptick in freight traffic as well as pent up demand resulting from delays in new technology acquisition anxiety over new engine/emissions controls. Ag and mining seem to be going strong whereas construction still very slow owing to housing market conditions and lack of federal action in infrastructure spending.

Has the investigation in electric hybrids and other power sources hindered progress with diesel technology in anyway?

Absolutely not, we’d see them as synergistic and sustaining activities. Hybridization of diesel technology is a logical progression toward optimizing the vehicle or machine with the job at hand, and delivering lower energy consumption and GHG emissions.

But are diesel electric’s marketable on a large scale? Probably—but on a job and machine dependent way– big loaders that are big fuel consumers with lots of cycles are a prime opportunity – as are track type tractors. The same logic as today you see hybrid MDTs in pick up and delivery and refuse hauling kinds of operations – but not in long haul trucks. One has a hybrid-favored cycle and the other does not. I would add that the policymaker response to the idea of a hybrid bulldozer (referencing the Cat D7E) has a lot of WOW factor response.

As for other power sources (Natural gas, propane, etc. ) – there are some really big scale policy discussions and investments going on that could propel these (especially CNG) more into the mainstream for some still niche applications, but the jury is still out. With government funding in general being under scrutiny, these fuels will have to do more to make it on their own. Natural gas engines are successful and more choices out there than ever before, the emissions advantage over diesel has disappeared and now the primary allure is lower fuel prices. You don’t have the power density of CNG you have with diesel so there are some fundamental limitations there. But I have no problems seeing clean diesel technology compete with these fuels—the diversification of energy sources is happening. And we can see how a diesel running on higher blends of biofuels starts to look more interesting compared to natural gas, with far lower infrastructure investments.

How far has diesel technology come in the past couple of years?

If you were just waking up from a 50 year or even a 10 year nap—you would not recognize the diesel technology of today. You’d see no smoke, hear much less noise, and wonder what happened. We’ve been through a decade plus of milestones on the HDOH and the off-road world right now—everyone in industry has been running flat out in R&D and engineering to meet these incredibly low standards and still have a diesel that meets the needs of the customer.

What unique technologies have been created to continue the efficiency progression of diesel engines and equipment?

You’d have to put SCR at the top of this category. Finally, solutions to cut emissions deliver some efficiency gains for the customer! It’s about time—the customer would say. Though SCR is not a new technology per se, to go from five years ago -- a condition of no infrastructure for DEF, no standards or market, uncertainty about EPA approval… to where we are today is quite remarkable for all parties involved—OEMs, chemical industry, oil industry etc. There have been no real serious hiccups in this system – very encouraging for the customer and all parties involved.

What positive (or negative) impact has the diesel industry had on the U.S. and global economies?