Emissions from auxiliary engines may be included in future air quality monitoring in London
28 July 2015
The Mayor of London has indicated that the impact of auxiliary engines could be included in future air quality monitoring in London. This would be the first time that pollutants from secondary vehicle engines, such as on refrigerated trucks, will be measured and reported by a UK governmental body.
Dearman Engine, which is developing a liquid-air engine technology to deliver zero- emission mobile power and cooling (earlier post) highlighted the news, which came in a response to a question about the inclusion of data on NOx and PM emissions from auxiliary engines (such as those used in refrigerated transport units) in the next edition of the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI) due to be published later this year.
The written answer from the Mayor:
The next edition of the London Atmospheric Emission Inventory (with a base year of 2013) is nearing completion for publication later this year. Given the complexity of quantifying and incorporating emissions sources it is not possible at this stage to add include auxiliary engines such as refrigerated transport units. However, my officials are considering how best to do this for the following edition of the LAEI, which is likely to be published in 2017.
Auxiliary engines are generally diesel-powered and are currently unregulated, meaning they are disproportionately polluting. For example, despite its small size, the engine used to power refrigeration on trucks can emit up to 29 times more potentially carcinogenic particulate matter than a modern Euro6 diesel truck engine.
Research, conducted by Dearman, has highlighted the disproportionately damaging impact transport refrigeration units could be having. Key findings include:
There are approximately 84,000 transport refrigeration units on the road in the UK.
Refrigerated vehicles travel approximately 84.6 million km (52.6 million miles) annually in London alone.
Their refrigeration units emit the equivalent of 49,125 tonnes of CO2, 163 tonnes of NONOxx and 22 tonnes of particulate matter on London roads each year.
The CO2 emissions caused by transport refrigeration units in London every year could be equivalent to a family car driving 447 million km – that’s almost 2.4 million laps around the M25 or 11,200 times around the world.
If all transport refrigeration units in London could be made zero emission, then it would save the same amount of particulate matter as taking 327,510 diesel cars off the city’s streets.
The Dearman transport refrigeration system is currently undergoing on-vehicle trials, will enter commercial trials later this year, and will begin multi-country trials next year.
Good idea, pollution is pollution, irrespective of where it comes from.
The trick is to find ALL sources and fix the worst and / or easiest first with a Pareto analysis.
If the refrigeration units are "disproportionately damaging" then they need to be upgraded with proper pollution controls (or whatever).
And that is that: start a program to replace the existing ones with lower polluting ones ASAP. This is London, not Mumbai: it should be possible to do it without bankrupting people.
Posted by: mahonj | 28 July 2015 at 03:18 AM