'White diesel' fuel could help bus fleets go green - Haaretz

Subscribe to Print Edition

Thu., September 06, 2007 Elul 23, 5767

Israel Time: 02:09 (EST+7)

web haaretz.com

Back to Homepage

Print Edition

Diplomacy

Defense

Arts & Leisure

Real Estate

Jewish World

National

Advertising

Magazine

Week's End

Business

Opinion

Rosner's Domain

Anglo File

Books

Travel

del.icio.us

Digg It! new

'White diesel' fuel could help bus fleets go green

By Yoav Kaveh

Paint it black. Tel Aviv, that is. While about it, paint black the coastal cities of Israel and the lungs of their residents, because on 364 days of the year - other than Yom Kippur - they're breathing in emissions from Israel's cars, primarily from the vast fleet of antiquated diesel-fired engines.

The Environment Ministry estimates that pollution kills about 600 Israelis each year. The estimate for economic damage to Israel from emissions runs to at least NIS 2.5 billion a year, including the loss of income due to absenteeism on the job, disease and death.

The worst offenders in Israel's big cities are the buses. True, they comprise only 1 percent of Israel's vehicles, but they are responsible for 25 percent of the black-particle emissions: tiny little chunks of soot and muck emitted from exhaust pipes in ebony jets that deeply penetrate our lungs and circulatory system.

	Advertisement

Electric engines, hydrogen fuels or even hybrid engines are nowhere on the horizon for Israel's public transport fleet. Simply shifting the Dan and Egged bus fleets to engines that meet the Euro 4 emission standards will take years. Only 30 percent of the Dan company's buses meet the anachronistic Euro 0 and Euro 1 standards. The number is indicative of the buses hazardous emissions.

But don't lose hope! There is news for Israel in the form of "white diesel." The fuel is an emulsion of 84 percent diesel, 13 percent water and various additives to make up the remainder. The emulsion smells like a combination of diesel and acetone and it looks like milk. Diesel engines lap it up happily and in exchange, their emissions are reduced by 30 percent.

It isn't magic. It's a product called PuriNOx, invented by American specialty chemical company Lubrizol which is based in Wickliffe, Ohio. The company is the world's biggest producer of fuel and oil additives.

The emulsion was approved, and its features recognized, by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the California Air Resources Board and the European Union. Thousands of buses throughout Europe, mainly in Italy and France, have made the switch to white diesel.

Last July, Prof. Eran Sher, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, tested the fuel on four Dan buses.

He measured and compared emissions from vehicles fueled with either regular diesel or white diesel. The results were clear: emissions of nitrous oxides (NOx) were reduced by up to 39 percent using the reformed fuel. Emissions of solid black carbonaceous particle matter (PM) dropped by up to 49 percent and the amount of exhaust emission was up to 69 percent lower.

"The principle of its operation is to break up the fuel drops with water that undergoes rapid boiling. The water drops explode and cause better dispersion of the diesel, which means that it burns more completely, and also lowers the temperature of the engine, which reduces pollution," explains Sher.

If diesel emulsions work so well, why aren't they a world standard?

"The difficulty lies in creating the emulsion. After all, water and diesel don't mix, just as oil and water tend to separate," Sher said. "Lubrizol's innovation was to create a stable emulsion in which the water and fuel don't separate that quickly."

Problem solved then? Not quite.

"The main disadvantage of the emulsion is that the water in the mix reduces the maximum capacity of the engine," Sher said. "Another disadvantage is that over time, the emulsion does tend to separate into its components: water and diesel. Therefore, white diesel is appropriate for fleets that fill up every day, like buses or trucks. It's less suitable for private cars."

Meanwhile, three entrepreneurs have gained the exclusive right to market white diesel in Israel: Avi Ovadia, formerly the chief executive of the Sonol chain of gas stations; Dr. Eran Reches, formerly the oil and fuels R&D manager at Sonol; and Lieutenant Colonel (res.) Arie Abraham, who heads the Israeli army's spare parts system. He also runs an army production facility that refurbishes and converts high-capacity diesel engines. The three are being assisted by lawyer Aviram Dweck, who specializes in energy.

The entrepreneurs set up a company called A.E.A. Kivun, which is negotiating a strategic partnership to produce and market white diesel. The company would be using Lubrizol machinery to make the fuel. When fed with diesel, water and additives, each production machine, roughly the size of a shipping container, can produce up to 100 million tons of white diesel a year. Reches sees the team starting to market the fuel in Israel within three months.

But before they start marketing, the trio needs government approvals. The first is an approval to use and provide white diesel. The three think this approval will be relatively easy to obtain because the substance has been approved in Europe.

The second approval is a bit more tricky: a partial tax exemption. With all due respect to cutting vehicle emissions and sparing our cardiovascular tissues, for the bus companies to use white diesel, it must cost as much or less than regular diesel fuel. In principle, the Tax Authority at the treasury has already agreed to exempt the water component of the mix from tax, but the entrepreneurs say it will have to make more of a concession to render white diesel economically feasible for mass use by transport companies.

"Each day that passes, another large amount of pollution is emitted into our air. It could have been avoided," said Ovadia, who's serving as the new company's CEO. "It's true that five years ago, nobody in Israel thought about the environment. But today it's on the agenda and now is the time to take another step forward and move from theory to practice."

With that, Ovadia is referring to the ministerial committee for the environment, which meets next Sunday. The committee will be discussing a range of issues in respect to air pollution. One is the possibility of incentives to encourage the use of white diesel. Several government officials have already expressed their support for the concept.

"Diesel emulsions are one of the most serious solutions available today for reducing air pollution," said Avi Moshel, vehicle emissions commissioner at the Environment Ministry. "It's become accepted in France and Italy, where it gets a tax break. From our perspective, there's a recommendation to grant a tax break in Israel too."

Cleaner air is just one benefit of the emulsion, according to Omer Sela, the director of the Economics Division at the Ministry of National Infrastructures.

Despite the water component, white diesel is actually more efficient. Adopting diesel emulsions could reduce the nation's onerous dependence on imported oil, Sela points out.

Bookmark to del.icio.us


	Prehistoric Haifa
	Hunting implements 250,000 years old were found in caves on Mount Carmel.


	Paint it black
	The Environment Ministry estimates that pollution kills about 600 Israelis each year.

Today Online


	U.S. prof. who says Jews use Holocaust to curb critics resigns
	Responses: 268


	Syrian military: We fired on IAF jet that violated our airspace
	Responses: 191


	Rights group: IDF 'indiscriminately ' hit Lebanon civilians
	Responses: 122


	Yet again, a British royal fails to make his visit to Israel official
	Responses: 105


	Editorial: Cutting off Gaza utilities illegal, counterproductive
	Responses: 60


	Arens: Only way to halt Qassams is to push them out of range
	Responses: 43

More Headlines
00:52 PM denies all knowledge of IAF entry into Syria airspace


00:55 Iran says Israel spreading regional insecurity, vows to aid Syria


01:54 Lebanon calls on Syria to reduce arms smuggling across border


23:08 ANALYSIS: The question is, how will Damascus respond?


23:38 IDF kills 10 Gaza militants; 6 die in bid to kidnap soldier


22:59 Hamas rejects Red Cross request to see abducted soldier Gilad Shalit


00:48 Peres, Benedict XVI, discuss Mideast peace efforts near Rome


23:36 Jerusalem man charged with murder escapes from mental hospital


22:23 State seeks to attach moral turpitude to Katsav's crimes


21:39 Home Front Command briefs media on possible missile attack on Israel