Detroit – While conventional oil supplies may only last another 40 years or so, conventional liquid diesel and gasoline will continue to dominate the share of transport fuel demand for several decades to come, Shell explained at the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s 13th Diesel Engine Efficiency & Emissions Research (DEER) conference here.

Marathon Petroleum is asking members of ASTM Subcommittees D02.05 and D02.E if they’ve discovered instances of “false positives” for red dye in diesel fuel at refineries.

PSA-Peugeot last week announced a business plan that not only includes strengthening its position as a carmaker with the lowest average CO2 emissions but also becoming the “most competitive carmaker in Europe.”

Unveiled by PSA’s CEO Christian Streiff, the plan includes reducing vehicle average CO2 emissions in Europe “by at least 10g/km,” he said.

Detroit – It’s been a long wait since Cummins fitted a 1929 Packard sedan with a diesel engine.

Now, Cummins is about to jump into full-scale production for Chrysler light-duty pickup trucks with a diesel engine/aftertreatment system that fully complies with super-tough U.S. EPA Tier-2, Bin-5 emissions limits.

At the Frankfurt auto show this month, Ford promises to unveil an “Econetic” diesel car touting what it calls “ultra-low CO2” emissions for the European market.

The car, emitting just 115 grams/kilometer of CO2, will employ a “combination of the latest common-rail diesel powertrains together with other carefully-selected features engineered to reduce CO2 emissions to the absolute minimum.”

Detroit – The difference between gasoline and diesel retail prices in the U.S. has wildly varied over the last two years. But if car-buyers expect to compensate for the higher initial cost of diesel cars, then gasoline fuel needs to cost more – consistently.

That was the message from American Petroleum Institute senior manager Jim Williams at the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s 13th Diesel Engine Efficiency & Emissions Research (DEER) conference here last month.

Detroit – The North American popular news media might not be exactly ga-ga over diesel, but it’s far more positive or at least neutral nowadays compared to past years.

So far this year, there has been a huge surge in general media coverage on diesel, as Diesel Technology Forum executive director Allen Schaeffer explained to U.S. Dept. of Energy’s 13th Diesel Engine Efficiency & Emissions Research (DEER) conference here.

Detroit – Continuing strength in world-wide demand growth for diesel is one of the key reasons behind Marathon Petroleum’s decision to build the first new refinery in North America in 30 years.

The $3.2 billion, 180,000 barrels/day expansion (due to come on-line in 2009) of Marathon’s existing Garyville, La., refinery is essentially the equivalent of building a brand-new refinery, as Marathon fuels technology manager Mike Leister explained to the U.S. Department of Energy’s 13th Diesel Engine Efficiency & Emissions Research (DEER) conference here last week.

According to the latest U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) survey, refiner production of ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD of up-to-15-ppm sulfur) hit 3.19 million barrels/day for the week ending August 30.

Detroit – Automotive technology supplier Delphi reveals that its reformer-driven combination Lean-NOx Trap (LNT) plus selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system is moving beyond the lab and into the Texas diesel emissions retrofit program.

Meantime, a somewhat similar reformer-driven LNT/SCR system from competitor Eaton is undergoing tests in real-world, medium-heavy-duty test vehicles.

Detroit – Delphi’s new exhaust ammonia sensor would enable diesel engine makers to cut nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions by >90% via electronic closed-loop controls and without the cost of an ammonia-slip catalyst.

The scheme could boost the prospects for urea-SCR in more future clean-diesel engines, although it wouldn’t solve the problem of creating a urea refueling infrastructure.

Global automotive technology supplier Delphi will show-off several new high-efficiency, high-performance technologies including gasoline direct injection (GDI) at the annual Frankfurt Auto Show starting September 13.

In an Aug. 22 news bulletin, Delphi said the GDI is “optimized for the increasing use of turbochargers and bio-fuels as a flexible, cost-effective solution to global pressures on emissions and CO2 emissions.

Detroit – Thanks to a new exhaust-gas sulfur-trap scheme, Toyota’s “diesel particulate NOx reduction” (DPNR) system for light-duty diesel vehicles is starting to show potential for possible U.S. EPA Tier-2, Bin-5 certification, if Toyota ever decides that diesel cars are worth marketing in North America.

As explained to the U.S. Department of Energy’s 13th Diesel Engine Efficiency & Emissions Research (DEER) conference here last week, the latest version of DPNR includes a sulfur trap upstream of the combined catalyst system for particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) reduction.

Detroit – Automotive engineering consultancy Ricardo reveals that it plans to roll out a real-world demonstrator diesel passenger vehicle achieving U.S. EPA Tier-2, Bin-2 limits by December 2007.

Most of the nitrogen oxides (NOx) reduction will be achieved by engine measures, so that a lean-NOx trap (LNT) will be relatively small (50% smaller than would otherwise be required), Ricardo researcher Mark Kuhn explained to U.S. Dept. of Energy’s 13th Diesel Engine Efficiency & Emissions Research (DEER) conference here.