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Diesel emissions are harmful, and operators across the globe face a stark choice: adapt your engines voluntarily, or be forced to by law.

When talking about the environment there is always a cost, whether it is to the world or your company's profit and loss.

However, with the glut of used machines pouring out of Europe at the moment it is easy to lose sight of clean concerns and ‘invest' in smoky, inefficient old equipment.

Pollution

There are two reasons why plant operators should concern themselves with emissions. Firstly, there is the global warming issue that we have been hearing so much about recently.

Anything that burns will emit a certain amount of CO₂, the most common of the six greenhouse gasses that contribute to climate change.

The more carbon that your plant emits means the closer we are to bobbing past the top of the Etisalat building on old inner tubes as the flood waters rise - it as simple as that.

The other threat is to the local environment from the millions of tiny soot particulates emitted in exhaust fumes.

These will get in the lungs and will make seriously ill anybody who has to breathe them in all day.

Of course this means your site workers, especially if the site you are working on is underground or at least partially enclosed.

Besides soot, which is a carcinogen, diesel engines also produce unburned hydrocarbons that are likely to cause throat and eye irritation.

If this wasn't enough, all engines and especially older ones, produce carbon monoxide, an odorless and colorless gas that inhaled in any quantity will lead to brain damage and even death.

Employees are never at their most productive when they are ill, so there is a distinct correlation between investing in modern, clean machinery and increased productivity.

Deadline

Even these facts won't move everyone to change. However, there is a more immoveable deadline. By 2010 pretty much all of the plant sold around the world will need to meet new and tough international emissions standards.

Though these emission standards haven't reached the Gulf yet, with growing environmental awareness as exemplified by the recent climate change conference in Abu Dhabi, it can only be a matter of time.

Also, manufacturers are looking at developing ‘world standard' engines that can be used in any market, rather than the various types currently on sale.

This means a switch to Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD), which could soon become mandatory anyway. It isn't available in the UAE yet, though, the region's oil producer ENOC is working on it and says it will be ready in ‘maybe a year'.

A cleaner alternative is compressed natural gas (CNG) Either petrol or diesel vehicles can be converted to run on this fuel.

While not exactly perfect for a happy planet, it is significantly lower in soot and NO₂ than regular diesel.

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