(The following article by Erik N. Nelson was posted on the Oakland Tribune website on December 15.)
OAKLAND, Calif. — To combat emissions from the Port of Oakland and other U.S. freight depots, Union Pacific railroad on Thursday began testing a new scrubber that burns and filters soot from locomotive exhaust at its Oakland railyard.
“It’s part of our industry’s continued effort in looking for cleaner, more fuel-efficient locomotives,” said Mark Davis, spokesman for the Omaha, Neb.-based railroad giant. “We looked at 14 different filtering technologies and this one made the most sense and best fit the rail industry’s needs.”
The ungainly sheet-steel-covered box was placed just in front of the 1,500-horsepower General Electric switching engine, which was built in 1982. The locomotive was overhauled last year to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards for pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, but not the small soot particles that can become lodged in human lungs and cause various respiratory ailments such as asthma.
HUG Engineering, one of the world’s top makers of pollution-control devices for older rail and marine engines, made the scrubber and is testing it on six other locomotives in its home country of Switzerland.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway plans to test a scrubber in Los Angeles, Davis said.
The test was no surprise to Margaret Gordon, co-chairwoman of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project: “The rail companies are only doing this because they’ve been sued twice, and last year the (California Air Resources Board) signed an exclusive (memorandum of understanding) with them,” she said.
That agreement requires both Union Pacific and BNSF Railway to reduce emissions and conduct health risk assessments for all of their major rail yards in the state.
To Lee Jones of North Richmond, another area that feels the brunt of locomotive, truck and ship exhaust, the railroads are moving in the right direction.
“I think it’s great that they are looking at technology to cut down on the (soot particles) from the trains,” said Jones, who has been active in efforts to reduce smog from freight traffic. “I was wanting to invite them to use the (BNSF Railway’s) Richmond yard as a lab.”
The diesel particulate filter attached to the yard locomotive will be tested for a year to determine its effectiveness.
The manufacturer promises an 80 percent or more reduction in particulate emissions and its durability, Davis said.
The filter is made up of small channels running through silicon carbide, which captures the bulk of the unwanted carbon particles. A diesel-fired burner periodically heats the silicon carbide, burning the particles into a small quantity of carbon dioxide gas, which is released, according to Union Pacific’s literature on the device.
“It’s great to see individual fleet owners stepping up and starting to do their part in reducing their own impacts,” said Swati Prakash, research associate with the Oakland-based Pacific Institute environmental group.
People living around the area’s ports are also subject to emissions from massive container ships and tankers, which have only recently begun to convert to alternative fuels and consider steps such as “plugging in” to power supplies while in port instead of running engines.