MachineryLink

A Possible Tier 5 Could Be Win, Win

Jim Patrico
By  Jim Patrico , Progressive Farmer Senior Editor
A Tier IV Final engine like this one from JCB is complicated and expensive to produce. Tier V engines could be on the way. (Photo Courtesy of JCB)

Farm Equipment manufacturers staggered across the Tier 4 finish line in 2014 having spent billions to develop and implement engines that meet government clean air standards. Their customers, too, have spent large amounts to buy the cleaner, more expensive, engines.

If rumblings in the industry are correct, a new round of clean air standards is in the cards for off-road diesel engines. That means tractors, combines, self-propelled sprays and other tools key to farm productivity. No targets have been chosen and no timetables have been set, but 2025 is one guess by Europeans. This time, farm equipment manufacturers hope regulators will take a different path to cleaner air, one that will mandate improving efficiency to reduce pollution.

Regulators' strategy for removing gases and particulates during the first four tiers was to limit what comes out of exhaust pipes. To that end, engineers created engine devices to eliminate gases and trap particles. The first few rounds actually yielded benefits for the end user: The new engines were more efficient and used less fuel to do the same work. As a result, customers paid more for the vehicles but got something in exchange -- lower fuel costs.

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Later tiers, however, produced cleaner air but at the cost of decreased fuel efficiency and with the added expense of a liquid additive to do a final scrubbing of exhaust.

If there is a Tier 5 -- and if it does focus on reducing emissions in the same way as the previous tiers -- farmers can expect steeper initial costs and higher operating expenses.

European Commissioners are already working on the next round of regulations. North American governments probably are too, just less publicly at this point in the process. Whatever happens, manufacturers dearly hope any new rules will be uniform on both sides of the Atlantic so they don't have to develop and maintain two distinct product lines.

But what if regulators were to take a different path to cleaner air? Some European manufacturing executives I recently spoke with suggested that rather than limiting emissions, regulators should rely on setting tougher fuel efficiency standards in much the same way the Federal government now sets such standards for cars and trucks. Over the years that strategy has significantly reduced air pollution while also creating vastly more efficient vehicles, which saves their owners money. Win, win.

Admittedly, miles per gallon is a straightforward benchmark for regulators to use for automobiles. Fuel efficiency for tractor engines, however, might be more complicated. But the Nebraska Tractor Lab in the U.S. and the DLG in Germany already rate diesel engines' power. Surely, they could help establish verifiable efficiency standards that could be used to set goals.

The European execs I spoke with were not optimistic that the European Commission would accept efficiency standards as a means to their clean air ends. The commission is much more attuned to on-road vehicles than off-road equipment, the execs said. It might, for sheer lack of trying, stick with an emissions reduction strategy. If it does, and if the U.S. follows the commission's lead, it will be a missed opportunity to save fuel while reducing pollution.

(CZ)

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FJones1238385474
12/25/2017 | 4:58 AM CST
Video clips, sporting activities, information, songs and also all in HD imobdro You could stream all the media material readily available online.
Bonnie Dukowitz
3/19/2015 | 8:40 AM CDT
I have nothing against clean air. Could someone please figure out cost and emissions of keeping DEF equipped engines in a heated shop in order to feed the livestock in cold weather. Tank heaters and #1 fuel used to accomplish this. Does the additional energy consumption provide a net gain?