Originally Posted by pet05

This “new” fuel is considerably more difficult and costly to produce. The major refiners have been forced to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in order to comply with these new regulations.

Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel is derived through one of several processes the most common of which are known as “Severe Hydrotreating” and “Severe Hydrocracking”. In these processes sulfur is stripped from the fuel through the use of low pressure or high pressure catalytic cracking. These processes remove sulfur through molecular manipulation via catalysts. It is important to note that in addition to removing sulfur this manipulation also has several NEGATIVE consequences for the resulting fuel.

Sulfur is an Extreme Pressure (EP) lubricant. It is regularly added to lubricating oils and greases to increase the lubricity and to raise the amount of pressure that the lubricant can handle before the lubricating molecular barrier begins to break down. Sulfur has always been a vitally important factor in providing lubrication to diesel engine fuel pumps, fuel injectors, and to a lesser degree engine valves.

In 1993 the EPA forced the reduction of sulfur in on-highway diesel fuels from an unlimited amount (typically ˝ to 1% (5,000 to 10,000 ppm), although occasionally as high as 2% (20,000 ppm)) to a maximum of 500 ppm (.05%). At that time, there was a 12 to 24 month period where significant problems with failures of some metallic fuel system components such as pumps and injectors due to the dramatic lowering of lubricity and with seals, gaskets, and other rubber or synthetic components due to the reduction of elasticity caused by removing the sulfur. It was nearly TWO YEARS before changes were completed in the new engines that ameliorated those problems and repairs made to older engines that controlled these problems.

The reduction now being made takes on-highway diesel from less than 500 ppm to less than 15 ppm, which for all practical purposes eliminates sulfur as a lubricant in the fuel.

In spite of what the industry would like to have you believe, diesel fuel is not a homogenous product that is always the same no matter where or who you buy it from. Today’s petroleum market is almost incomprehensibly complex with diesel is derived from a wide range of crude stock, whose chemical makeup and quality varies widely. Fuel in the US is refined in hundreds of refineries, no two of which are the same, using different methods, different equipment, and under different quality controls. A significant percentage of our fuel is no longer even refined domestically, but rather it is processed in a foreign country far away from even our mediocre quality controls and regulations.

These are some facts that many of you may not be aware of:


The Below Warning Was Issued to Gas Stations:
ULSD may be more susceptible to bacterial growth, good tank maintenance (housekeeping) practices are even more important. Routine water bottom draining and tank bottom sampling should be established to ensure a clean system and the efficacy of housekeeping measures.

* - SULFUR IS A NATURAL LUBRICANT - ULSD is further processed to remove additional sulfur, resulting in fuel that contains only 15ppm of sulfur. Diesel fuel must adequately lubricate the fuel injection system components. The additional ULSD processing removes naturally occurring lubricity agents in diesel fuel.

I might be paranoid but the new ULSD reminds me of the time the EPA made pump go from LEADED to UNLEADED. All the engines that were designed to run on LEADED had exhaust valve & engine failures within 20K-50K miles. The car manufacturers started to install different hardened valve seats to prevent this from failing. The LEAD in the gas acted as an octane booster & was a great lubricant.

The ULSD has less sulfur. REMEMBER - SULFUR IS A LUBRICANT!! Now with suflur going from 500ppm to 10ppm, that is A LOT less of sulfur. The ULSD MUST ADD a lubricant to the process to protect the fuel system.

Originally Posted by Loco.Breath

B20 will take care of all of your lubricity issues.

Originally Posted by MedicShawn

according to this listing there are 15 biodiesel dealers in Idaho.

http://www.biodiesel.org/buyingbiodi...tate.asp?st=ID

Originally Posted by pet05

I am not in the fuel business or anything like that. I am just passing on the information I found.

Originally Posted by Mopar1973man

Geez! I'm not going to drive 300 miles round trip for Bio!!!

How about RIGGINS, IDAHO???

Originally Posted by Stacked97

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling"




This is nothing new, and not as much of a concern as people should be mantaining their trucks on their own. Eurpope has been running low sulfur for a long time, and it hasnt caused an epidemic over there yet...

Originally Posted by pet05

STACKED 97 stated -
"This is nothing new, and not as much of a concern as people should be mantaining their trucks on their own. Eurpope has been running low sulfur for a long time, and it hasnt caused an epidemic over there yet."

That is true but you are missing a VITAL point about the USA low sulfur fuel:

The European Union (EU) had set a standard of HFRR 460 for European manufacturers. Based on discussions within the manufacturers group the EMA has now set their minimum recommended standard at 460. (This information is available on the EMA website)

In the US, the primary body that sets the standards for fuels is the American Society for Testing of Materials (ASTM). This is a private (non-governmental) consensus group that has members from a wide range of producer and user industry groups together with representatives from various governmental agencies. This group sets all of the specifications and standards not set by the EPA. It also generally parallels any required EPA standard with a corresponding ASTM specification.

Due to its active membership leaning towards the refiners and high volume users, many of its specifications can appear to be designed to provide the lowest cost product, rather than the best product.

In the matter of Lubricity the ASTM after many years of discussion, has set its standard at HFRR 520. This is significantly less than the EMA and its membership suggest.

While this 60 point difference is unlikely to cause catastrophic failures, it will definitely increase wear on and shorten the life of components that are lubricated by the fuel. So, in Europe they are running the ULSD but they have a higher standard for lubrication than the USA. That is a SIGNIFICANT reason why they may not have as many problems as we may start to encounter.