PI
Marshall Miller
Additional Researchers
Lew Fulton, Andy Burke
Description
Several regulations impact NOX and GHG vehicle emissions. The US EPA has strict air quality standards (2023 and 2032) that require very low NOX vehicle emissions. California has GHG and fossil fuel reduction goals in the 2030 timeframe. Low NOX engines significantly reduce NOX but with fossil NG have a relatively modest on GHG emissions. Renewable natural gas (RNG) can have very low GHG emissions, but there are issues related to cost, production volume, and competing uses. NOx emissions from diesel engines can be reduced, but the engines still produce significant GHGs and may not lower NOx emissions enough. ZEVs reduce NOX and GHGs but have cost, timing, and range concerns. We would examine the tradeoffs among advanced diesel, low NOX technologies with RNG and ZEVs looking at fuel pathways, vehicle and fuel costs, and technology timing.
We will undertake initial analysis to compare the NOx and CO2 impacts of a range of technologies in different applications, use cases, etc. We will investigate and plan out an approach for using our truck models linked to spatial analysis to produce localized emissions of NOx to understand the effect of new technology market penetration on air quality, and we may begin to undertake this modeling development effort, but do not expect to have results from such a system in 2019. That effort would be a major project for 2020, under Phase II of the project.