Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

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Yes. Some inspector who was trying to get a sample of Diesel fuel from a distributor to test for sulfur and such was told "you have the obligation to do that, but not the authority."

Here are the rules for Diesel fuel in China.[1] The official standard for sulfur has been been slowly lowered from 0.2% to 10 ppm, but enforcement is weak. There's a weaker standard for "nonroad Diesel" for tractors and such. It's observed that at night, when the blue trucks roll into Shenzhen, the pollution level goes way up, because they're using "nonroad Diesel".

The US is now <15ppm sulfur for all Diesel uses except ships. It took 25 years to get there. The EPA is (was?) trying to get ships down to 1000ppm within 200 miles of the US.

It's not that hard to enforce this, because there aren't that many refineries. China has only 75 refineries. The US has about 125. Not that many places need to be inspected.

[1] https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/cn/fuel.php

> The US is now <15ppm sulfur for all Diesel uses except ships. It took 25 years to get there. The EPA is (was?) trying to get ships down to 1000ppm within 200 miles of shore.

Already done (knowledge only due to personal interest), but it only applies within 200 miles of shore. It's also the IMO (International Maritime Organization, a UN agency) rather than the EPA. Currently the limit on open waters is at 35,000 ppm (3.5%), which will tighten to 5000 ppm in January of 2020.

Sulfur aerosols are just as bad as NOx and create just as much smog. They also turn into acid rain. They have a noted anti-geenhouse effect, but again... acid rain.

It should also be noted that there is basically zero technical or economic justification for sulfur pollution. It requires no significant inputs: a catalytic step that results in hydrogen sulfide, then a regenerating amine reaction (effectively solvent distillation), and finally the hydrogen sulfide is burnt (as in energy-producing) to produce elemental sulfur, which is sold. This is how the majority of sulfur is made.

When the blue trucks role into any of the first or second tier cities at night, you can see the pollution rise in real time.

Thank you for the explanation. With that number of refineries that helps give scope to the problem.

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