I have a Metso 105 crusher with a Cat C9DI Tier 3. The emission weenies shut me down until I become Tier 4 compliant. I looked into scrubbers and catalytic converters but I'm not sure that's the answer. An engine change or purchasing a newer tier 4 machine isn't really practical. I'm sure I'm not the only one that ran into this, any recordation's? Interestingly, Pa. is one of 12 states that adopted California emission standards. Thanks
What part of pa you in? I havent heard of thos at tge mine sites we wind up in in the pa/wv area
Near Pittsburgh
A ‘Yinzer’are ya! I retired 3 years ago, working 10 years doing emission testing, with engine and compressor analysis as my specialty. Worked for a private company out of the Pittsburgh area traveling eight states. Increasing and unreasonable regulation was part of the reason I retired. Something doesn’t sound quite right. I could be wrong because everything is changing, but as long as you’re passing the permit requirements, I don’t think they can force you to make your engine do more than it was designed to do. If it’s not passing the testing, there’s likely something wrong with the engine, which usually can be fixed. I’ve worked extensively with some customers, monitoring the engines while tuning and always got them to pass. Sometimes just barely, but I tried to get them 25% under what was required. If you were just barely passing the regulators always kept a close eye on you. Reading through and trying to make sense of all the regulations to know what is required can be exhausting. PA Court Rejects Lawsuit to Abandon California Standards for Heavy Diesel Engines - Pennsylvania Petroleum Association On November 22, the Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg dismissed an effort by the trucking industry to force the Department of Environmental Protection to drop California’s emission norms for heavy diesel engines. The state Environmental Quality Board had declared in 2002 that Pennsylvania will... papetroleum.org
Yes, California Standards are on hold for HDD for vehicles (this was just reinstated by Trump) "In June 2023, the Department of Environmental Protection (Department) announced they would suspend enforcement of 25 Pa. Code Chapter 126, Subchapter E (relating to Pennsylvania Heavy-Duty Diesel Emissions Control Program) until January 2, 2026. The Pennsylvania Heavy-Duty Diesel Emissions Control Program (Program) applies to the manufacturers of new heavy-duty diesel (HDD) engines that are used in vehicles with a GVWR of greater than 14,000 pounds sold within Commonwealth. The Pennsylvania Program adopts California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulations by reference. This means policy adopted by California can automatically be implemented in Pennsylvania." This applies only to engines in vehicles, not to crushers and screens. I have an old 980 running around; they don't care about that. We never got to testing because the tier 3 flat-out don't make it as is; it has to be tier 4 standards.
Without knowing the details, like permitting limits and current status of the engine emissions, it’s hard to give specific help. Don’t rely on those handheld testers for your emissions information. An easy way to tell is to ask the guy using it when the last time it was calibrated. Formal testing, using much more sophisticated analyzers, requires calibration before, during and after testing. I would recommend getting a testing company with engine experience to monitor and tune to the best it can be. Have all the maintenance on the engine done before hand. Increasing the air and/or lowering the fuel pressure are a couple tricks to reduce emissions. I had plenty of customers tune to get passed the testing, and just put it right back where it was after I left the site. I didn't get a cut of the DEP fine money to turn people in. One problem I see with the crusher is the varying load. It’s running at its best maxed out. Most testing requires 90 to 100% load, not just RPM, but load, that is calculated by fuel consumption from manufacturer specs, for the duration of multiple one hour test runs, and average emissions for one hour to be less than the permit limit. If you’re still having trouble meeting the standards I think that a three-way catalyst might be the answer. None of this will be cheap and it might take the new Tier4 engine to fix this. Sorry… But there aren’t any easy answers when it comes to the EPA/PADEP.
Thanks for the information. Everything you are saying makes sense. We have a use permit for concrete and blacktop at our clean fill site so in other words we are recycling which really slowed the dump filling up. Since it is cost prohibitive to purchase tier 4 equipment the most cost-effective thing for us to do is shut the dump down to others and use it ourselves (no recycling). Since legal dumps are hard to come by that will pose a problem for others but not me. You would think DEP would embrace such an operation but not.
As I said, I retired partly because of unreasonable regulation. When I started in this we had people high up in the DEP that understood and realized that the rules are simply a guideline and could be bent slightly. Now most have moved on and their successors, many, kids fresh from college, with book only and no real world experience, are pushing the regulations to the limits and care nothing about the damage they cause. Best of luck and let me know if I can be of any help.