Late in April of this year, I am taking a trip to Germany, Switzerland and England to research diesel emission methods and also different methods of building roads, preparing building sites, and other infrastructure projects. I will be attending BAUMA which is the world's largest construction trade show in Munich April 21, 22, and 23. It would be interesting to see how they produce effectively "across the pond". Ideas appreciated. Rod Michaelson Moderator of http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/CARBoffroaddiesel/
Reasearching diesel emissions methods combined with construction methods? What line of work are you in? I'd be interested in reading some write-ups after you've poked your nose around. Post pictures. :drinkup
What line am I in that would want to know these things? I am an equipment manager for a heavy-civil-engineering company with 15,000 hp worth of equipment that averages 6.1 years old. I am out of complaince in the eyes of the State of California, for my diesel emissions; except for the $250,000 we spent for 9 retrofits. There has to be some sanity somewhere in the world. I was hoping to find some sane thinking in Europe.
April in Germany....you should be able to hit some sort of spring fest while you're over there. Pencil in a little time to hit the beer gardens. As far as diesel emissions are concerned over here, I don't think the standards are as strict as what CARB is putting in place. Over the road trucks use urea injection. I don't know what's coming as far as emissions requirements and equipment in the coming years, though. A machine must be CE marked in order to operate it in Europe. Emission are one of the many factors that are scrutinized before getting the CE stamp (most factors are safety related). Before you even get on a plane, you could locate a 2010 machine in Europe and find out what it has for emissions equipment...just to get a little background info. At the tradeshow, take some time to check out Engcon. Wheeled excavators are quite common throughout Europe. One man on a wheeled excavator with a roto-tilt can work circles around a backhoe and 2 laborers.
Thank you. I have seen the wheeled excavators and always wondered how well they actually performed. Today I get to be in front of the Califorina State Senate Commitee on Environmental Qualityor something like that). This will be in the Capitol buiilding. I have been asked to talk regarding how these regulations impact our industry. A state Senator Cox is introducing a bill to suspend the Truck retrofit law two years. This should be interesting. Never done this before. Had to go out an buy a sports coat. Rod Michaelson
Go get em Rod and thank you!
Good for you, Rod! I hope they listen. It's pretty frustrating to know that the people who make these mandates are not scientists, nor are they elected officials. As far as how well the wheeled excavators perform, that depends completely on the operator. It's not productive if it's a machine that everyone hops into to get the job done. It's best to have one expert operator that goes around and does all the tasks. Even some of the best track hoe operators stumble and fumble when they first operate a rubber duck. A good wheeled excavator operator can finish grade ready for sod or seed without having to pass a rake. Check out Atlas Rob's website. He shows some good examples of some of the applications.
I've been to Germany many times since I was a youngster, and can always remember seeing a lot of wheeled excavators over there.
As I recall the European regs for nitrous oxide or what is commonly know as NOx are far less stringent than they are here. I as recall there is a break even point in diesels where you can't go down any lower in NOx without increasing hydrocarbons and soot. The US has dropped the NOx level below the point of no return and the only way to drop the soot and hydrocarbon lower is with diesel particulate filters. What I have seen is the filters have to burn off the soot by building a fire in the filter and burning it off. It takes a fuel connection pump and igniter to make the fire. It is all terribly complicated and expensive. Maybe Europe is running the DPF systems also. I would be curious to hear about it. Thanks for the continuing the dialog Rod.
You boys talking about "rubber ducks"?
Well we ran off course of this discussion. Anyway, hope to bring back useful information from Germany and England. If anyone out there in this Forum have contractor contacts in either of those countries, it would be great for me to get in touch with them. We have to look at doing things differently here in California. The environmental movement will not go away in this state and they will keep pushing through their army of utopian-minded law student’s regulations and laws to make it harder and harder to do business here in the state. They want us to be European for some silly reason. So what does Europe do better and what do they do worse in construction methods or machinery? In my humble opinion, this is worth investigating from 30 years of a private sector heavy construction equipment management perspective and life long Californian. Rod Michaelson Construction makes sense, CARB makes non-sense.