Cummins To Stay With EGR For '07

      Cummins Inc. will continue using cooled exhaust-gas recirculation on the diesels it builds as of Jan. 1, 2007, when the next round of federal exhaust emissions limits takes effect. Cooled EGR will work with a particulate trap to meet the upcoming standards better than selective catalytic reduction, or SCR, being promoted by other manufacturers.
      Navistar International's Engine Group previously announced that it would stay with cooled EGR in '07 because it works well and will be better for customers. They won't be bothered with finding urea, which is added to the exhaust stream in the SCR process, International said.
      Other engine builders have not announced their plans for '07, but are expected to soon so that they and fleets have sufficient time to test the newly configured engines. Builders owned by European firms tend to favor SCR partly because that's what they're using to meet new emissions limits there; they also say it's simpler than EGR.
      But officials at Cummins, which will also use SCR in Europe, say it won't work nearly as well in the U.S. "It's easier to get an 80% reduction in NOx [starting] at 10 grams [in Europe] than an 80% reduction with 2.5 grams," which must be done here, contends Tom Kiefer, Cummins' executive director of marketing. The "dosing rate" of urea would be 6 to 7% in the U.S., not the 3 to 4% that other manufacturers are saying.
      Cummins will add a particulate trap to its '07 engines, but the engines themselves will get no additional equipment, Kiefer says. However, they will cost more, and at about the same rate of increase as October '02/January '04 diesels.