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Hybrid Bulldozers: Could it be?
12/21/06

We’ve got hybrid cars, trucks, and buses, could construction equipment be next?  It would seem so according to some corporate press releases.  Here's one from Kobelco and one from Volvo.  Hybrids could very well make sense in the construction equipment sector, where efficiencies gains can help reduce fuel consumption and lower global warming emissions. 

It turns out CO2 is not the only pollutant from construction equipment we should be worried about.  UCS recently looked at the health and economic impact from diesel powered construction equipment in California in Digging up Trouble: The Health Risks of Construction Pollution in California.  Diesel pollution from construction equipment is estimated to cause over 1100 premature deaths per year in CA, along with 1,000 hospitalizations for heart and lung disease and 30,000 asthma attacks.  The health costs associated with these impacts, along with the estimated 180,000 lost work days and 330,000 school absences related to construction pollution, total $9 billion per year. Because construction equipment was not regulated by EPA until 1996 (some new equipment did not have to meet particulate matter standards until 2003!) and the equipment has a long lifetime, the majority of construction equipment in-use today does not meet any emission standards for particulate matter.

Hybridizing construction equipment to save fuel and reduce global warming emissions is a great idea and hopefully we’ll see some production models on the market in the near future coupled with the latest emission control technologies. In the mean time, let’s not forget to clean-up the polluting equipment that’s already out there today and could be belching soot for the next 10 to 20 years. 

Posted by: Sharkey 12/21/06

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