City Urged to Test Reputed Anti-Smog Diesel Additive

A new diesel fuel additive that purportedly improves engine performance while substantially decreasing pollutants is being recommended for tests in City of Los Angeles vehicles--even though both the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state Air Resources Board are skeptical of its value.

The additive, D-1280, marketed under the name Trucker’s Choice by the firm Renergy International of San Pedro, would be tested in 100 diesel-powered garbage trucks under a motion introduced Tuesday by Councilman Richard Alatorre.

So far, however, the product’s purported merits--especially in reducing pollutants--is based on very limited evidence.

Moreover, officials with Olson Engineering Inc., a laboratory that tested the product, disavowed findings that were cited by Renergy International in its promotional material.

Still, the sketchy test results and anecdotal testimony of truckers who have tried the product have persuaded some officials that the product is worthy of further study.

Richard Skaggs, president of Renergy International, said in an interview that although the product “sounds like snake oil . . . it works. It’s really hard to believe, I know, but it’s there.”

Morton Z. Fainman, director of research for U S Lubricants of Paramount, which developed the additive, defended his test findings and described D-1280 as “a revolutionary type of additive.”

The substance is a translucent liquid that is poured into fuel tanks. Proponents said that $12 worth, or about a quart, is enough to treat 360 gallons. Alatorre sidestepped a question of whether, under his proposal, the city would pay for the additive or use it free of charge during the test period.

The product is being registered with the EPA, he said. Such registration indicates only that the additive will not damage a vehicle’s pollution control system.

Skaggs, a former film maker who produced the 1978 documentary about acid rain called “The Sky Is Falling,” said he founded Renergy to develop products that would improve the environment. He described Trucker’s Choice as “organic” and even took a swig of the additive in his City Hall press conference Tuesday morning.

“You can drink it,” he said. “It’s not going to hurt you.”

EPA tests fuel additives at its laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich., but only if preliminary results obtained in independent testing laboratories show that the products offer some promise of effectiveness, said Merrill Korth, senior project manager. Korth had not heard of the product or the company.

“We have evaluated at least a dozen fuel additives over the last 10 or 15 years,” Korth said, “but we have never seen one that improved mileage or decreased pollutants, much less both.” Korth also noted that many additives are backed by anecdotal claims that have not been supported in laboratory tests.

Skaggs also released data from an “engineering report” produced by Olson Engineering of Huntington Beach in support of his product. The data indicated that, in a 1981 Peugeot 505-S Turbo diesel, the product improved mileage by 4.68% and decreased hydrocarbon emissions by 65.66%, carbon monoxide by 31.53%, nitrogen oxide by 3.62% and particulate emissions by 10.63%.

But James Buxton, manager of the testing division at Olson, said the company had not prepared an engineering report and had done only limited studies for Renergy.

A representative of Renergy brought the Peugeot in and had some tests performed with the additive, then took the car back, Buxton said. A month later, the representative brought the car back for further testing, this time without the additive present.

Such a procedure is “completely unacceptable” for any test, Buxton said, because the vehicle must be in the physical possession of the testing group at all times during and between the tests.

Buxton said Olson Engineering had not given Renergy permission to release the test results showing mileage improvement and fewer polluting emissions. He also noted that “I don’t ever recall seeing any numbers like that.”

Fainman responded that he had test figures showing the results he reported but conceded that he had driven the car for a month between the tests.

A spokesman for the California Air Resources Board noted that the numbers cited by Renergy appeared “strange.” Generally, said William Sessa, “when you decrease the emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide by making the engine run more efficiently, that increases the output of nitrogen oxides because they are produced during efficient combustion.”

EPA’s Korth also noted that it is not generally acceptable to use only one vehicle: “It could be you just got lucky that day.”

However, Renergy officials said at the press conference that hundreds of truckers have tested the product during the past year with remarkable success in increasing fuel efficiency, decreasing maintenance and reducing pollutants.

Councilman Alatorre said his motion should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the additive, but rather of the “need to do something pro-actively here in Los Angeles” about air pollution.