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A Clean Machine? Solution to Snowmobile Pollution May Be on Park's Horizon
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
March 20, 2000
By Scott McMillion
Chronicle Staff Writer
Scientists in Bozeman and Idaho say
they may have a solution to the vexing
problem of snowmobiles spewing tons of
pollution into the otherwise pristine air of
Yellowstone National Park.
The patented new technology [has] already [been tested for] limited use by the military and in some airplanes, but establishing commercial footholds may be a challenge.
In a nutshell, the new technology would
shift modern internal combustion into
reverse: It transforms a catalytic
converter, the device that removes most
pollution from car exhaust into the
equivalent of a spark plug.
"We've taken it out of the tailpipe and
put it in the engine," said Mark Cherry,
who invented the technology, which goes
by the trademarked name of SmartPlug.
The technology greatly reduces
emissions, lets machines run on a watery
alcohol mixture instead of an oil and gas
mixture, and increases power and efficiency.
At least one snowmobile manufacturer,
Bombardier of Canada, is sniffing around
the project, Cherry said.
The National Aeronautics and Space
Administration has helped develop the
technology and the Environmental
Protection Agency was interested enough
to give a $70,000 research grant with the
possibility of a lot more money to come.
The EPA is interested because it wants
to support all sorts of projects that could
prevent air pollution, said Kai Peele, a
grants administrator in North Carolina.
The agency also ruled last year that the
snowmobile industry has until 2005 to
greatly reduce emissions. Unlike cars, the
machines are unregulated at this time but
the EPA considers them a significant
source of pollution.
That deadline gives snowmobile makers
an incentive to clean up their exhaust.
Cherry is hoping his technology will help
meet that goal.
"I'm hoping to get a sled running on it
sometime this year," said Cherry, who
jokingly referred to himself as "the mad
scientist."
But he's also a man who, if everything
works right, could change how the world
uses motors in everything from airplanes
to jet skis.
Montana State University's TechLink
Center has been helping with the process.
TechLink, formed in 1996, transfers
technology from government or university
laboratories to the open market, said Ray
Friesenhahn, TechLink's interim director of
electronics and telecommunications
initiatives.
Here's how the new motor technology
works:
Instead of being burned by spark plugs,
fuel is fired by a "precombustion chamber"
- a hollow brass device that contains a
ceramic rod coated with a platinum-based
catalyst. Instead of a distributor, wires and
timing belts, the SmartPlug needs only a
small amount of current from a battery to
start the engine's combustion process and
force fire into a motor's cylinders.
After initial ignition, the heat of
combustion keeps the process going.
The Smartplugs can be calibrated for different engines and different fuels. For example, the military is already burning diesel fuel in portable two-stroke engines similar to those of chainsaws and snowmobiles. Airplane [engines have been tested] using Cherry's technology, too. Tests with a variety of
fuels show better performance and less
vibration, along with reduced weight
because many electrical components are
eliminated.
Early models had trouble with the
porcelain withstanding high temperatures,
so TechLink enlisted NASA ceramics
specialists, who helped design
improvements, Friesenhahn said.
The EPA grant focuses on
improvements for jet skis, a sort of
snowmobile for the water, which already
have been banned from California
reservoirs because they spew so much
pollution.
Two-stroke motors cough as much as
40 percent of fuel right out the tailpipe,
Friesenhahn said, and the SmartPlug can
improve that situation.
It would allow jet skis and
snowmobiles to burn a mixture of 60
percent alcohol and 40 percent water
while boosting performance. While the
motors would still waste a lot of unburned
fuel, the alcohol is biodegradable and
could even improve water quality in some
cases by breaking down nitrogen in the
water.
Plus, the SmartPlug reduces emissions
of nitrous oxide and carbon monoxide by
90 percent. It eliminates sulfur dioxide and
carbon dioxide emissions and cuts hydrocarbons by 65 percent.
You'd think that with such promising
technology, industry would be beating
down Cherry's door.
But there are hurdles.
The automobile industry, for example,
makes a lot of money selling catalytic
converters, Cherry said, and is skeptical
of new technology.
"It¹s the not-invented-here syndrome,"
he said. Everybody's used to doing it the
way it's always been done for 120 years."
Plus there¹s a huge infrastructure -
parts suppliers, gas stations and others -
that relies on traditional internal
combustion.
That's why his company is focusing on
snowmobiles and jet skis for now. They
could be easily retrofitted with the
SmartPlug system, localized
fuel-distribution systems in places
Yellowstone would be fairly simple, and
the EPA is coming down on the high
polluting vehicles, giving the industry an
incentive to investigate new ways of doing
things.
"It sounds intriguing," said Ed Klim,
president of the International Snowmobile
Manufacturers Association.
Manufacturers are working on other
ways to reduce emissions, he said, but he
cautioned that any new technology must
undergo lengthy and rigorous tests.
Durability and reliability are big
concerns, he said, as is product liability. If
a manufacturer makes a promise, he said,
the product "darn well better do it' and
snowmobiles often have to perform in
incredibly bad weather.
But even if the technology is proven in
the field, that may not be enough to
guarantee success in the modern
economy.
"The better technology doesn't always
win," Friesenhahn said.
You can't just build it, Cherry said, you
have to sell it. So he is hoping to license
the technology to a company that already
has the physical plant, reputation and
finances to produce and sell the plugs.
"It¹s going to be live or die by better
marketing and financial resources," he
said.
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