Emission Benefits from Repowering the MV Daniel W. Wise

Background: Emissions from tow/push boats are a significant fraction of the criteria pollutants and greenhouse gases from inland river activities. These towboats are typically powered by large engine EMD Series 645 engines dating to the 1970s and meeting Tier 0 standards. One of the most economically feasible methods for significantly reducing emissions from these towboats is to remove and replace the old marine engine with a new engine meeting EPA Tier 3 standards, also known as repowering. This project replaced the EMD Series 645 engines from 1978 in the MV Daniel W Wise with EMD Series 710 Tier 3 engines. Methods: This research project was conducted to measure the emissions benefits achieved by repowering the MV Daniel Wise. In situ emission testing was conducted for three phases following accepted federal and ISO protocols. The first phase measured the baseline emission rates and factors of the existing EMD 645 main propulsion engine before the repowering took place. The second testing phase involved measuring emissions after the removal and replacement of the EMD 645 engines with the EMD 710 engines. The final phase of the research involved the re-measurement of emissions when engine completed 17,000 hours of operation and was slightly past mid-life. Results: The replacement/repower EMD 710 engine had significantly lower NOx and PM emissions than the EMD 645 engine that was replaced. Thus repowering the MV Daniel Wise towboat was significantly beneficial to the air basin that it operates. Using the midlife emissions factors, NOx emissions were shown to have been reduced 236 tons per year and PM mass emissions were reduced 12 tons per year for each of the years that the vessel operates. This result is significant to the people living in communities where the MV Wise operates. Results did not show a statically significant saving for fuel or green house gases