The present US clean air regulation imposed tighter emission standards on diesel vehicles that would take effect in 2004. However, oil refiners were given up to 2006 to lower the sulphur in diesel fuel. This gap had the potential to stall large-scale adoption of diesel vehicles until the 2007 model year at the earliest.

The US federal standards require that gasoline and diesel engines meet the same 0.07 grams/mile NO_x level, reduce non-methane hydrocarbon output from the current 0.31 grams/mile to 0.125, and reduce particulate matter from 0.10 grams/mile to 0.08. California's 2007 standards are more stringent.

Members of the US Diesel Technology Forum had accused the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) of unwillingness to consider a trade-off on using diesel vehicles. According to them, the USEPA was concerned with individual pollutants and not aggregate levels of the diesel vehicle emissions. In contrast, the Europeans had been willing to balance a reduction in CO, CO₂ and hydrocarbons with a lesser reduction in NO_x and particulates.

UK plans to launch its greenhouse gas emissions trading system in Apr 2002. This is part of a government policy to reduce the pollution responsible for causing global warming which is governed by the United Nations Kyoto treaty.

This trading system is voluntary and firms are invited to bid for a share of 30 million pounds that the government has set aside to generate interest. EU had indicated that the trading system conforms to EU rules but changes might be required to ensure that the UK trading system complies with a compulsory EU emission trading scheme launching in 2005.

A recent study by the USEPA has established for the first time that particulates damaged healthy lung tissue in a clinical experiment. Previous studies had exposed people to particulates, ozone and other pollutants simultaneously, making it difficult to determine exactly what was causing the trouble. The study, published in August, revealed the toxicity of a Utah steel mill's emissions by injecting the particles into the lungs of research volunteers at the EPA's human exposure laboratory on the University of North Carolina campus.

Researchers suspect the particles interfere with the nervous system's regulation of heart rhythm and promote blood clotting, making heart patients more susceptible to cardiac arrest after breathing polluted air. Since the early 1970s, the EPA has imposed increasingly stringent limits on pollution as research reveals the threat posed by smaller and smaller particles.

At the Materials Research Society meeting at Boston, researchers from Eneco Corp. released their research on the development of a thermionics converter which can convert excess hear generated by traditional power sources into additional energy,

The thermionics converter could be used to augment existing power devices such as traditional turbines and resembles a semiconductor wafer. It contains no moving parts which makes it quieter and less susceptible to breakage than traditional power. The US Department of Defense is interested in the device as it increases fuel efficiency by up to 20 percent and could allow troops to carry less fuel with them on maneuvers. It also produces no detectable noise or electrical pollution and could be used in covert operations. The defense department has provided about $500,000 to Eneco for research over the past two years.

At a time when vehicle emissions testing program in the US is being expanded to use the On-Board Diagnostic II system, the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) has questioned USEPA of the idea of targeting cleaner vehicles instead of the older and more polluting ones.

NAS alleged that too many resources had been committed to inspect cleaner and low-emitting vehicles while there was a lack of effective ways to deal with the high-emitting vehicles. Older and malfunctioning vehicles, which usually constituted about 10 percent of the nation's fleet, typically emitted 50 percent of the most harmful air pollutants. These high-emitting vehicles should be the primary targets under the emissions reduction programs.

According to a study carried out by MCI Worldcom, out of the 11.1 million vehicle emissions tests performed during the period from Oct 1997 to Apr 2001, only 589,427 failures were found. This constitutes a failure rate of 5.3 percent. However, when the model-year 1997 to 2001 vehicle group was reviewed, the failure rate was a miniscule of 0.4 percent, proving that the newer vehicles are the cleanest of all.

A Norwegian company, Nordic Water Supply foresees that demand for clean drinking water will surge and is seeking new contracts from Mexico to Iran on top of a deal towing fresh water in the world's biggest floating bags from Turkey to northern Cyprus.

The sea-going water bags are made of a polyester fabric coated with plastic and are 2.0mm thick. They are sausage-shaped grey bags, about 200 metres long and are able to contain 35,000 tonnes of water each. Upon arrival of a special terminal, the bags are emptied and thereafter winched round a giant spool on the tug and the vessel, moderately powered at 800 horsepower. The vessel with the emptied bags can then be re-deployed for a new assignment.

USEPA has officially launched the newest ENERGY STAR energy performance rating tool for hospitals. For the first time, hospitals can now compare their energy performance to others nationwide and are eligible to earn and display the ENERGY STAR for highest achievements in adopting energy efficient products and practices.

ENERGY STAR is a voluntary program that makes it easy for consumers and businesses to improve energy efficiency, save money and help protect the environment by providing energy efficiency information for everything from new appliances to new homes.

A Madison recycling organisation has warned of advances in technology that keep beer, juices and soft drinks fresh in small plastic bottles could spell trouble for recyclers. It explains that barrier layers and colors added to plastic bottles to enhance product freshness can cause hazing, yellowing or black marks in the recycling process and thus spoiling batches of clear, recycled plastics.

At present, the new plastic containers are not yet being produced in large enough quantities to cause widespread headaches for recyclers. However, serious problems will develop when about 15 percent of the bottles normally used for beverages adopt the new technologies.

Government officials, experts and activists from 55 Asian countries had attended a 3-day conference at Phnom Penh, Cambodia to formulate an Asia agenda for next year's World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa.

An Asian task force preparing for the Johannesburg Summit estimated Asia needs US$70.2 billion a year in investment to achieve environmentally sound development. Developing countries are skeptical at the success of World Summit because of the unfulfilled promises made at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Financial assistance from developed countries had fell by 50 percent since the 1992 conference and this had in part resulted in a deficit of US$30 billions in funding for Asia.

Ideas on raising funds include a tax on international currency speculation which could generate up to US$250 billion a year and reductions in military expenditures which contribute about US$125 billion annually. The United Nations also proposed a "bit-tax" which charges one US cent for every 100 emails sent. The task force pointed out that Asia could save billions of dollars by recycling and reducing waste in energy and water use and levying taxes on polluters.