Chicagoans may not think of it as an honor to have been singled out by the Environmental Protection Agency as one of America`s nine smoggiest cities, but this smog cloud does have a silver lining of sorts. It means Chicago and its environs will be one of the first areas in the country in which motorists will be able to buy reformulated gas for their cars.
Under the terms of the Clean Air Act, as amended last year, beginning in 1995 only reformulated fuel may be sold in Chicago and the other metropolitan areas with the dirtiest air. Reformulated fuel is a gasoline in which the formula has been altered in an attempt to significantly lower concentrations of harmful auto exhaust emissions. As the oil companies have discovered, however, producing such a fuel isn`t just a matter of deciding to do it. Not only does the fuel have to meet the EPA`s standards, it has to give motorists the kind of performance and mileage they`re accustomed to, and do these things at a reasonable price.
That calls for a lot of testing. A good part of the work on reformulated fuels is being done at the National Institute for Petroleum and Energy Research at Bartlesville, Okla., which is operated by IIT Research Institute
(IITRI) of Chicago. So Chicagoans who may not be particularly happy about inhaling all that polluted air can at least take pride that a Chicago-based institution is in the forefront of those working on a solution.
By the way, if you`re curious as to the other winners of the EPA smog sweepstakes, they are: Baltimore, Hartford, Houston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Philadelphia and San Diego.
