Happy April 22nd to you dear reader, or as our more nature-loving friends decided to call it, Earth Day. It can’t hurt to have 24 hours just to think about how to keep this big world clean and beautiful, and lately, the discussion is including diesel fuel in a positive light.

A white handkerchief behind a diesel exhaust pipe, demonstrating how clean diesels have gotten in recent years.

A recent press release by the Diesel Technology Forum went into detail about how the environmental community is warming to diesel, which is good because of diesel’s proliferation in the world and its importance in everything from shipping to agriculture. DTF is making light of diesel’s innovation as clean energy with the photo of a white handkerchief held up against a stack exhaust pipe, blowing freely and untouched by dirty soot, which wasn’t always the case.

“[Is this picture] a scientific validation of diesel’s near-zero emissions?” asks DTF’s Steve Hansen. “No, but for a technology that was long defined as dirty with very visible black smoke emissions, this image symbolically represents just how far we’ve come.”

Graphs from Diesel Technology Forum showing the steady decline in greenhouse gas production in diesel motors.

Citing the development of cleaner diesel production, fuel injection, turbocharging, selective catalytic reduction (SCR), and particulate filters, Hansen makes the case that we as diesel enthusiasts are now part of a “proven system” in this “new generation of clean diesel.” He states: “Today, over 40 percent of the commercial heavy-duty truck fleet on the road sports a new technology clean diesel engine, with near zero particulate emissions. Of that, about 25 percent are new than 2010 with even more technology that reduces emissions of nitrogen oxides to near zero levels.”

So breath easy, fellow dieselheads. You’re doing it in league with none other than the American Lung Association (pun intended), whose 2016 “State of the Air” report found that “retirement of older diesel engines” has improved the quality of the air we breathe. We may roll coal on occasion, but it’s good to know the technology and implementation is there to balance it all out.