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Page added on June 16, 2013
The big rigs run on natural gas
Frito-Lay is running more than 200 natural gas trucks and installing stations. A waste hauler in Connecticut has already pumped a million gallons of the stuff. At half the price of diesel (and with greatly reduced emissions), CNG and LNG are taking over the trucking business.
BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT — I am standing in a parking lot, in an industrial part of this gritty city. On one side of me is Wheelabrator’s huge RESCO garbage-to-energy plant, and on the other is a big row of heavy-duty trucks—all of them running on very clean natural gas.
Enviro Express, whose parking lot this is, is a no-frills waste hauler, and hauling raw material for RESCO is Job One. This isn’t a “green business,” and owner Bill Malone—a lifelong trucker—is no Al Gore. But he knows value when he sees it, and that’s why his public liquified natural gas (LNG) station fuels 100 trucks a day, and has pumped a million gallons of this fast-rising fuel since 2010.
LNG, which sells for approximately $2 a gallon (versus $4 for diesel), is fast becoming the fuel of choice for long-distance trucking and, yes, you can thank fracking for that. We can and should talk about the environmental hazards of fracking, but the fact is, the country is awash in cheap natural gas, and it’s starting to ripple through the economy. That, and very credible LNG trucks are finally available. “Technology made this happen,” said Malone. “I see LNG being used on trains, ferries and ships. And it’s the future of trucking.”
The $6.2 million Bridgeport station was funded in part by Department of Energy stimulus money, but it could undoubtedly stand on its own at this point. Malone was inspired by meeting natural gas advocate T. Boone Pickens, but he could just as easily have been motivated by the almighty dollar. That’s what rings Frito-Lay’s bells.
Mike O’Connell, senior director for fleet operations at Frito-Lay (part of giant Pepsico) told me that his company will have 208 of its large Class A tractors like the one above running on compressed natural gas (LNG’s non-refrigerated cousin) by the end of 2013. That’s 20 percent of the Class A fleet. It’s also building eight public CNG fueling stations around the country—in Wisconsin (opening June 19), Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Connecticut and Kansas—that will service Frito’s fleet, but also be open to other companies. In five years, the company should be pumping eight million gallons of CNG annually.
Frito-Lay is, of course, saving tons of money while it saves the planet. The payback period when buying CNG tractors is less than two years. “These trucks leave my plant and distribute their snacks to warehouses and come back,” said O’Connell. “It’s perfect for CNG, and a win-win for Pepsico.”
Why not LNG, you may ask? “CNG is 50 cents a gallon cheaper per gallon because it doesn’t need to be temperature-controlled,” O’Connell said, “and we’re not doing really long hauls. Our average route is 400 miles.” Hybrid trucks were piloted, but Frito didn’t get great results—its trucks don’t stop and start enough for the hybrid drivetrain to be effective (only a 10-16 percent improvement in fuel economy).
Battery electrics do work for Frito-Lay. After all, Fritos corn chips are a light load. The company has 280 short-haul electric box trucks from Smith Electric, offsetting 500,000 gallons of diesel. “Drivers love them,” said O’Connell. Smith itself has now delivered 700 of those trucks, covering more than five million miles in operation. There’s a huge potential market for either natural gas or electric here, since there are six million medium-duty commercial trucks on the road, a $40 billion market, in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Back in Connecticut, I’m looking over a long-haul LNG truck with Lee Grannis, who runs the New Haven-area Clean Cities Coalition, which is highly supportive of the Bridgeport station. “These aren’t science or pilot programs anymore,” he said. “We’re on to commercial deployment, and getting these trucks on the road—three other Connecticut fleets are converting. By using these trucks, we reduce foreign oil dependency, tap into a price that’s half that of diesel, and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent.” O’Connell says 23 percent, but it’s the same ballpark.
While I was talking to Ed Boman, the ultra-green public works guy in my town of Fairfield (whose idea it initially was to put in LNG pumps at Enviro Express), a Bridgeport taxi (above) glided up and hooked into the company’s natural gas pump. City taxis running on CNG? Yes, said driver Bernard Ganty, he is one of 19 cabbies piloting natural gas Metro Taxis in Bridgeport. A green revolution I didn’t even know about. That’s exciting.
17 Comments on "The big rigs run on natural gas"
Beery on Sun, 16th Jun 2013 2:51 pm
“I see LNG being used on trains, ferries and ships. And it’s the future of trucking.”
Yup. Right until the point when it isn’t.
BillT on Sun, 16th Jun 2013 3:10 pm
Yep, Beery, you are right on. 200 out of 1,000,000 16 wheelers is a start, right? But then, they have to fuel up more often due to LPG’s lower energy content. And not every truck stop is equipped to fuel LPG. And when the demand is big enough, prices will go back up to oil equivalent.
DC on Sun, 16th Jun 2013 3:12 pm
Oh, joy! Hostess is going to deliver it HFCS,salt and grease chips using environmentally friendly NG ‘rigs’, to your local Wall-Mart.
Were saved!
But really, wtf kind of website calling itself ‘Mother Nature Network’ calls NG ‘green’?, much less call hauling greasy potato chips around in ‘rig’s, green? Corporate astro-turf network more like it.
Plantagenet on Sun, 16th Jun 2013 3:49 pm
It is foolish to ignore the increasing importance of Natural Gas. The trend is clear—as gasoline prices continue to go higher due to peak oil, more and more surface vehicles are going to be powered by NG.
Kenz300 on Sun, 16th Jun 2013 5:29 pm
The more we diversify our energy sources the better.
It is time to end the oil monopoly on transportation fuels.
keith on Sun, 16th Jun 2013 6:39 pm
Smoke screen. LNG becomes part of the mix, we don’t see the conventional crude drop off. People don’t see the reality, business as usual for now. Believe what your told, not what you see effect is happening.
Plantagenet on Sun, 16th Jun 2013 6:49 pm
Of course people see conventional crude dropping off.
It shows up in the price of gasoline—and its the whole reason trucks are shifting to NG.
BillT on Mon, 17th Jun 2013 1:16 am
I love to read your techie dream stories. You are so deep into your belief and faith, you would make any Muslim proud. But blindness can get you killed.
Brent on Mon, 17th Jun 2013 1:30 am
Also as they switch to Natural gas the price of natural gas will increase making electricity power plants go back to coal.
Others on Mon, 17th Jun 2013 3:41 am
Frito Lay alone have 200 CNG Trucks. All over USA, there are 250,000 Natgas Vehicles and its increasing at a faster rate.
The transport company which uses Natgas has advantage over the company which uses Diesel. Also trains, barges & ferries are switching over to this fuel.
In downtown, we see a lot of NGVs although Hybrids outnumber them by a vast margin.
Lets have atleast 1 alternative to Oil.
There is no way crude oil prices will go down as 100,000 new vehicles were sold every day in China, Brazil, India and rest of the developing World.
GregT on Mon, 17th Jun 2013 3:42 am
Not to mention the fact that 100 years worth of natural gas at present rates of consumption, runs out a bit quicker when you use 50 times as much of it.
BillT on Mon, 17th Jun 2013 6:18 am
GregT, facts are not part of some people’s worlds. What some younger techies don’t know is that EVERYTHING comes and goes. And their lifestyle is constantly shifting to accommodate reality, even if they don’t.
Think back to when the great arts and discoveries were made. They were made during times of plenty. Cities and personal powered vehicles are also on the way out as energy contracts to 1900 levels.
Technology was a bubble that is now about ready to pop. We have not produced anything new in decades. Just tweaked things that already existed or were known previously.
DC on Mon, 17th Jun 2013 6:27 am
It amazes me how one hears NG being portrayed as an ‘alternative’, when it is clearly nothing of the sort. Its the status-quo they are actually after, and NG, superficially at least, seems to fit the bill.
If people wanted alternatives, they would be protesting against further suburban sprawl, foreign big box stores would be banned, people would be demanding electric trams networks be returned to our cities and intercity rail be given the highest priority and funding over road and airport expansion. Subsidies for auto and oil companies would be ended and new building codes enacted to stop-then reverse mindless car-sprawl. Old car sprawl areas would be torn down and rebuilt to be walkable, bikeable and rail friendly.
Instead, people keep blathering on about how want they ‘alternatives’ to gaz-o-line. And who are the top contenders?
Nat-gas
CNG
LPG
Flex-fools (fuels)
‘Bio-fools’ AKA corn moonshine mixed 10/90 with well…gas-o-line.
Even Hydrogen for the truly stupid alternative seeker.
Hybrids(yes, Ive some people call those ‘alternatives’)
However, none of these things are alternatives at all. So why do people insist on keep calling them something they are clearly, are not?
Of course, the answer is, people dont want alternatives to their 5000 pound grocery and latte fetchers, they want a virtually identical compound to stick in their tanks, preferably one that sounds or ‘feels’ a greener, as a bonus. And they also prefer those ‘alt-fuels’ to be provided by large monopolistic transnational corporations through a complex and subsidized distribution system.
So again-tell me where does the ‘alternative’ part of all this fit in?
Plantagenet on Mon, 17th Jun 2013 7:03 am
DC’s claim that NG isn’t an alternative to oil because they are the “same thing” just shows that DC is a scientific illiterate. The geologic facts are clear— NG is not the same thing as petroleum
DC on Mon, 17th Jun 2013 7:47 am
Thank you plant for proving my point. You didn’t have to, KenZ the parrot is kind of resident go-to-guy for referring to his canned list of not-alternates’ as if they actually are.
jeyeykei on Tue, 18th Jun 2013 6:24 am
i love reading plantagenet’s comment…because it doesnt’ make any sense, and it makes me laugh. Keep it coming plant.
Mike Loshe on Tue, 25th Jun 2013 2:54 pm
Thanks for the share. I have begun to see many Fleet Leasing Companies begin to turn to natural gas. Personally I think it is a great since the lower gas prices will lower shipping prices. Nobody minds saving a little bit of money!