The New Face of Fueling: Renewable Natural Gas

This is the fourth installment in our guest blog series: A Wider Lens.

This series features first-hand accounts from people driving natural gas vehicles, industry leaders and decision-makers in the natural gas transportation industry.

By Guest Contributor, Harrison Clay, President of Clean Energy Fuels Corp. 

Subsidiary of Clean Energy Renewable Fuels. 

We all know what separates natural gas from the other “traditional” fuels—it's cleaner, cheaper and domestic—but in an era of innovation, I think too many folks are quick to dismiss natural gas as traditional.

Not anymore. Now we can produce pipeline quality natural gas from biogas and biomass feedstock sources, and it’s interchangeable with fossil natural gas. It’s called renewable natural gas and it’s not just semi-renewable—it’s 100 per cent renewable. It’s good for our businesses and our communities. And there's nothing “traditional” about it.

In October, Clean Energy launched the first commercially available renewable natural gas, called Redeem and it is currently available at stations in California.

Here’s how it’s made:

Driving to the Forefront of the Trucking Industry, with First Generation HPDI

Jeff Salmon, General Manager of Denwill/Bridgeway-Ironclad Logistics, runs a fleet of 10 trucks that  have travelled aprox. 310,000 miles with 475 horsepower engines on first generation HPDI. 

Hauling a gross vehicle weight of 63,500 Kgs. of gas and diesel in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland and up the Trans-Canada Highway with stops in Pemberton and the Greater Vancouver area on the way to Hope is a regular day in the life of one of Denwill’s trucks, powered with a Westport 15L featuring first generation high pressure direct injection (HPDI). 

Jeff Salmon, General Manager of Denwill/Bridgeway – Ironclad Logistics, based out of Burnaby, British Columbia, has a fleet of 10 Peterbilt Model 367 trucks hauling tanker trailers that transport petroleum products to more than 120 fuel stations and card lock locations across the Lower Mainland region. The natural gas that powers the engine is stored as liquefied natural gas (LNG) on each truck.

Bright House Networks Turns the Ignition on a Natural Gas Transit Connect

When Tom Turner, Senior Fleet Corporate Manager at Bright House Networks, attended a conference hosted by Clean Energy in California two years ago, he got an idea to help Bright House Networks operate a little brighter.

“Our company was looking for ways to reduce our footprint,” Tom said. “If we can save fuel and make the environment better, that’s what our company wants to do.”

Tom oversees a fleet of thousands of vehicles that serve approximately 2.5 million customers in Florida, Alabama, Indiana, Michigan and California. The company is the sixth largest owner and operator of cable systems in the U.S. and the second largest provider in Florida.

After meeting a representative from BAF technologies, a Westport company, Tom pursued the purchase of a dedicated compressed natural gas (CNG) powered transit connect vehicle. The term “dedicated” means that the vehicle operates only on CNG and is optimized to run most efficiently on that fuel.

The CNG transit connect is one of the types of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) Bright House is using in its fleet to decrease carbon emissions.

This Bright House Transit Connect is the company's first which will run entirely on compressed natural gas (CNG).

Natural Gas - A Remarkable Transportation Renaissance

This is the third installment in our guest blog series: A Wider Lens.

This series features first-hand accounts from people driving natural gas vehicles, industry leaders and decision-makers in the natural gas transportation industry.

By Guest Contributor, Alicia Milner 

President of the Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance (CNGVA)

Alicia Milner, President of the CNGVA

A remarkable renaissance is taking place when it comes to the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel in Canada. Long recognized as a cleaner-burning alternative, natural gas vehicles had some inherent technology challenges when they first made their debut in Canada back in the 1980’s. Heavy steel fuel cylinders, inefficient engines, and power loss issues all contributed to operational and economic challenges for compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicle users.

Fast forward to 2013 and natural gas vehicles are now poised to move into the mainstream in both Canada and the United States. Heavy truck and bus fleets are choosing natural gas because of the fuel cost savings, lower emissions, quieter operation, availability of factory-built vehicles, renewable natural gas-capability, and diesel-like performance. And while many reasons can be cited for why a fleet might consider switching to natural gas, nothing is more powerful than seeing some of Canada’s early adopters returning to natural gas vehicle use.

Transit bus operator Hamilton Street Railway (HSR) is an excellent example. HSR participated directly in the development of the world’s first natural gas transit bus in the mid-1980s and went on to acquire two more generations of natural gas engines in their transit bus fleet. At the peak, HSR operated Canada’s largest fleet of natural gas buses with more than 100 CNG buses, but challenges with maintenance costs, vehicle reliability, and refueling station maintenance led HSR to move away from CNG.

Natural Gas: Greener and Cheaper Transport for Europe

This is the second installment in our guest blog series: A Wider Lens.

This series features first-hand accounts from people driving natural gas vehicles, industry leaders and decision-makers in the natural gas transportation industry.

By Guest Contributor, Alexander I. Medvedev

Director General of OOO Gazprom Export and Deputy Chairman of OAO Gazprom’s Management Committee

Alexander I. Medvedev:
"I can't  ignore this significant market in the making."

Energy connects. It fuels cars, trucks and ships to travel thousands of kilometres, transporting goods and people via ever-evolving networks. Modes of transport have always been drivers of innovation. Over the past decades, there have been technological breakthroughs in the design, speed, or size of vehicles. Today, the most urgent challenges are environmental and economic, and natural gas is a perfect solution for greener and cheaper mobility.

The use of natural gas in transport already grew by 220 per cent between 2008 and 2012 worldwide, from 13.6bcm to 30.1bcm.[i] The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently predicted that by 2018 alone, gas use in transport could increase by nearly 10 per cent to 50bcm worldwide. Other forecasts say that in Europe this market segment could represent no less than 40bcm of additional gas by 2030, while reaching between 200 and 400bcm worldwide.[ii]

As the Director General of Gazprom Export, I can’t ignore this significant market in the making. We at Gazprom aim to take gas as fuel to a whole new level. We recently acquired 12 compressed natural gas (CNG) filling stations in South Germany, with a target of reaching 23 stations by the end of 2013. We plan to further expand the gas filling network in the coming years. Thanks to natural gas, low-emission transport is not a vision of the future. Natural gas is readily available today: reliable, safe, affordable, and environmentally friendly.

JumpStart: Bridging the Station Gap for LNG-Powered Trucks

Westport's Peter Wunder: "To bridge the gap, we came up with an alternative to allow fleets to use LNG."

Want to drive a liquefied natural gas (LNG) fueled truck, but don’t have a station near you? You need a Westport JumpStart. JumpStart is a mobile refueling station program designed for fleets without a permanent natural gas station. 

“There was a shortage of LNG fueling infrastructure when JumpStart began in 2011,” says Peter Wunder, Westport’s LNG Refueling Manager. “To bridge the gap, we came up with an alternative to allow fleets to use LNG.”

Companies with fleets in rural areas are well suited to a mobile fueling station – it allows them to use LNG even without a nearby permanent station. LNG infrastructure providers are another good fit, as they can enter a market before or while a station is being built.

The recent release of the Cummins Westport ISX12 G has increased interest in LNG use by fleets for over-the-road trucking because of the added range LNG provides compared to compressed natural gas (CNG). A recent article in the Wall Street Journal cites companies such as Volvo AB, Proctor & Gamble and FedEx that are accelerating a shift amongst their fleets to natural gas.