The Changing Energy Landscape, Seen through Westport's Eyes

At North America’s largest international conference on sustainable business and environmental innovation, Globe 2014, taking place March 26-28 in Vancouver, British Columbia next week, Westport Vice President of Strategy Karen Hamberg will reflect on natural gas as a viable transition fuel in the transportation landscape.

With over 9,000 attendees and more than 3,000 participating organizations at the previous biennial Globe conference 2012, this year's event promises to offer diverse perspectives on one of this year’s key themes: The Changing Energy Landscape.

Karen joins speakers from the Canadian Gas Association and FortisBC, among others, on a five member panel titled: Natural Gas: The Transition Fuel which is part of a broader energy theme at the conference. The panelists represent a diverse group of members across the industry including natural gas providers, extractors and technology creators.

Impressions of GLOBE2012 from a Westport Energy Analyst

In a recent blog post we mentioned that several Westport employees (Westporters) would be attending the GLOBE2012 conference and contributing their thoughts and impressions to the blog. One of our energy analysts, Ganesh Khanna, a recent graduate of UBC and new employee to Westport offers his reflections on the conference:

In March I had the opportunity to attend the GLOBE sustainability conference held in Vancouver.  As someone who is relatively new to the huge umbrella that is corporate sustainability, I was eager to hear about what other companies were doing and how Westport could learn from them.

This wasn’t my first sustainability conference but it was the first that had a bit of ‘kick’.  Whether it was a banana-outfit-clad activist questioning Dole about their supply chain practices, audience members unconvinced of the progress in sustainable initiatives being made by oil and gas companies, or the backlash on Twitter that Environment Minister Peter Kent caused with his response on withdrawing Canada from the Kyoto Protocol (search #globe2012 to see all the comments). It was apparent that audience members were prepared to hold panelists accountable for their actions.

The conference was titled Building a Sustainable Economy for the 21^st Century.  Topics included climate policy and energy efficiency, maintaining an efficient supply chain, sustainable consumption, and water security.  One topic that I felt was clearly missing was the future of transportation.  With rising prices at the pump and people looking for alternative transportation, not to mention the growing demand for cars in developing countries, I expected more discussion around what’s currently happening both locally and globally. Obviously this is a discussion that is directly relevant to our success at Westport and one we would have welcomed, expanding further on CEO David Demers’ participation on one of the panels. The conference was well-run with knowledgeable panelists and (more importantly) an engaged audience. I feel, though, that there was a missed opportunity by GLOBE2012 to fully explore a sustainable economy. Hopefully two years from now we’ll see this as a highlight.

Westport LD Juniper Engine at Globe 2012

Last week, Westport participated in the transportation pavilion at the GLOBE2012 Tradeshow, showcasing our Westport Light Duty Juniper Engine. Duran Cheung, one of the original engineers to work on the Juniper engine explains how the engine works and what makes it unique:

The Westport Engine featured at GLOBE 2012 is not the typical Cummins-based HD workhorse with which we’ve been traditionally associated. Instead, it’s the 2.4L Juniper Engine from the Westport LD industrial team, a spark-ignited, multi-port injected propane or natural gas engine. This 75 hp, 140 ft-lbs powerplant uses a Hyundai 2.4LiIndustrial engine platform, which is essentially the same block and head as a 2.4L Theta engine found on the Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima. Differences include a cast-aluminum intake manifold, the lack of a variable valve timing system for simpler and more robust operation, and hardened valve seats. Fuel system components from OMVL S.p.A., a Westport company, are used to fuel the engine. Development of the fuel system for the engine began in early 2009, and by mid-2010, the first complete Westport LD Industrial engine assemblies were rolling off the line from our assembly center in Busan, South Korea.

So far, this engine is used on over 2,500 Clark forklifts worldwide on their IC-line of trucks, from their C15 model to their C35 line. They’ve reported a significant increase in fuel economy when compared to other engine platforms they’ve used in the past with similar displacement. Also, drivers have reported better performance compared to previous Clark trucks, all while remaining below the strictest Tier 4 EPA emissions levels for large spark ignited off-road engines.

On another application, the engine is being used to power stationary hydraulic pumps in and around the oilfields of Lloydminster, Saskatchewan. The engine is mated directly to a hydraulic pump that powers a screw pump to bring up crude oil from reserves underground. End users have reported over a 30% increase in fuel economy when compared to the previous engine platforms being used in a similarly loaded well-site[NA1] . The end customer has been quite pleased with the performance and robustness of the system so far and is currently ordering the stationary engine configuration which has recently gone into production

Westporters Experience on Day 1 of GLOBE 2012

 

Last week, we mentioned that some Westport employees (Westporters) would be attending the GLOBE2012 conference from March 14-16.

Westporter Teresa Ko, a member of our Sustainable Futures team reflects on the opening day of the conference:

The common theme on day one of GLOBE 2012 has been collaboration and innovation.  Christy Clark, Premier, Province of BC spoke to the increasing opportunities in the green-tech sector, including employment, technology innovations, and exploration in renewable energy..  Clark’s Welcoming Remarks at the Opening Plenary of GLOBE 2012 mentioned that Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is the cleanest burning fossil fuel and the Government of BC makes plan to invest in this natural resource. 

One of the keynote speakers at the Opening Plenary, Jim Weigand, President, DuPont Sustainable Solutions introduced DuPont’s sustainability initiative, Global Collaboratory.  Another keynote speaker, Steve Williams, President & COO of Suncor Energy Inc. provided examples on how the companies in the energy sector collaborate to innovate.

At the session “Sustained Growth and Sustainability: Re-engineering the Economic Model”, panellists were presented with some challenging questions from the audience on how businesses, academic institutions, finance leaders, policy-makers and regulators need to work together to take actionable solutions rather than passively proposing ideas.  

Overall the first day at Globe2012 was a huge success, with interesting sessions and a strong overarching theme of Collaboration and Innovation. Day two is looking to be equally thought provoking and inspiring.

Westporters Heather and Duran pose with the Juniper engine on the tradeshow floor.