Alt-Fuel Infrastructure Build-Out Paves Way For Trucks Powered by Natural Gas, DME
This story appears in the July 25 & August 1 print edition of Transport Topics.
Growing corridors of natural-gas fueling stations, together with a scattering of other ways to power heavy-duty trucks, make up an expanding infrastructure providing alternatives to traditional diesel.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel has been increasing since January 1997, when the agency began tracking consumption. This past January, the volume set a record of 3.3 billion cubic feet — and it has hovered near that mark since then. Other emerging options include lithium-ion batteries and dimethyl ether, experts said.
Transit agencies still consume the majority of alternative fuels, EIA noted. However, some analysts have said heavy-duty, freight hauling trucks remain a small but steady presence in the market — but a segment that could expand if diesel prices rise. When UPS Inc. plans to use alternative fuels for heavy-duty trucks, location is everything, Mike Casteel, director of fleet procurement for UPS, told Transport Topics.
“The primary factor is access to fuel, competitively priced fuel,” he said. “When we deployed liquefied natural gas, we did it in cities that had the correct fleet profile [a large number of tractors that run above-average miles] but also were relatively close to a liquefaction plant, and a backup. That was key to us. We wanted to have a plan in case something happened.”
With compressed natural gas, if a high-pressure pipeline nearby was available, that was the deciding factor, he said.
Casteel said Atlanta-based UPS has been using natural gas since the 1980s in its package car fleet. It first deployed electric vehicles decades ago and has used propane in Canada for decades.
UPS generally builds natural-gas fueling stations for its own use. However, there is the option of fueling at a public station and avoiding that expense, Casteel said.
“But the user will still pay for a portion of the capital investment of the station embedded in the fuel cost . . . and typically, the station owner will negotiate below published rates for a customer willing to commit to a certain amount of fuel use,” he said.
UPS ranks No. 1 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in the United States and Canada.
John Sheehy, CEO of Sheehy Enterprises Inc., based in Waterloo, Wisconsin, said his CNG fleet carries general freight plus mail for the U.S. Postal Service and uses several public fueling stations. “Most of the serious contenders in the CNG market have built very robust truck-friendly stations in areas where we are traveling or where we need them,” he said.
His fleet of 104 trucks includes 76 that use CNG, and Sheehy said he purchases about 2 million diesel gallon-equivalent of CNG per year. The CNG trucks travel from Wisconsin and Iowa to Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, New Jersey, Phoenix, South Carolina and Washington, D.C.
His trucks have fueled at public stations built by Kwik Trip Inc. and in Iowa, Kwik Star; Trillium CNG, which Love’s Travel Stops acquired in March; U.S. Gain, a division of U.S. Venture Inc.; EVO CNG; IGS Energy and Piedmont Natural Gas, he said.
“Most of the stations other than Kwik Trip are key-controlled stations, and the only drawback to those is the inability of the drivers to get something to eat, take a break or use a rest- room,” Sheehy said.
In addition, his fleet anchors a couple of stations whose owners keep them operational, he said.
“The key is to keep them online,” he said, noting the infrastructure “is not yet mature enough” to allow a driver to miss a closed station. “Generally, when you need fuel, you are unable to go further and, in many instances, there are no other choices,” he said.
His trucks are equipped with 160 gasoline gallon-equivalent tanks from Agility Fuel Systems, “which give us a comfortable 650 miles between fill-ups,” Sheehy said.
Meanwhile, several suppliers of natural-gas fuels told TT they are focused on expansion despite low diesel prices.
TruStar Energy, based in White Plains, New York, said it completed 41 stations for public and private use in 2015 — almost doubling the number of completed CNG stations from 2014. It now has a total of 120.
“Over time, we realized that many of the ‘return to base’ fleets worked more efficiently with private fueling stations on their property,” said TruStar General Manager Scott Edelbach.
The question then becomes who owns the assets and who services the station, he said.
“Given the size of our maintenance and service group, that’s an easy one,” Edelbach said. “In terms of ownership, we’re comfortable with either scenario.” As an example, UPS Inc. owns its stations while TruStar Energy owns the station for automaker FCA US, he said, referring to the company formerly known as Chrysler Group.
TruStar said the FCA facility is the largest private CNG fueling station in the country, based on annual fuel offtake and potential offtake capable with the six compressors installed by Ariel Corp. FCA said it has a fleet of 179 Class 8 trucks using CNG.
TruStar said it will dispense about 80 million GGE to customers under long-term service agreements by the end of 2016.
Publicly traded Clean Energy Fuels Corp. of Newport Beach, California, said it has more than 550 public and private stations throughout North America. These include 212 CNG and LNG public stations that make up what it calls “America’s Natural Gas Highway,” or ANGH, for heavy-duty trucks.
“We have constructed an additional 43 ANGH stations that will open as trucking companies convert their fleets to natural gas,” said Clean Energy CEO Andrew Littlefair. An additional 76 station projects are under way for heavy-duty, transit and refuse fleets, and more than 60 of these are scheduled for completion before the end of this year, he said.
Littlefair also said the company provides customers with real-time monitoring of its network, certified equipment training of technicians and facility modification services “to ensure they have the fuel and support they need, when they need it.”
During a recent earnings conference call, Littlefair said he would like to see faster development and adoption of natural-gas engines that can be used by heavy-duty trucks.
After its March acquisition of Trillium CNG, Oklahoma City-based Love’s Travel Stops said it now has 27 CNG fueling locations. These include 18 fast-fill for heavy-duty trucks among its 360 locations in 40 states.
Trillium owns or operates more than 125 additional public and private CNG stations, including those branded under Holiday Stationstores, said Bill Cashmareck, general manager of Love’s CNG business.
“As the demand for CNG increases, Love’s and Trillium will continue to invest in natural-gas infrastructure across the United States,” Cashmareck said, adding they are working on several locations for other companies and fleets across the country.
Elsewhere, electrical infrastructure is emerging.
For example, Orange EV, based in Riverside, Missouri, said it rebuilds diesel-powered yard tractors into all-electric vehicles with lithium ion batteries. The heaviest users can run up to 12 hours and can be charged by regenerative braking as well as with an electrical connection to a facility’s electrical power grid. Other terminal tractors are seeing 16 and over 24 hours on a single charge depending on how the trucks are used, it said.
The company said it has customers in many markets in the Midwest and on the West Coast.
Mike Saxton, Orange EV’s chief commercial officer, said the electricity is drawn from a site’s normal electrical grid. “To the site electrician, it’s a pretty standard electrical wiring effort; high-voltage work could be required if lower-voltage circuits aren’t already available.”
A charging cable plugs into the truck. “Most sites already have the electrical capacity needed to support a few trucks,” he said.
Looking ahead, Saxton said the forces pushing for electric vehicles are compelling and gaining momentum.
“Plugging in will dominate as a means to recharge terminal trucks in the majority of applications for some time into the future. But electric trucks will likely also become part of smart grids with vehicle-to-grid capabilities,” he said.
Another emerging alternative fuel is dimethyl ether, or DME. It allows a “more modular, smaller-scale approach to infrastructure,” said Rebecca Boudreaux, president of San Diego-based Oberon Fuels, which makes this alternative fuel.
“No cryogenics or high compression are required, which results in DME fueling infrastructure that is orders of magnitude cheaper than LNG or CNG,” Boudreaux said. “Onsite DME dispensing and storage will cost tens of thousands of dollars, not hundreds of thousands or higher.”
The company is focused on regional production and consumption, she said. To make DME, it can use a local feedstock, such as food waste in an urban environment, or landfill waste, wastewater treatment gas or even natural gas to produce the fuel and distribute it a short distance to customers.
Oberon’s plants are based on a skid-mounted, modular design, she said. “The plant’s footprint is less than one acre of land. If a feedstock source is consumed after several years, the skid-mounted plant equipment can be moved to another site,” she said. “However, it is not something you would want to do daily or weekly. It’s not that mobile.”
Oberon said its pilot plant in Brawley, California, is producing the first fuel-grade DME in North America. Volvo Trucks North America is using it in commercial demonstrations of DME-powered, heavy-duty trucks.
DME can be stored as a liquid with only slight pressure — 5 bars or 72- 73 pounds per square inch — so transport and storage is similar to propane, Boudreaux said. It’s also a clean- burning fuel, so the truck does not require a diesel particulate filter, she said.
