Groups Tell Commerce Secretary DGE is Best Way to Sell Nat Gas

This story appears in the May 5 print edition of Transport Topics.

Several business trade groups asked Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker to help persuade the National Conference on Weights and Measures to certify the diesel-gallon equivalent as the official measurement for compressed and liquefied natural gas when used as truck fuel.

In a letter to Pritzker from eight business trade organizations, including American Trucking Associations, it also was requested that CNG be sold in gasoline-gallon equivalents when used in cars and light trucks but in DGEs at truck stops.

The Conference on Weights and Measures, a national organization of state and local government officials, will vote on the issue at its annual meeting in July in Detroit. The alternative to the diesel- and gasoline-gallon-equivalent system, which is based on the fuels’ energy content, would be to sell the two fuels

by weight — either pounds or kilograms.

“Establishing kilograms as the unit of sale would represent a departure from current market practice and would lead to unnecessary infrastructure costs, consumer confusion and, most alarmingly, would stall the momentum of the growing natural-gas vehicle industry and the associated economic and employment benefits,” the groups told Pritzker in their letter dated April 22.

In addition to ATA, groups signing the letter were the American Gas Association, America’s Natural Gas Alliance, the American Public Gas Association, the National Association of Convenience Stores, NGVAmerica for the makers of nat-gas vehicles, the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America and the Truck Renting and Leasing Association.

The groups wrote to Pritzker because of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is a division of the Commerce Department as well as the technical adviser to the National Conference on Weights and Measures.

“When people make business decisions, they want an easy way to make comparisons,” said Amy Farrell, a vice president of America’s Natural Gas Alliance. “This is a good, common-sense direction that is consistent and understandable.”

A diesel-gallon equivalent of CNG or LNG has the same amount of energy as the average gallon of U.S. diesel fuel — 128,450 British thermal units, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

A gasoline-gallon equivalent of CNG has the same amount of energy as the average gallon of U.S. gasoline — 116,090 Btu, said DOE.

LNG is not used in light vehicles or sold in gasoline-gallon equivalents.

The use of gallon-equivalent pricing allows consumers to compare quickly the value of a gallon of gas or diesel with their natural-gas counterparts.

The gasoline-gallon equivalent has been the standard unit for CNG since 1994, the conference said. There is no current standard for LNG. The group started studying the LNG issue in July 2013 by creating a steering committee to investigate.

The committee’s report said a majority of the nations using CNG as vehicle fuel sell it by weight, usually in kilograms. (Canada is among the countries using a kilogram standard.)

An ATA staff attorney said the pending decision is critical.

“We want to get this right from the get-go rather than come back after the fact to fix it,” said Glen Kedzie, who specializes in environmental affairs.

Kedzie also said adopting an equivalent system would be a helpful first step in equalizing taxes on the fuels.

“When a road is driven on, it doesn’t care whether the 80,000-pound truck uses natural gas or diesel, so they should be taxed the same,” he said.

Natso Inc., which represents truck-stop operators, did not sign the letter to Pritzker. However, spokeswoman Tiffany Wlazlowski said Natso endorses the diesel-gallon equivalent standard for LNG and CNG sold at truck stops.