Posted on 05/11/2012 12:45:14 PM PDT by thackney
The iconic rumbling garbage truck may have met its match: natural gas.
Waste Management on Friday will announce it is pushing forward on a nationwide plan to convert all of its 18,342 trucks from loud and smoky diesel engines to quieter and cleaner compressed natural gas-powered machines. The latest destination for the company’s CNG trucks will be the Houston area, starting at a facility in Conroe where 80 trucks will be able to refuel with gas overnight.
The Houston-based refuse collection giant is the latest in a line of major corporations, including UPS and AT&T, to expand their use of natural gas in fleet vehicles – convinced it is the cheapest and most environmentally friendly option to power their daily road operations.
“The economics and payback of natural gas are so strong that it dwarfs any other technology,” said Eric Woods, vice president of fleet and logistics for Waste Management.
The company saves $3 for each gallon-equivalent of CNG it uses instead of diesel, and recent changes in prices of heavy-duty trucks made the vehicles more viable, Woods said.
At a Waste Management truck lot in Seattle, for example, the company found that its costs dropped from up to $11 for every hour a driver worked with a truck to about $3 an hour once it converted the entire location to CNG vehicles, partly because of savings from refueling time, Woods said.
Waste Management’s CNG trucks refuel overnight from unattended slow-fill pumps at each parking spot, so they don’t have to line up and wait at a single diesel pump.
“This goes right to the heart of the business and the margin,” Woods said.
It’s also what waste pickup customers want – most of the time. At least one resident in The Woodlands has had to chase after a garbage truck because she didn’t realize it was on her block until it already moved on, Waste Mangement driver Servando Rosales said.
“She said, ‘I didn’t even hear you,’” Rosales said of the resident, who had grown used to the noisy reminder of a rumbling diesel engine before moving her garbage outside.
The trucks are decidedly less noisy than their diesel-powered counterparts, quiet enough for Rosales to talk without yelling in the cab of the vehicle, which has monitors and alarms to warn of gas leaks.
So far, the company has about 1,400 trucks running on natural gas and plans to expand that total gradually as part of its normal replacement of about 1,000 trucks annually, Woods said.
It costs Waste Management about $3 million for each large lot it converts to operate on CNG. That includes the individual fuel pumps as well as one retail CNG refueling station at each site for use by public consumers.
The company will spend about $300,000 for each new heavy-duty CNG truck, he said, about $30,000 more than the sticker price for a comparable diesel truck. The company’s CNG business model is profitable without government subsidies, Woods said.
Waste Management previously attempted to use liquefied natural gas as a fuel.
While LNG allows for more range, it costs more and is unnecessary for Waste Management because its vehicles can refuel at the same location nightly, Woods said
Eleven CNG-powered garbage and recycling trucks now are operating at Waste Management’s Conroe facility, where a consumer retail station is set to open upon receiving its final regulatory approvals.
Although the shale gas boom has sent supplies soaring and brought natural gas prices to their lowest levels in a decade, many barriers remain before it can be a truly viable option for consumer fuel, if that ever happens, experts say.
There are few CNG refueling stations and fewer CNG car options. Although vehicle conversions are possible, both manufacturers and fuel station operators have been slow to expand the options needed to make natural gas more attractive to the public.
Government and expert projections don’t see a substantial shift to natural gas in vehicles anytime soon. By 2035, compressed natural gas-powered cars and trucks are expected to account for 180,000 of the 274 million U.S. vehicles, according to projections from the U.S. Energy Information Agency.
Although the number of CNG refueling stations has grown, passing the 1,000 mark this year, it is still nowhere near as accessible as gasoline.
For companies and government agencies with vehicle fleets, however, the switch to natural gas has repeatedly proved sensible, said David Hill, vice president of operations for the natural gas economy team at Denver-based gas producer Encana.
“What we’re trying to do as an industry is really build the backbone of the refueling infrastructure” with fleet vehicles, Hill said. “Once we build the backbone across the nation, then we provide more options for consumers.”
AlGore will be adding “NG Credits” to his corrupt, criminal “Carbon Credits” repertoire very soon, any day now.
I could care less about Algore, but that we’re not making better use of safe, clean, domestically-produced natural gas is an absolute shame. And it’s all on Obama.
Lots of companies are switching their vehicles to CNG.
It’s cleaner and the engines last longer as a result.
Also the current fracking boom makes it cheaper than running on diesel or gasoline.
Imagine how pissed they are gonna be if Obama shuts down fracking after they’ve invested all that money.
The Automotive-Oil Consortium of the 1990’s demonstrated that using natural gas in vehicles released more reactive chemicals than gasoline or diesel in certain climates/altitudes than ethanol/methanol mixtures - as I recall - so the California automotive research board learned that fuel and engine design wasn’t an all-areas fix or cure, but region specific.
But we’re not smart enough for that, so one size fits all - the public image size!
How do you see Obama preventing it?
I see the main problem of consumers not wanting NG cars until the retail supply is available.
And most retail suppliers don’t want to make the massive investment until the consumers are there.
Tough for them both to be first.
We are seeing more of these fleet service where it make economic sense to install the fuel system and the vehicles all at once. I am very glad to see the addition of a public dispenser. Most of the expense goes to their initial equipment, adding the public dispenser is a small incremental cost and will help build the infrastructure for this market to grow.
If hydraulic fracturing is shut down, it is going to greatly effect oil production as well as gas.
Do you have a link for more info?
I read that Cummins has the first DOT certified CNG truck engine.
In this case, no. The culpability goes to Carter I (Obama being Carter II). Carter I promulgated government regs that basically forbade the use of natural gas for electrical generation because of fears of "peak gas" at that time. If he had left well enough alone, the laws of economics would long ago have begun the shift to natgas fuels.
I thought all of the Carter Natural Gas junk was final gone by the end of the 1980’s.
http://www.naturalgas.org/regulation/history.asp
DOT or EPA and CARB certified?
http://www.baytechcorp.com/VediMacro.phtml?sLang=EN&IDMacro=388
http://www.cumminswestport.com/
http://www.emissionsolutionsinc.com/ESI/Company_Overview.html
Possibly, but much of the damage had already been done. Utilities had already made decisions and invested heavily to build coal plants...decisions not easily reversed.
CNG is about 1.70-1.80 right now. Gas is 3-4$.
CNG is cleaner, engine lasts longer.
Basic economics say we need CNG.
Also, Natural gas comes from the US and Canada primarily, not nations who are saving their money to wage war on us.
The ONLY reason CNG does not rule the roost right now is government interference.
It’s literally 300-500$ worth of parts to convert a car/truck over to CNG. But it costs 5,000-15,000$ Why? take a look at what regulatory certifications you need to *TOUCH* a car with CNG, Install/Service it.
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