All posts in Fleets

Source: Environmental Protection On-line

The company said these new leased vehicles replace its oldest diesel trucks and give it one of the largest private natural gas fleets in Southern California.

99 Cents Only Stores® recently announced it has leased 40 new compressed natural gas-powered tractors from Ryder to replace its oldest diesel-burning units. These CNG rigs make its fleet one of the largest private Class-8 CNG fleets in Southern California, according to the company.

“We are pleased to announce that we not only plan to continue offering our valued customers the best selection of products at the lowest possible prices, but have also made a commitment to our community and global environment by converting a significant portion of our delivery trucks to compressed natural gas,” said CEO Eric Schiffer. “We expect to reduce the carbon footprint of the fleet and its CO2 emissions by up to 25 percent. This will positively impact both our customers and the communities our stores serve.”

The new trucks will be used to make deliveries to the 165 stores in Southern California and to pick up goods from vendors. Ryder also will provide maintenance for the vehicles.

“We are confident that this new equipment is well suited to service our 165 Southern California stores, many of which are in densely populated areas,” said Jim Parros, senior vice president of Logistics for the company. “We chose to work with Ryder for a number of key reasons, none more important than our confidence in their capabilities to provide maintenance for the new CNG engine platform and their commitment to service, which is particularly critical when dealing with new technology.”

The company was founded in 1982 and has expanded to 302 stores: 221 in California, 37 in Texas, 29 in Arizona, and 15 in Nevada

Source: Fuel Fix.com

As the presidential campaign heats up, so does  the energy rhetoric, and one of the most popular topics lately has been “energy independence.”

As I noted in last week’s column, Shell’s recent setbacks in the Arctic serve as a reminder of the elusive nature of oil independence is. The projects we need to boost domestic production are more expensive and complicated than any in our history, and they will be prone to setbacks, as Shell has demonstrated. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be boosting domestic drilling — we need to continue the successes of recent years — but we need a realistic understanding of where things are heading.
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Source: Environmental Protection.com, Sept 17, 2012

DEP Secretary Mike Krancer said the seminar series will inform local governments and businesses “about how they can take advantage of an abundant, clean-burning, and inexpensive fuel found right here in Pennsylvania” and “will help us develop our grant program moving forward.”

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection is beginning a series of seminars Sept. 21, with the first one from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. that day at the Community College of Allegheny County, to help municipal and commercial fleet owners make informed decisions about converting their fleets to compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas. The agency’s announcement said vendors interested in setting up an exhibit at the seminars may sign up through DEP’s website.

“In addition to informing local governments and businesses about how they can take advantage of an abundant, clean-burning, and inexpensive fuel found right here in Pennsylvania, the feedback from these seminars will help us develop our grant program moving forward,” DEP Secretary Mike Krancer said. “Revenue from the impact fees assessed on unconventional wells will be used to promote these sorts of fleet conversions.”
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Source: Environmental Leader.com

Waste Management says it will deploy DriveCam’s fuel management program across its entire fleet, comprising thousands of collection vehicles, for a five-year service contract term.

After a six-month DriveCam pilot in two of its market areas, WM says it saw clear benefits that will help the company reduce its “risk-related costs.” For competitive reasons, WM would not enumerate the benefits realized or give more details about what costs it was referring to.

DriveCam, however, says its program — which combines real-time, in-cab feedback with online reporting and coaching — can improve fuel efficiency by up to 12 percent and lower emissions.

According to Automotive Fleet, WM has the 58th largest commercial fleet in the country, with 3,475 class 1-2 trucks, 1,680 class 3-6 trucks, 57 vans and 97 SUVs.
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Source: Joel Makower Editor GreenBiz.com

Forget the Volt, the Leaf, the Prius, even the Tesla. An entirely different transportation revolution is happening when it comes to big rigs.

In recent years, commercial truck fleets have begun changing course, steering toward next-gen technologies that embrace electric, hybrid-electric, and other fuels instead of petro-based diesel, and innovative drive-train technologies. It’s a development that’s born partly of concerns about carbon emissions and other pollutants, but increasingly about mitigating the risk that comes from volatile and unpredictable fuel prices.

Compared to the slick ad campaigns being run by Nissan, Toyota, Chevy, and other auto makers, the greening of trucks is decidedly non-sexy — unless you’re fleet manager. But commerical trucks are a key part of the energy mix: while they represent only about 5 percent of on-road vehicles in the United States, they account for about 20 percent of fuel consumption.

A major driver is the search for alternatives to diesel. “It used to be that diesel was the only option for a fleet manager,” says John Boesel, president and CEO of Calstart, a membership group dedicated to the growth of a clean transportation technologies. “As a result, fleet managers did not have a lot of motivation to understand how all of their vehicles were actually being used. Now there are different alternative fuels and different drive trains emerging.”

Boesel stopped by the GreenBiz office last week to talk about vehicles, VERGE, and his group’s upcoming conference on high-efficiency trucks. One of the interesting things about the September 18-20 event, the 12th annual HTUF Conference and Expo, isn’t just the display of big, shiny vehicles in the parking lot. It’s a user forum, focusing not just on who’s buying the trucks, but who’s driving them, and how.

Read the complete article at GreenBiz.com

Source: Fuel Fix.com

The complications and limitations of a national energy policy were aptly illustrated with the recently released Advancing Technology for America’s Transportation Future report from the National Petroleum Council, representing two years of work by 300 industry and government participants.

Its purpose was to provide policy guidance on fuels and technology through 2030 in the sector that consumes 70 percent of our oil – transportation. But it leaves us no closer to an answer to America’s energy riddle.

I would contend the answer is clear to anyone who reads the Houston Chronicle: natural gas.

U.S. energy consumers have heard for years about the megabillion cubic feet of natural gas in shale deposits from Pennsylvania to Texas to Montana – enough for up to 80 years of U.S. needs.

So why have increased supplies and lower natural gas prices not had a wider effect on other energy prices such as electricity and transportation fuels?

Clearly, the natural gas industry has not yet broken through to end users with compelling economic, environmental or convenience arguments the way the traditional oil industry has done for more than 150 years. In fact, the oil industry’s evolution may provide a roadmap for shale strategists developing market applications that accelerate use of natural gas to create a viable, self-sustaining, profitable shale industry.

In the 1880s, when gasoline was a solvent byproduct of kerosene distillation, the introduction of gasoline-powered automobiles provided consumers with a unique set of values and capabilities that became the foundation of the modern oil industry. Today’s natural gas industry must develop its own similarly unbeatable value proposition.

The gas industry doesn’t have to aim beyond oil’s original market entry point: vehicle fuels. Compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles, including CNG-fueled fleet vehicles, can use all of the incremental gas supply from America’s shale plays while demonstrating the advantages and practical implementation of shale gas.

Vehicle transportation is the logical market segment to target for broad scale conversion. Energy use in transportation (28 percent) is second only to electric power generation (41 percent) in U.S. rankings.

Here are five strategies we should employ to produce short-term results and long-term growth:

1 Prime the natural gas pump with government fleet usage. Focus public and policymaker attention on the cost savings and emission-reduction benefits attainable by federal, state and local government vehicle fleets of CNG fuel and systems for all practicable uses.

1 Let independent producers grow the retail natural gas business. Vertical integration was an essential part of the oil industry’s development, and natural gas producers should not be barred from using this strategy, nor from the current tax credits for installing new natural gas refueling equipment. Pass H.R. 1712 to allow independent natural gas producers to establish retail CNG fuel stations.

– Create long-term incentives for natural gas fuel conversion in all sectors. Build broad consciousness of the employment, national security, energy security and environmental gains that can be achieved through tax credits and other incentives to support natural gas conversion.

– Create economic incentives for new natural gas development on federal land – Reducing royalties and easing licensing will lead to continued new development.

– Let the market dictate liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. By staying out of decisions on whether to export LNG, the federal government can allow the free market to make these difficult choices.

Enabling a natural gas breakthrough by using the near-term fleet opportunity to begin making the fuel available across a variety of new market segments is the best economic, environmental and energy security decision available on the U.S. energy agenda today.

Source: Fuel Fix.com

The hybrid bus business is booming, as cities look for ways to lower greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, according to a PikeResearch study released Wednesday.

PikeResearch, which analyzes clean technology markets, estimates that the global market for electric drive buses will grow more than 25 percent annually over the next six years. While China will drive the majority of these sales, the study projects that North America will increase its public transit funding levels and investment in electric buses as it recovers from the economic downturn. The increase in interest is a result of advancing technology and concern about climate change linked to carbon emissions.

But the report cautions that this growth will need an initial public policy push, because of the upfront investment required.

“The biggest challenge for electric drive technologies has been the cost premium over a conventional diesel bus or a compressed natural gas bus,” authors of the research report.

Electric drive technologies, which can include hybrid systems, battery electric or fuel cells, historically have been more expensive initially, even though their fuel economy generates savings.  In the North American market, hybrid buses cost about $200,000. Hybrids need to show fuel economy improvements of about 40 percent in order to make up for this initial investment, according to the report.

Fuel cells and battery electric buses are still in the development stage, with the cost of needed batteries and ultracapacitors still a barrier to wider usage. The growing interest in electric buses is expected to create an increased demand for the lithium ion batteries, one of the ways that electric buses can be powered. PikeResearch estimates that this demand will grow 42 percent annually over the six years.

Source: Environmental Protection on-line

Engineers at a company co-founded by a University of Texas at Dallas professor have identified a material that can reduce the pollution produced by vehicles that run on diesel fuel.

The material, from a family of minerals called oxides, could replace platinum, a rare and expensive metal that is currently used in diesel engines to try to control the amount of pollution released into the air.

In a study published in the August 17 issue of Science, researchers found that when a humanmade version of the oxide mullite replaces platinum, pollution is up to 45 percent lower than with platinum catalysts.

“Many pollution control and renewable-energy applications require precious metals that are limited — there isn’t enough platinum to supply the millions and millions of automobiles driven in the world,” said Dr. Kyeongjae “K.J.” Cho, professor of materials science and engineering and physics at UT Dallas and a senior author of study. “Mullite is not only easier to produce than platinum, but also better at reducing pollution in diesel engines.”

For the environmentally conscious, the higher fuel efficiency of diesel engines makes an attractive alternative to engines that run on gasoline. On the flip side, compared with gasoline engines, diesel vehicles produce more nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which are known as NOx pollutants.

In June, the World Health Organization upgraded the classification of diesel engine exhaust as carcinogenic in humans, putting it in the same category as cigarette smoke and asbestos. Countries throughout the world have drafted guidelines to reduce diesel air pollution in the next decade.

Platinum, because of its expense to mine and limited supply, is considered a precious metal. Estimates suggest that for 10 tons of platinum ore mined, only about one ounce of usable platinum is produced.

In 2003, Cho became a co-founder and lead scientist at Nanostellar, a company created to find catalysts through a material design that would replace platinum in reducing diesel exhaust (Carbon monoxide, or CO, and NOx pollutants). His company has designed and commercialized a platinum-gold alloy catalyst that is a viable alternative to platinum alone, but until this experiment with mullite, had not found a catalyst made of materials that are less expensive to produce.

Cho, also a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, and his team suspected that the oxygen-based composition of mullite, originally found off the Isle of Mull in Scotland, might prove to be a suitable alternative. His team synthesized mullite and used advanced computer modeling techniques to analyze how different forms of the mineral interacted with oxygen and NOx. After computer modeling confirmed the efficiency of mullite to consume NOx, researchers used the oxide catalyst to replace platinum in diesel engine experiments.

“Our goal to move completely away from precious metals and replace them with oxides that can be seen commonly in the environment has been achieved,” Dr. Cho said. “We’ve found new possibilities to create renewable, clean energy technology by designing new functional materials without being limited by the supply of precious metals.”

The mullite alternative is being commercialized under the trademark name Noxicat. Dr. Cho and his team will also explore other applications for mullite, such as fuel cells.

Dr. Weichao Wang, who earned his PhD in materials science and engineering in 2011 under Dr. Cho’s supervision in Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at UT Dallas, was lead author of this study. Researchers from the University of Kentucky and Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China were also involved in this work.

The study was supported by the Texas Advanced Computing Center, Nanostellar and the National Research Foundation of Korea.

By Lori Weaver, About.com Guide

Making the Switch to Biofuels Pays Off in Several Ways

Green energy used to be the poster child of a fringe crowd, but not any longer. Today, average consumers are considering greener alternatives to meet their energy needs, whether for fueling their vehicles of heating their homes. But why make the switch? There are a number of reasons alternative fuels can be an excellent fit for your lifestyle, both in direct and indirect ways. With the trend toward greener living, the opportunity to make the switch to alternative fuels is greater than it has ever been.

August 13, 2012

As part of the Obama Administration’s all-of-the-above energy strategy to reduce the United States’ reliance on foreign oil and save drivers money at the pump, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today seven new projects to accelerate the development and deployment of stronger and lighter materials for the next generation of American-made cars and trucks. These projects include the development and validation of modeling tools to deliver higher performing carbon fiber composites and advanced steels, as well as research into new lightweight, high-strength alloys for energy-efficient vehicle and truck engines.

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