Natural Gas Engines Are the Best Way to Reduce Heavy-Duty Trucking Emissions
Gladstein Neandross Associates* (GNA) is a clean transportation consultancy based in Santa Monica, California. On May 3, 2016, at the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo in Long Beach, California, GNA unveiled a new white paper that may help define what the future of truck technology could look like in the United States.
The Best of Four Possible Pathways
The white paper describes the four fuel and technology combinations that currently hold the most promise to successfully improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They are:
1. Advanced low‑emission internal combustion engines fueled by renewable natural gas
2. Advanced low‑emission internal combustion engines fueled by renewable diesel
3. Electric‑drive systems powered by batteries
4. Electric‑drive systems powered by hydrogen fuel cells
The GNA white paper documents that only one of these fuel‑technology platforms meets all the commercial feasibility and logistics tests to immediately begin this transformation: near‑zero‑emission heavy‑duty NGVs fueled by increasing volumes of ultra‑low‑GHG renewable natural gas (RNG).
There is current information in the market related to heavy-duty NGVs that is not accurate. Learn more about some of these myths and the reality behind them.
“Near-Zero” Natural Gas Engine with Renewable Natural Gas Is the Key
In 2015, Cummins Westport certified the world’s first heavy‑duty engine at near‑zero‑emission levels. RNG completes a game‑changing emissions proposition by providing the lowest carbon intensity of any heavy‑duty transportation fuel available in the market today. Near-zero-emission natural gas engines* using RNG provide a commercially proven, broad‑based and affordable strategy to immediately achieve reductions in emissions of criteria pollutants, air toxins and GHGs from America’s on‑road HDV sector, and it can be used right now, in today’s natural gas engines.
The Cummins Westport 12‑liter engine provides diesel‑like performance for tractor‑trailer trucks hauling up to 80,000 pounds. The combination of new near‑zero‑emission natural gas engine technology and RNG provides the single best opportunity for America to achieve immediate and substantial NOx and GHG emission reductions in the on‑road heavy‑duty transportation sector.
The time for incentive development is now
National, state and local incentive funding programs should be established or strengthened that:
1) Subsidize the higher costs to produce and deploy these new‑generation heavy‑duty NGVs
2) Help produce and transport RNG, where the economics and logistics are most conducive.
Get all the details yourself
Visit the Game Changer website* to download the entire white paper or executive summary.
