Gassing Up?

CleanScapes, a waste hauling company, operates a fleet of 50 natural gas-fueled vehicles.

Natural gas may never be the preferred fuel option compared to gasoline and electrically powered vehicles, at least as far as the consumer market goes. But lower prices and low emissions are making them an attractive alternative for companies with large fleets of trucks or taxis.

“Waste hauling may be the tipping point,” says Stephanie Meyn, program manager for the Puget Sound Clean Cities Coalition (PSCCC). As the waste haulers have moved to natural gas, she says, the infrastructure of natural gas refueling stations has steadily increased.

The shift to natural gas could soon accelerate. PSCCC was awarded a $15 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy last August as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to increase the number of alternative fuel vehicles on the roads, while also building a better infrastructure for refueling natural gas vehicles. About $2.5 million of the grant will go toward converting gasoline or diesel-fueled vehicles to natural gas. The conversions will focus primarily on taxis and shuttles that return to a home point following their daily service routes. Some of the money will also help outfit a farm in Whatcom County with the equipment to digest methane gas from farm waste. This gas will be showcased in the Bellair shuttle, which runs from Bellingham to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Waste hauling companies would like to use similar technology to harvest natural gas from their own landfills to run their trucks.

Several waste hauling companies in the Northwest already use natural gas vehicles. Republic Services, which operates in Seattle and Bellevue, has 226 natural gas trucks in the Western region, and 20 percent of their newly ordered trucks will also run on natural gas. CleanScapes is another natural gas customer. It operates 50 natural gas trucks and would consider ordering more if the area it services increased.

It may be years before consumer vehicles run on natural gas. Kits to convert cars to burning natural gas used to be popular, but stringent laws and regulations have pushed the cost of after-market kits as high as $22,000. Adding a converter kit that isn’t certified is considered to be tampering with a federally controlled emissions system, and can bring about a large fine. 

But as more businesses turn to natural gas, spurring the development of an infrastructure of fueling stations, auto manufacturers may begin to consider large-scale production of natural gas vehicles for the consumer market.

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