The U.S. natural gas vehicles in- dustry has watched the use of methane expand by millions of vehi- cles in recent years, with Argentina, Brazil, Pakistan and Iran emerging as world leaders, and China and India taking the clean fuel seriously indeed. Now a convergence of factors — environmental- and energy security- related — is making methane look good in America. Refuse trucks, with their high fuel use, low range demands, central fueling and opera- tors who need protection from diesel price swings, represent a standout market opportunity. Which is why the U.S. NGVs in- dustry is at WasteCon 2009, in force. The Promise of Cheaper Fuel Europe is far ahead of the U.S. when it comes to biogas — refined for vehicle use, it’s biomethane. Some cities in Sweden run their CNG refuse trucks entirely on biomethane, and a successful trial of biomethane in England this year prompted an Italian OEM to offer a line of CNG trucks with right-hand drive for the UK market. The U.S. opportunity is huge. New processes are helping drive down the cost of purifying landfill gas, yielding biomethane that’s chemically identical, and in some cases more reliable, than conventional (fossil) natural gas. Garbage trucks operate at landfills, and it’s inevitable that biomethane will play a larger role in fueling them. Waste Management and Linde have just opened a landfill gas- based LNG facility in California they say is the world’s largest. It will support an estimated 300 trucks. “We can go larger on the next one,” says Linde energy segment manager Bryan Luftglass. —Page 4 McNeilus is showing this Peterbilt 320-based CNG refuse truck at WasteCon 2009. —Page 6 Get Ready for Biomethane Welcome to WasteCon 2009 SEPTEMBER 22-24, 2009 T. Boone Pickens has been putting his money where his mouth is in natural gas vehicles for decades, and over the past year has taken his campaign for the clean domestic fuel national. Now the Pickens Plan is on the American agenda, and Pickens himself will give the WasteCon Presidential Keynote address here Wednes- day at 10am. —Page 3 Waste Management-Linde at Altamont. Athens has deployed 108 CNG-fueled Mercedes-Benz Econic NGT refuse trucks. Talking CNG Today... NGVAmerica is hosting nearly a dozen CNG/natural gas vehicle equipment com- panies at WasteCon 2009. The NGVAmerica-coordinated display is at Booth 1353, next to Autocar toward the rear of the exhibit hall. NGVAmerica Booth 1353 ANGI Energy Systems Chart – NexGen Fueling Emission Solutions, Inc. Freightliner Truck (Daimler) Gas Equipment Systems, Inc. GreenField Compression Luxfer Gas Cylinders Sempra Energy Utilities – SoCal Gas Trillium USA Westport Innovations Other NGV Offerings at WasteCon AFV Fleet Service – Fab Booth 927 Autocar Booth 1359 (hosting Enviromech) Clean Energy Booth 1326 Crane Carrier Booth 1209 Cummins Westport Booth 803 FirmGreen Booth 1246 McNeilus Booth 1032 U.S. EPA (Landfill Methane Outreach) Booth 943 Waste Management, Inc. Booth 5151
Transcript
The U.S. natural gas vehicles in-dustry has watched the use ofmethane expand by millions of vehi-cles in recent years, with Argentina,Brazil, Pakistan and Iran emergingas world leaders, and China and India
taking the clean fuel seriously indeed.Now a convergence of factors —environmental- and energy security-related — is making methane lookgood in America. Refuse trucks, with their high fuel use, low range
demands, central fueling and opera-tors who need protection from dieselprice swings, represent a standoutmarket opportunity.
Which is why the U.S. NGVs in-dustry is at WasteCon 2009, in force.
The Promise of Cheaper Fuel
Europe is far ahead of the U.S. when it comes to biogas — refined forvehicle use, it’s biomethane. Some cities in Sweden run their CNG refuse trucks entirely on biomethane, and a successful trial of biomethanein England this year prompted an Italian OEM to offer a line of CNGtrucks with right-hand drive for the UK market.
The U.S. opportunity is huge. New processes are helping drive downthe cost of purifying landfill gas, yielding biomethane that’s chemicallyidentical, and in some cases more reliable, than conventional (fossil)natural gas.
Garbage trucks operate at landfills, and it’s inevitable that biomethanewill play a larger role in fueling them.
Waste Management and Linde have just opened a landfill gas-based LNG facility in California they say is the world’s largest. It willsupport an estimated 300 trucks. “We can go larger on the next one,”says Linde energy segment manager Bryan Luftglass. —Page 4
McNeilus is showing this Peterbilt 320-based CNG refuse truck at WasteCon 2009. —Page 6
Get Ready for Biomethane
Welcome to WasteCon 2009SEPTEMBER 22-24, 2009
T. Boone Pickens has been putting hismoney where his mouth is in natural gas vehicles for decades, and over the past yearhas taken his campaign for the clean domestic fuel national. Now the PickensPlan is on the American agenda, and Pickens himself will give the WasteConPresidential Keynote address here Wednes-day at 10am. —Page 3
Waste Management-Linde at Altamont.
Athens has deployed 108 CNG-fueled Mercedes-Benz Econic NGT refuse trucks.
Talking CNG Today...NGVAmerica is hosting nearly a dozenCNG/natural gas vehicle equipment com-panies at WasteCon 2009.
The NGVAmerica-coordinated displayis at Booth 1353, next to Autocar toward therear of the exhibit hall.
NGVAmerica Booth 1353ANGI Energy SystemsChart – NexGen FuelingEmission Solutions, Inc.Freightliner Truck (Daimler)Gas Equipment Systems, Inc.GreenField CompressionLuxfer Gas CylindersSempra Energy Utilities – SoCal GasTrillium USAWestport Innovations
Other NGV Offerings at WasteConAFV Fleet Service – Fab Booth 927Autocar Booth 1359 (hosting Enviromech)Clean Energy Booth 1326Crane Carrier Booth 1209Cummins Westport Booth 803FirmGreen Booth 1246McNeilus Booth 1032U.S. EPA (Landfill Methane Outreach) Booth 943Waste Management, Inc. Booth 5151
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“We’re going to be brought to ourknees if this continues.”
T. Boone Pickens has been mak-ing the natural-gas-as-domestic-solution argument for many years,and last year stepped up the pace byinvesting a widely reported $68 mil-lion to publicize the Pickens Plan,whereby wind power for electricityand natural gas for vehicles — espe-cially heavy vehicles, like garbagetrucks — could wean America fromits overseas dependence.
The U.S. spends some $700 bil-lion a year that could better be spenthere, Pickens says. He recentlypointed out that the U.S. spent moremoney on oil imports in August than
it did during any other month in2009. About $25 billion.
And, he argues, we’re buying frompeople who don’t like us, and weshouldn’t count on.
“They do not have as much oil asthey tell us they do,” Pickens hastold Congress. “It isn’t there.”
What is here is natural gas, withpricing economics increasingly sep-arated from the global oil market.Methane, in other words, is gettingcheaper. Suppliers are willing to ex-tend long-term contracts, insulat-ing users from oil price spikes.
While Pickens packs a political
wallop, the natural gas vehicle fuel-ing company he founded continuesan aggressive drive to marketmethane, especially for heavy dutyvehicles, with the refuse industry aprime target. Clean Energy Fuels,now a public entity based near herein Seal Beach, is a WasteCon 2009conference sponsor.
Clean Energy fuels some 1,500natural gas refuse trucks daily for up-wards of 50 fleets, says Jim Harger,sales VP. California is important,likewise Long Island, N.Y., whereSmithtown, Brookhaven and Hunt-ington are requiring carters to useCNG. CleanScapes in Seattle, with40 Crane trucks, is a new customer.
Clean Energy has nine fueling sta-tions in Dallas and will provideCNG fuel for 26 new garbage trucksbeing deployed by the city (page 4).They may someday be fueled withbiomethane from the McCommasBluff Landfill south of the city.
Clean Energy recently reported acontract with Republic Services andthe City of Boise to fuel a new CNGrefuse fleet — the first in Idaho.
Projects close to being announcedinvolve Sacramento-based WasteConnections in San Luis Obispo andChoice Environmental Services inFlorida. New business is expected inthe San Francisco Bay Area.
CalMet Services is a standout cus-tomer in Los Angeles County.
Clean Energy (Booth 1326) offersrefuse fleet operators full fuelingstation development, coupled withlong-term, fixed-price CNG or LNGfuel supply contracts “in a singleturnkey package.” The firm offers financing too, and will help securegrant funding and tax incentives.
Boone Pickens wants to requirethat all U.S. truckers use domesticfuel, i.e. natural gas. Clean Energyis working to make them want to.
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“It is an area of special potential.” That’s the word fromNGVAmerica Rich Kolodziej on the subject of natu-ral gas fuel for refuse trucks.
“They use a lot of fuel,” he notes, but they don’t clocklong distances. They do a lot of idling, and draw a lotof engine power to run compactors.
What’s more, Kolodziej notes, many carters workunder franchise deals, and are vulnerable to fuel priceincreases. They took a big hit in 2008.
“Natural gas has all the benefitsthey’re looking for,” he says — withprice stability at the top of the list.
“The potential for natural gas pricesto go astronomical is about zero,”Kolodziej says, while oil prices arealmost certain to surge when the re-cession ends and manufacturing and
shipping demand starts to grow again.The environmental argument is icing on the cake, so
to speak, while tighter environmental regulations makenatural gas more economical.
“A whole separate part of this is the biomethane,”says the NGVAmerica chief.
“They’ve got this resource that right now in manycases they’re wasting,” he says of the garbage industry.
“They’re flaring,” he says. They’re wasting gas that
could be fueling vehicles. Biomethane remains expen-
sive because of purification costs,Kolodziej concedes. But thosecosts are dropping, and the little-known renewable will likely ben-efit many vehicle operators in theyears to come.
“At the head of that line are the trash truck opera-tors,” Kolodziej says.
His organization has put together a 16-page maga-zine insert that summarizes the advantages of naturalgas for waste truck operators, with ample informationon fuel and equipment suppliers. Most of them are here.
“Down the road,” says Kolodziej, “We’d like to see90% or 100%” market penetration.”
Boone Pickens, described bythe Solid Waste Association ofNorth America as “a true en-ergy pioneer,” will give Swana’sPresidential Keynote addressat WasteCon 2009 on Wednes-day morning at 10:00.
reproduced in any form without permission.Reprints available upon request.
Rich Kolodziej
Get NGVAmerica’s refuse truck reference
at Booth 1353.
Clean Energy fueling station inHauppauge (Long Island), N.Y.
Rich Kolodziej has headed NGVAmerica since 1996.He is the current president of the world organization,the International Association for Natural Gas Vehicles.
IANGV will hold the next world NGVs meeting,NGV2010Roma, in Italy June 10-12. Abstracts for tech-nical papers are being accepted until October 30.
Great Britain has long been in need ofmore OEM-built natural gas vehicles.This past spring, Italy’s Iveco decidedto offer its wide range of CNG-fueledDaily trucks to British buyers, credit-ing consistent-quality biomethane fuel,trash truck proven, for the right hand-drive launch.
Gas quality is a challenge in the UK,as Victoria-era “mains” with seals madeof hemp require high moisture con-
tent gas, whichplays havoc withengines.
The biomethanefrom London-based Gasrec isbased on landfillgas. In league withpartner Linde, it’sprocessed andshipped as “LBM”
in cryogenic tankers, but put in vehiclesas CNG. There is no moisture issue.
A six-month trial by London’s Camden Council saw a Daily 65C14G cage tipper for recycling and street cleaning.
Gasrec fuel was delivered by Hard-staff, and Iveco now offers CNG as anoption for its full, 28-model range ofDaily vehicles in Britain.
Iveco Daily truck operated by the Camden City Council, London.
Money from the U.S. Department of Energy Clean Cities program — and thebacking of Mack Trucks — may help spread the “CO2 Wash” process used byLos Angeles-based FirmGreen to process gas from a landfillnear Columbus, Ohio.
FirmGreen (Booth 1246) markets the product as “gCNG.”Advocates of CO2 Wash, developed by Cleveland-based Acrion, say it is an
“elegant” process by which carbon dioxide itself is induced to act as a solvent toremove other landfill gas impurities.
One such booster is Billy Malone of DeKalb County Sanitation, who will seekbids to develop landfill gas for fueling vehicles in the Atlanta area following a
$14.98 million Clean Cities award.Other Clean Cities awards will support de-
ployment of clean and efficient refuse trucks inChicago, Connecticut (18 LNG vehicles), Idaho,New Jersey, and Utah.
Mack Trucks said in June that it would offer aline of “TerraPro” CNG trucks, beginning with
a low-entry vehicle with ISL G engine from Cummins Westport (Booth 803). Mack said it tested the Acrion process at a landfill in Burlington County, N.J.,
fueling two trucks for 600 hours of operation each over four months. “The re-sults of the test confirmed that the combination of Acrion’s advanced gas purifi-cation technology and natural gas-powered Mack refuse trucks was a sustainableand environmentally responsible business strategy for customers with landfill op-erations,” Mack said. Chicago’s Groot is a lead TerraPro customer, taking 20.
A Volvo-Mack affiliate called Terracastus Technologies is working with CNGtrucks and landfill gas toward a “total solution” for sustainable operation.
FirmGreen took Project of the Year honors for SWACO at the U.S. EPA’sLMOP (Landfill Methane Outreach Program; Booth 943) conference in Balti-more in January. 2010’s LMOP will be held in Baltimore too, January 11-13.
Beyond FirmGreen for ‘CO2 Wash’With Help from Clean Cities, Mack
LNG tanker atGasrec facility inAlbury, southwest
of London
CO2 Wash at SWACO in Ohio
WM & Linde: Altamont LNG at LastWaste Management, Inc. and purifica-tion partner Linde recently detailed their$15.5 million landfill gas-to-LNG proj-ect at Altamont, Calif., with target
capacity of 13,000 gallons of fuel per day made via a single-stage, mixed-refrigerant liquefaction process licensed fromthe Gas Technology Institute. The project, said to be theworld’s largest, will be able to fuel an estimated 300 trucks.WMI has approximately 700 natural gas trucks in Californiaout of a state fleet of 3,500. The company is at Booth 5151.
CNG Trash Trucks for DallasThe City of Dallas is getting its first CNG refuse trucks, whichmay ultimately be fueled with gas from a landfill south of thecity. “The first stage is getting the customer comfortable withthe technology,” says Reagan Noll of Clean Energy, whichhas nine area fueling stations. They’ll help support 26 CNGrefuse trucks purchased by Dallas this year. The vehicles include 20 International Workstar trucks with 7.6-liter engines converted by Emission Solutions, Inc. The other sixare Peterbilt 320s with ISL G engines from Cummins West-port. The 26 trucks have Enviromech fuel systems with CNGtanks from Luxfer. Clean Energy has rights to gas from theMcCommas Bluff Landfill near Hutchins, and ultimatelywould like to establish public-access fueling there. Dallas cityvehicles and others who use the landfill could fuel there. Sup-pliers for the Dallas trucks are at NGVAmerica’s Booth 3553and Autocar’s Booth 1359. Clean Energy is at Booth 1326.
Autocar Fielded 500 in 2008Indiana’s Autocar built more than 500 Xpeditor brand CNGrefuse trucks in 2008, and has just told customers that thisyear, it “completed the largest single order of natural gasgarbage trucks in the Pacific Northwest in U.S. history whenthe City of Seattle added a fleet of Autocar WXLL naturalgas Xpeditors.” The trucks, nearly 100, operated by WasteManagement, Inc., have McNeilus bodies and AFV-FabCNG fuel rigs. Autocar is at Booth 1359 (McNeilus Truck isat Booth 1032 and AFV-Fab is at Booth 927).
Westport and Cummins WestportWhat’s the difference? Westport Innovations (Booth 803) offersthe 15-liter GX engine (formerly the ISX), a compression ignition powerplant for transfer trucks that runs primarily onnatural gas with “pilot” diesel, maintainingdiesel’s basic efficiency. Vancouver-basedWestport will use SCR to meet 2010 emis-sions limits. The firm offers an entire LNGpackage, marketed as HD, with GX engineand fuel tanks manufactured by a partner in China. Cummins Westport, Inc. is a joint venture between WestportInnovations and Cummins, Inc. CWI offers spark-ignition,dedicated-natural gas engines, notably the 8.9-liter ISL G(shown). CWI is at NGVAmerica’s Booth 1353.
S N A P S H O T SS N A P S H O T S
Biomethane Brings CNG Trucks to UK
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Two WasteCon 2009 exhibitors emphasize fuel
systems for natural gas vehicles, and both see
increasing promise in the refuse arena.
AFV Fleet Services, a unit of Brentwood, Tenn.-
and Anniston, Ala.-based
Fab Industries (of CNG
transit bus fame), em-
ploys some 63 people at
three facilities in South-
ern California, with Fontana its main location.
AFV-Fab is at Booth 927.
Enviromech has a new facility right here in
Long Beach, where it is working on both Inter-
national Workstar and Peterbilt refuse trucks
for the City of Dallas (page 4).
The firm will also furnish CNG systems for
factory installation for Freightliner M2 trucks
(AFV-Fab has the Freightliner LNG work.)
Enviromech (Booth 1359), is setting up a
joint venture in Italy with
CNG tank supplier Luxfer
(Booth 1353).
AFV-Fab & Enviromech
GESI Continues to GrowGas Equipment Systems, Inc. continues to expandits CNG fueling station business, building facilitiesin more parts of the country, representing an in-creasing number of suppliers, and adding person-nel at its headquarters in Rancho Cucamonga(Los Angeles) — where it’smoving into bigger offices.
Here in Southern Cali-fornia, a GESI station sup-ports 20 CNG refuse trucksand half a dozen streetsweepers in Pasadena, while another supports 16trucks in Asuza.
GESI has also provided fueling for 40 CNG trashtrucks operated by Chicago’s Groot Industries, andbuilt a station in Dodge Center, Minn. for McNeilus.
GESI handles Gardner Denver and Ingersoll-Rand compressors, Kraus dispensers, and BRC-FuelMaker vehicle refueling appliances. GESI isdisplaying with NGVAmerica at Booth 1353.
GESI Pasadena
Salt Lake City-based Trillium USA, which special-
izes in large-scale CNG fueling, with transit cus-
tomers including LA Metro, New York City, and the
Orange County Transportation Authority near here,
is eyeing refuse trucks.
“One of my first priorities at Trillium is to expand
“We’ll have the first CNG hybrid in New York by the endof the year,” Crane Carrier VP Glenn Pochocki told Fleets& Fuels ShowTimes prior to WasteCon, noting that the72,000 lb GVW truck with 8.9-liter Cummins WestportISL G engine and hydraulic drive from Bosch Rexroth willbe the first of two.
The New York City Department of Sanitation is also de-
ploying ten CNG Cranes with conventional drivetrains.Crane is supplying 50 CNG trucks 5.9-liter Cummins West-port engines to the L.A. Department of Water & Power.
Emissions limits that get substantially lower in 2010,Pochocki says, will raise the cost of diesel trucks, reducingthe delta with CNG by about $10,000 per truck, down fromabout $40,000 today. Crane Carrier is at Booth 1209.
Crane Likes CNG Prospects, Even Supplies Hybrids
Coming soon to a city near you…
The Clean Vehicle Education Foundation presents
For more information, visitwww.cleanvehicle.org/workshop/index.shtml
“The Compelling Case for Natural GasVehicles in Public and Private Fleets”
A Comprehensive One-Day Workshop for Fleet Operators and Clean-Air/Clean-Transportation Policymakers
CVEF educational workshops are low-cost, fun, fast-paced and full of practical information covering a wide variety of topics including:
� Environmental, energy security and economic market drivers � NGVs 101 basics �Best NGV applications and why � Light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles available from
OEMs and SVM “retrofit companies” � Fuel station design, development and owner-ship/operations options � Federal and state tax credits, grants and other incentives
� NGV fleet operator experiences and tips � Calculating fuel cost, simple payback and life-cycle savings � Next steps in implementing a successful NGV program
Upcoming DatesAnn Arbor, MI October 28, 2009 Philadelphia, PA November 11, 2009Tampa, FL November 17, 2009Additional 2009/2010 Dates TBA soon!
Registration Fee: $50-65 (varies by location)
Minnesota’s McNeilus, a division of $7 billionOshkosh, has launched a program dubbed “Ngen,”for Next Generation Initiatives, “designed to brandand promote industry changing technologies.”
One big change is increased use of natural gasfuel. Hundreds of McNeilus CNG refuse truckshave been deployed, and are even the basis of a newline of CNG concrete mixers.
Ngen features lightweight composite compo-nents for mixers, and the same type of technologyis being engineered for refuse trucks, says McNeilusmarketing chief Jeffry Swertfeger.
“We have moved several hundred CNG prod-ucts and definitely see that trend continuing, espe-cially as more grant money is made available andlegislation for fuel incentives is passed,” he says.
McNeilus (Booth 1032) last year put in its owncompressed nat-ural gas fuelinginstallation (byCalifornia’s GasEquipment Sys-tems, Inc.) at itsDodge Centerfactory, allowing
its factory-new dedicated-CNG vehicles to bedriven off the line.
The McNeilus CNG trucks have 2010 emis-sions-compliant ISL G engines from CumminsWestport, Inc. CWI and GESI are at Booth 1353.
McNeilus Ngen
One of 40 CNG-fueled LET2 chassis by Crane Carrierfor CleanScapes in Seattle
Lincoln Composites is moving its lightweight CNGand hydrogen fuel tank manufacturing into a brandnew, state-of-the-art, approximately 50,000-square-foot facility in Lincoln, Neb. adjacent to its plant
for large Titan cylinders. “We have incorporated au-
tomation and enhanced pro-cesses to promote greater manufacturing capacityand control,” says Lincoln’s new business develop-ment director, Yukari Tanimoto.
She is expected to attend WasteCon 2009.
New Factory for Lincoln
CNG Savings Calculator on theMcNeilus refuse website
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