DC Velocity - April 2010

being powered by either liquefied or compressed natural gas is between $40,000 and $75,000 higher than a comparable truck burning petroleum-based diesel fuel, according to the ATA.

Natural gas usage by heavy-duty trucks is also constrained by a relatively primitive refueling infrastructure compared to the diesel network. The absence of an established refueling network would be less of an issue for private fleets that have defined routes and whose trucks return to the same depot they left from. However, it poses a problem for those heavy-duty truckers that operate over so-called irregular routes and don’t know where they are going to be—or where they will need to refuel—on any given day.

Ray of light

Yet there are glimmers of progress. One ray of light is emanating out of Fremont, Calif., where a four-year-old company called Oorja Protonics has developed fuel-cell technology to convert the chemical methanol into an energy source capable of powering heavy-duty rigs. Methanol can be produced from, among other sources, wood alcohol found in dead trees, natural gas found in landfills, and a grass known as switch grass.

Sanjiv Malhotra, Oorja’s founder and CEO, says the technology is being used to power forklift fleets in customers’ distribution centers. But the technology also has potential applications for private over-the-road fleets. It is now being beta-tested as a power source for the auxiliary power units (APUs) used to provide electrical power for truck cabs when the engine is turned off, eliminating the need for costly vehicle idling. Malhotra estimates that vehicle idling costs the trucking industry about $9 billion a year.

Malhotra says methanol is found in abundance throughout the United States, and because it is a chemical commodity, its price doesn’t fluctuate significantly. He says methanol’s costs generally stay in a range of $1 to $1.50 a gallon.

The front-end costs to buy and install the fuel-cell packs can run as high as $10,000 per vehicle. However, should the technology gain critical mass, Malhotra says, the costs should be cut almost in half. Even at

today’s prices, users of the technology can “recoup their initial investment in less than 12 months,” he says.

In the eyes of some in the industry,
the Oorja example is the future of the
interaction between truckers and
alternative fuels, where consumption
decisions are driven not by govern-
ment fiat but by private-sector inno-
vation and fleet-planning initiatives.

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