COMMENTARY
technologyreview
LNG –
the road
to stable
truck rates
Trucks fueled by liquid natural gas might offer shippers
an escape from fuel price pain.
TIRED OF SWEATING HIGHER DIESEL
fuel prices? Then maybe it’s time to find a
trucking company that’s running its delivery
fleet on liquefied natural gas (LNG) instead of
diesel.
LNG is the liquid form of natural gas, which
is primarily methane. It’s related to compressed natural gas (CNG), which, as the
name suggests, is condensed under high pressure. Although truck engines can run on both
LNG and CNG, it does not make sense to use
CNG for longhaul trucking because compressed gas adds weight that must be carried
along with the freight, according to experts.
“In general, if your operating range is over
400 miles, it’s usually best to go with LNG,”
says Andy Douglas, Kenworth Truck Co.’s
national sales manager for specialty markets.
Although natural gas is more economical
than diesel, there is currently no national
infrastructure that would make it easy for a
driver to refuel a rig traveling from, say,
Boston to Los Angeles. But that doesn’t mean
shippers should wait to transition to alterna-
tive fuels; they can act now. Here’s why it
might make sense.
THE ALTERNATIVE FOSSIL FUEL
Although size estimates vary, there is no disputing that the United States has huge reserves
of natural gas within its borders and that this
abundance of supply plays a key role in keeping the cost lower than other energy sources.
As for how much lower, the weekly fuel
price report by Clean Energy Fuels Corp., a
major LNG supplier, provides some comparisons. For the week of Feb. 27, when diesel in
the United States sold for $4.05 a gallon, the
equivalent amount of LNG cost $2.82 and
CNG just $2.32, according to the company.
Although trucks can be adapted to run on
both LNG and CNG, the equipment carries
a higher price tag. A typical Class 8 truck
running on diesel costs anywhere from
$100,000 to $125,000, according to Glen P.
Kedzie, vice president at the American
