I attended the San Francisco EPAct workshop last week to learn more about the Californian alternative fuel network for one of my cleantech clients. E-Cofueling has a diesel engine retrofit kit (heavy to light duty) that vaporizes ethanol in the combustion chamber increasing horsepower, torque and fuel mileage while decreasing emissions. I went to get a better understanding of where ethanol (E-85) fueling stations are now, where they are planned for the near future and which fleets are using them.
The workshop covered alternative fuels such as: biofuel, ethanol, natural gas, propane and electric charging in California. Stakeholders for each alternative fuel spoke about how their product was currently being utilized, how to best use it and what they thought the future looked like for their niche. One of the speakers from NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) noted that all federal vehicles with alternative fuel vehicle (AFV) capability are mandated to utilize alternative fuels if they are within 5 miles or 15 minutes of drive time (EPAct 2005 Section 701) helping to “fuel” the need for more Alternative Fuel stations. It was also interesting to hear that there is a huge push for electric vehicles to be purchased by government organizations even though the ROI for them does not appear to be as strong as other alternative fuels. It seems like electric is sexy and “in” right now and the politicians want to get on that wagon more than others even though it does not use a renewable fuel source.
It will be interesting to see which fuels become dominate over the next ten years in California vs. the rest of the country. Each fuel that was reviewed at the workshop has merit but also liabilities that must be taken into consideration before a fleet owner chooses which way to go. The larger fleets are trialing a number of different alternative fuel vehicles in order to make a real world assessment of what works for them, which seems like a good plan.
Companies and government organizations which need to move large amounts of goods and that have plenty of money to spend are buying new more fuel efficient diesel engines or AFV’s. Those that don’t have the money but still want to go green need inexpensive alternatives to retrofit existing vehicles. Diesel engines are without question the backbone of the US trucking industry as well as municipalities, schools etc.,. These engines as a whole last longer (than their standard gas counterparts) and there are millions of them on the road today. E-Cofueling and other niche diesel retrofit technologies that can increase fuel mileage as well as reduce emissions, will have an opportunity to make a difference.
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