like lead, nitrous oxide, sulphur oxide and ozone as well as other particulates that are found in higher quantity in diesel fuel. Another contributing factor in natu-


ral gas’ popularity is that local and state governments have begun to convert their short haul fleets of city buses and garbage trucks to natural gas, Goreham said, which demonstrated its usefulness and reliability as a fuel source. UPS, one of the country’s largest car-


riers, has been one of the more proactive operations when it comes to embracing natural gas, with close to 3,800 vehicles in its fleet of 103,000 equipped to use natural gas. On August 2 the company announced it had achieved its goal of driving one bil- lion miles through its alternative fuel and advanced technology fleet, a year earlier than planned, according to FleetOwner. com.


FleetOwner also reported, that, on


August 9, Ryder System announced its fleet of Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs) had reached 100,000 miles, making it the first commercial fleet outsourcing provider to do so.


The fourth factor Goreham cites is


also financial. “A 50 cents per gallon feder- al tax incentive for use of CNG or LNG is a motivating factor for the fuels’ use,” Goreham said. And yet, it is still newsworthy when a


large carrier is using natural gas, because the mainstream isn’t. It may be cheaper and cleaner, but getting past the high cost of the trucks is only one of the hurdles of adopting natural gas vehicles.


Natural gas infrastructure lacking Goreham noted that availability is


still a problem. A national fueling infra- structure is not yet a reality, which keeps commercial, long-haul fleets from embrac- ing CNG across the board. “Only about one to two percent of the fuel use in privately owned commercial trucking involves natu- ral gas,” Goreham said. “There’s a very limited number of ter-


minals out there,” Goreham said, especially at private retailers and truck stops. Mounce agrees. “With a diesel, where


you fuel the vehicle never even comes into the equation…But with natural gas, it’s the first,


almost first and foremost, thing you try to figure out. Where will we fuel if we use this lane? Often there is a station or two available, but it’s nowhere near the maturity.” In 2013, the


Arkansas Legislature passed the Clean Burning Motor Fuel Act and appropriated $3 million for incentives to develop and build CNG fueling stations. CNGPrices.com lists


15 CNG fueling stations in the state, including the the Krug Energy Station in Searcy that in early August was acquired by alternative motor fuels distributor American Natural Gas, the third such acquisition in the state by ANG. “The Natural State continues to be an


impressive community of alternative fuel- focused businesses and fleet leaders,” said ANG CEO Drew West in a statement announcing the sale. Also, with oil prices remaining low,


and projected to stay that way for some time—and better quality diesel fuel—the rush to adapt to natural gas fuels has slowed and some companies have put a hold on plans to adapt more vehicles to natural gas use.


Cleaner or cheaper, not both The low fuel prices that the transpor-


tation industry is currently enjoying can be attributed, Goreham said, to the hydro- fracturing “revolution.” Hydraulic fractur- ing is the process of injecting high pressure liquid, sand and chemicals into the ground to break rock apart and release the gas. Offshore drilling requires “something


like” several years and approximately $10 billion to develop a field while, for a com- paratively small cost, developers can go “frack” a shale play and have a yield in a few months, Goreham said. The location of the fossil fuel produc-


ing shale fields were known for some time, Goreham said, but until the advent of hydraulic fracturing no one knew how to


get natural gas out of the ground in any great quantity at an affordable cost. Goreham noted that U.S. petroleum


oil production had fallen from 9.6 million barrels per day in 1970 to five million a day by 2008. In the ensuing seven years, almost all of that fall-off was made up by fracking. “It really is a tribute to human engi-


neering…and the truckers are able to bene- fit from that right now,” Goreham said. Fracking has also helped make the


cost of diesel fuel cheaper. The cost of a gallon of diesel fuel is down to around $2 from the $3–$4 range of a few years ago. “There’s roughly a wash right now in


the fuel charge,” Goreham said, comparing natural gas and diesel prices. He said diesel may have a slight advantage in that a truck can go more miles using diesel, but the cost, cleanliness and growing availability of natural gas is also attractive. But Mounce would say that “a slight


advantage” is an understatement. Diesel is still “absolutely the dominant solution” because of the equipment expense, added effort of routing through an underdevel- oped fueling station network, and even increased maintenance costs. However, he said that price may not be what drives the rise of natural gas. Instead, the industry may eventually have to “wrap our arms around something that costs more… because that’s what we want from a cleaner, environmental standpoint.” “I do think this is a great thing for the


industry by the way,” Goreham said. “I think competition is good.” r


Issue 3, Fall 2016 37


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