Michael Allman, CEO of Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas), said he thinks natural gas will be fueling more vehicles than electricity 10 years from now. Allman spoke Tuesday at the summer meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) in Los Angeles.

Other speakers, several touting an equally bright future for electric vehicles (EV), agreed that for certain niche markets and an interim period of the next 10 to 20 years, natural gas likely will carve out an important role in the alternative fuel market. Long term, however, some form of EV will prevail, several speakers said.

Allman, supported by a presentation from the American Gas Association (AGA), represented America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) and did his best to argue for a bigger future for natural gas as a transportation fuel, despite some dismal indicators regarding the development of more fueling infrastructure.

“In 10 years time, I am going to predict that we will have more cars fueled at least in part by natural gas as we do EVs,” said Allman, noting he wanted to begin his presentation with something provocative. Part of his reasoning is the apparent continuing lack of technological breakthroughs in battery development. “Right now they are expensive, heavy, and I don’t know how long they will last,” he said.

In contrast, the potential of CNG and LNG use in transportation has been bolstered by the shale gas boom and a lot of what Allman called low-hanging fruit in terms of fleets and heavy equipment that run well on natural gas. In addition, he said the widespread use of natural gas in vehicles in Europe and Asia has “proved” that the same thing is possible in the United States.

Ultimately, Allman reiterated what his peers in the gas industry have been saying regarding the need for national legislation (NAT GAS Act) that Congress has been looking at to boost the use of natural gas in transportation. He also reiterated what other speakers said regarding the other alternatives, namely that utilities need to play a bigger role in lowering barriers to individuals having home-based fueling capability for CNG or EVs.

“Fuel use of natural gas over the past 15 years has grown a bit, but the fueling infrastructure is declining,” Allman said. “We have fewer fueling stations in North America now than we did back in the 1990s. We need to improve on that.”

In Southern California, Allman said, there are relatively few fueling outlets (75), what he called a “drop in the bucket. That will not serve the market of where we need to be.” He said that Sempra Energy is reaching out to manufacturers to develop fast-fill, home-based gas transportation fueling equipment that is quick to install and can be priced at $1,500 to $2,000.

Kathryn Clay, executive director of AGA-ANGA’s Clean Air Transportation Alliance, led off the presentations to NARUC declaring that a “new day is before us” with the shale boom and what she characterized as third-party verified gas reserve projections that have confirmed the United States is now looking at a 100-year supply of natural gas.

Other speakers stressed that all of the competing alternative transportation fuel options will be needed in the years ahead. Hank Courtright, a senior vice president with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), stressed a “portfolio” approach and cited a new EPRI study released on Tuesday, “Transportation Electrification.” A General Motors clean fuel engineer, Alex Keros, also touted trying everything viable for an interim period, but ultimately he said the EV will be the dominant force in transportation.

Southern California Edison Co.’s manager of EV programs, Robert Graham, said his utility has made that same assessment and is working on outreach and education programs to remove the barriers for large-scale deployment of EVs with home-based and public charging equipment.

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