In a North American landscape increasingly bathed in domestic natural gas supplies, the question is raised more loudly at the end of another calendar year: Why aren’t there more natural gas vehicles (NGV) on U.S. roadways?

The answer, colored by the lack of consumer vehicle choices and fueling infrastructure limits, is that fleet and heavy-duty equipment are increasingly moving over to NGVs, but the consumer market has failed to develop. Prospects for growth in 2012 appear to be limited to the fleet sector where an aggressive push for more of a fueling network is ongoing (see Daily GPI, Aug. 25).

In July Chesapeake Energy Corp., established a $1 billion fund — Chesapeake NG Ventures Corp. — to invest in companies and technologies to enable replacement of gasoline and diesel fuel with natural gas and gas-to-liquids fuels (see Daily GPI, July 18).

Houston-based Apache Corp. said at year-end it will open a refueling station in Lafayette, LA, early next year as part of its effort promoting more natural gas use in transportation. Apache has built seven refueling stations so far in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, and its Lafayette station is one of nine additional ones it is planning for next year. A second NGV fueling station will be opened in Lafayette by the local city-parish government, which will refuel 40 NGV fleet vehicles it currently operates, and it has plans for converting 65 more vehicles to run on natural gas.

A year-end report by the Associated Press raised questions about natural gas use in transportation in the United States, citing the existence of only one major NGV consumer vehicle model, the newly renamed Honda NG, which runs on compressed natural gas (CNG); lack of public fueling stations; and an industry concentration on fleets where fuel-guzzling big rigs and heavy-duty equipment and refuse trucks are a more natural market.

Trade association NGV America contends that the initial focus needs to be on the big fuel-consuming vehicle sector if the initial goal is to reduce foreign oil imports and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. An average passenger car goes 12,000 miles and consumes about 500 gallons of gasoline in a year while the average 18-wheel, diesel-fueled big rig covers 120,000 miles and consumes 20,000 gallons of fuel.

At the annual convention of the American Fleet and Leasing Association in September this year, General Motors’ Mark Vann, manager of government and fuel cell projects, touted various advantages of natural gas in transportation. “The economic payback for alternative fuel vehicles is dependent on many factors, including assumptions on the future price of fuel/energy,” Vann said.

Critics contend that the United States continues to lag behind the rest of the world in terms of moving toward more widespread use of natural gas in vehicles. Of the estimated 12.7 million NGVs globally, only about 112,000 are in the United States. The Asia-Pacific Rim (6.8 million) and Latin America (4.2 million) account for more than 90% of the NGVs operating today. Europe has another 1.4 million, followed by Africa (122,000).

Earlier in December at the Deloitte Oil & Gas Conference, a former senior executive with GM and other U.S. automakers, Bob Lutz, said natural gas works well in vehicles but there is no significant mass consumer demand and the fueling range of the vehicles is very limiting and a stumbling block. Lutz most recently was one of the GM executives guiding the development of the gasoline-electric hybrid Chevy Volt.

However, officials at one of the major CNG engine manufacturers, Westport Innovations in Vancouver, BC, disagreed with Lutz’s assessment that NGVs are limited to about a 50-mile range. “Our Ford pickup trucks will run up to 600 miles, which, frankly, addresses a major customer concern and what we refer to as ‘range anxiety,'” said a Westport spokesperson in Vancouver. He cautioned that the range of light-duty vehicles and heavy-duty trucks is dependent on a variety of factors, including but not limited to duty cycle, engine size, vehicle chassis, etc.

Seal Beach, CA-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp., the firm founded by former oil/gas billionaire T. Boone Pickens, has set out on a multi-year effort to expand the U.S. natural gas fueling network by about 150 stations at truck stops nationwide. The plan calls for covering every major interstate highway in the nation to capture all of the long-haul trucking operators.

Clean Energy is zeroed in on the trucking industry, and it is pushing for Congress to pass legislation (NatGas Act) that would provide tax credits to cover 80% of the cost difference between natural gas tractor-trailers and those fueled with diesel (see Daily GPI, March 31). “This will help jump-start the industry,” according to Clean Energy’s chief marketer, James Harger, as quoted in the AP report.

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