Incentives

In the state of Texas, the General Land Office is also promoting natural gas vehicles for public vehicle fleets. It has a $5 million grant program to help heavy-duty fleets like garbage trucks and street sweepers start using natural gas.

The North Texas Council of Governments also provides grants for clean vehicle projects in an effort to reduce ozone-causing pollution in the DFW region. The primary cause of ozone is nitrogen oxides, most of which comes from vehicles that run on regular gas or diesel. A myriad of federal incentives are also in place and may well increase under the Obama administration.

While using natural gas for transportation is in the early stages in our part of the nation, there is every reason for Texas, and particularly North Texas, to take the lead nationally. After all, we are home to the Barnett Shale.

From NGV America:

About Natural Gas Vehicles

• There are about 110,000 NGVs on U.S. roads today and more than 11 million worldwide.
• There are more than 1,100 NGV fueling stations in the U.S. – and about half of them are open to the public.
• In the United States, about 30 different manufacturers produce 100 models of light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles and engines.
• Natural gas costs, on average, one-third less than conventional gasoline at the pump.
• Natural gas is sold in gasoline gallon equivalents (GGE). A GGE has the same energy content (125,000 BTUs) as a gallon of gasoline without ethanol.

Natural gas as a transportation fuel is growing

• Industry data shows that vehicular natural gas nearly doubled between 2003 and 2009, now displacing more than 300 million diesel gallon equivalents.
• Transit buses now account for about 66% of all vehicular natural gas use.
• According to the American Public Transit Association, 27 percent of all new transit bus orders in 2008 were for natural gas. According to the association, about 18 percent of transit buses run on natural gas.

• Waste collection and transfer vehicles, which account for about 11 percent of total vehicular natural gas use, are the fastest growing NGV segment
• More than 35 airports in the U.S. have natural gas vehicles in their own fleets and/or have policies encouraging use by private fleets operating on premises, making this sector the third largest with about 9 percent of total vehicular natural gas use.
• The successful clean port transportation initiative in Southern California is spurring adoption of similar policies in other ports on both coasts.
• The International Association of Natural Gas Vehicles estimates that there will be more than 50 million natural gas vehicles worldwide within the next 10 years, or about 9 percent of the world transportation fleets.

Benefits of Natural Gas Vehicles

Petroleum Displacement

Making America less dependent on foreign oil is a national priority. President Obama, in accepting his party’s nomination, established his own clear goals:  "For the sake of our economy, our security and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: in 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East."

Congress, too, strongly supports reducing petroleum use, and has passed laws that provide to incentives to Americans who move to non-petroleum fuels. While the United States imports more than 60 percent of the oil it uses, 98 percent of the natural gas used in the U.S. was produced in North America. Every gallon equivalent of natural gas used in vehicles is one less gallon of petroleum that has to be imported.

Urban Emissions

Exhaust emissions from NGVs are generally much lower than those from gasoline-powered vehicles. For example, the natural gas-powered Honda Civic GX is recognized by the EPA as the cleanest commercially available, internal-combustion vehicle on earth.

The Civic GX is rated by the California Air Resources Board as meeting the very stringent AT-PZEV standard.  The CNG-powered Civic produces 95 percent fewer emissions of non-methane hydrocarbons, and 75 percent fewer emissions of nitrogen oxides than its gasoline counterpart.  Dedicated NGVs produce little or no evaporative emissions during fueling and use. In gasoline vehicles, evaporative and fueling emissions account for significant portion of the emission associated with operating a vehicle. 
 
Replacing a typical older vehicle with a new NGV provides the following reductions in exhaust emissions of:

• Carbon monoxide (CO) by 70 percent – 90 percent
• Non-methane organic gas (NMOG) by 50 – 75 percent
• Nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 75 – 95 percent
• Carbon dioxide (CO2) by 20 – 30 percent  

The actual emission benefits of introducing natural gas vehicles into a fleet will vary depending on the type of NGVs used and whether the emission comparison is based on the emissions of the vehicles being replaced or new motor vehicles.  Fleets that replace in-use medium and heavy duty diesel vehicles with new natural gas vehicles will see the most significant reductions in emissions since medium and heavy duty trucks put out much more emissions than light duty vehicles.

Greenhouse Gases

Per unit of energy, natural gas contains less carbon than any other fossil fuel, and thus produces lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per vehicle mile traveled. While NGVs do emit methane, another principle greenhouse gas, any increase in methane emissions is more than offset by a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions compared to other fuels. Recent analyses estimate that NGVs produce up to 20 to 30 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than comparable diesel- and gasoline-fueled vehicles.