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Natural Gas Fuel "Study" Only Looks At Half The Picture

"It's impossible to develop a valid cost comparison between diesel and natural gas vehicles without considering the infrastructure costs necessary to support natural gas fleets," says Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum. "That means you have to add in the cost for building the shipping and receiving facilities, pipelines, fueling stations and maintenance facilities that currently do not exist."

Schaeffer cites as proof of the need for infrastructure a paragraph from the CNGVP press release which points out there are only 1,500 natural gas filling stations in all of North America. That's comparable to more than 69,000 diesel stations in the U.S. alone.

These infrastructure challenges affect the availability of natural gas, which has an impact on cost that is not considered in the CNGVP report. Increasing the demand with no clear way of increasing supply will only increase that cost, Schaeffer warns.

"Costs for distribution, compressors, fueling stations and the special maintenance facilities required to safely work on natural gas vehicles - or the impact on gas prices without those systems - must be part of the equation," Schaeffer says. "In many parts of California and the nation, those costs are simply prohibitive without substantial government subsidies, which is why we continue to call for keeping a diverse suite of fuel options open for the marketplace."

Schaeffer emphasizes that California's energy future requires a fuel-neutral, market-place based approach that allows all fuels to compete based on a variety of factors, but that debate must be based on reasoned facts that have been omitted by this report as opposed to the many radical presumptions of costs and technology it includes.

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The Diesel Technology Forum represents manufacturers of engines, fuel and emissions control systems. It brings together the diesel industry, the broad diesel user community, civic and public interest leaders, government regulators, academics, scientists, the petroleum industry and public health researchers to encourage the exchange of information, ideas, scientific findings and points-of-view to current and future uses of diesel power technology. For more information about the Forum, visit our web site at www.dieselforum.org.