Canada’s leading newspaper reports that natural gas is moving from “a small environmental niche toward the mainstream in transportation:”
The commodity’s role as a transportation fuel is gaining amid growing awareness of its environmental benefits, along with favourable economics thanks to abundant supplies and low costs. Discoveries of vast new deposits of shale gas are adding to long-term supply sources.
In a far ranging 1,000-plus word article, The Globe and Mail national correspondent David Ebner describes the increasing importance of North America’s untapped gas reserves and profiles companies that are moving to capitalize on the growing demand for the cleaner burning fuel.
Ebner singles out Quebec-based Robert Transport, which has a fleet of 750 diesel-powered trucks but plans to buy 80 new ones with natural gas engines. The first deliveries are scheduled for early next year.
Natural gas emits fewer greenhouse gases compared with diesel refined from crude oil. Beyond the environmental benefits, the cheaper cost of gas compared with diesel was the big factor in the decision, said Daniel St-Germain, vice-president of asset management at Robert Transport.
But Ebner doesn’t dwell solely on Canadian interests either. He notes that some of the world’s largest cities have already put natural gas to work powering mass transits systems and cleaning up the environment:
To date, demand for natural gas engines has been mostly limited to environmental initiatives, such as Beijing’s purchase of cleaner-burning gas-fuelled buses ahead of the 2008 Olympics to reduce smog from diesel. In other examples, ports in the Los Angeles region were required to go green and bought natural gas engine trucks for short-haul operations within port facilities.
Read the article HERE.