CleanFuel CNG Blog

Oklahoma State is to benefit from more than $18.6 million in stimulus funds awarded by the US Government this week to support energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. Included in the expected outcomes, for which $11 million has been allocated, will be vehicle and bus conversions to CNG, provision of equipment for CNG refueling stations and three projects intended to address the need for training and outreach to develop a green-jobs work force.

According to a report by Tulsa World, successful implementation of the projects is likely to stimulate even more funding under the auspices of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which appropriated $3.1 billion for promotion of energy efficiency, clean energy deployment and stimulation of local economic recovery.

The State of Oklahoma has passed two alternative fuel bills that will help Oklahomans take advantage of the state’s local alternative energy assets with natural gas for transportation. House Bill 1949 extends an existing tax credit on the purchase of a qualified clean-burning motor vehicle for five years for compressed and liquefied natural gas and electric cars. House Bill 1952 seeks to help further expand the number of vehicles in the state running on alternative fuels like compressed natural gas. The legislation will also help expand the number of publicly available fueling stations across the state.

The credit is equal to 50 percent of the cost of a conversion of vehicles to operate on a qualified fuel, as well as those originally equipped to do so.

The legislation also includes a tax credit for businesses seeking to build infrastructure to fuel such vehicles, along with a $2,500 tax credit for consumers installing home-fueling stations.

House Bill 1952

The bill would allow the Department of Central Services to provide fleet services to schools, county and municipal governments and provide public access to alternative fueling infrastructure in underserved areas unless a private provider locates within five miles.

The “State Fleet Management Fund” will also be amended to allow money from the fund to be used to build alternative fueling infrastructure or to acquire alternative fuel vehicles for use by state agencies or to lease to political subdivisions. The bill states that money from lease payments would be deposited into the fund.

The allowable loan amount out of the fund for a fill station will increase to $300,000, and a current cap of $10,000 per vehicle conversion will remain intact.

The bill would also repeal cost-prohibitive California Air Resources Board emission limits, and instead defer to emissions standards put in place by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. This change will make conversions easier and less cost-prohibitive but would still keep federal standards in place on all conversion kits.

Energy producer, Apache Corporation has opened its first compressed natural gas (CNG) refueling station at Elk City, Oklahoma, enabling the company to fuel field vehicles with cleaner-burning gas produced from the company’s wells in the Anadarko Basin of western Oklahoma. The station has the capacity to refuel 100 vehicles per day. Initially, it will be used to fuel more than 40 CNG-powered Apache field vehicles.
“This is a small step; Apache is exploring ways to share the excess capacity at the Elk City refueling facility with other CNG fleet operators and build additional refueling facilities at other company locations,” G. Steven Farris, Apache’s chairman and chief executive officer said. “The biggest obstacle right now is the lack of refueling infrastructure; that’s why we had to build our own station,” Farris said. “The private sector could build adequate infrastructure to fuel many of the nation’s public and private vehicle fleets, but policy makers will need to consider appropriate incentives to accelerate development.”

“Apache’s actions raised awareness of the abundant natural gas resource in the US that can provide an immediate cost-effective means to reduce America’s dependence on imported oil”, added Farris, “until other alternative fuels with lower greenhouse gas emissions become more economical to implement.”

The State of Oklahoma’s Department of Central Services Fleet Management Division recently entered into an agreement with Oklahoma based Tulsa Gas Technologies, Inc. (TGT), and CNG conversion technology manufacturer NaturalDrive Partners, LLC  to provide Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certified OEM-style compressed natural gas (CNG) conversion technology for use in its vehicle fleets. TGT will provide the equipment and training necessary for fleet conversion.
DCS Fleet Management is projected to perform 60 conversions to run as dedicated natural gas vehicles for participating State agencies during the next year. Using NaturalDrive conversion technology, these full-size alternative fuel vehicles will be utilized in a variety of state government applications.

Oklahoma’s government entities with formalized CNG vehicle conversion targets in this group include the Oklahoma legislative branch, Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma Department of Commerce, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and Oklahoma Department of Central Services.

Laboratory results for the State’s “first in class” model year 2008 CNG Impala showed a 75% reduction in oxides of nitrogen, the primary cause of smog and haze in metropolitan areas as well as a 66% reduction in carbon monoxide for a combined reduction of harmful environmental pollutants of 222 pounds over the life of the vehicle.

NaturalDrive design innovations include an advanced fuel injection control system that works in concert with the vehicle’s OBD-II (onboard computer system) to ensure emissions and fuel efficiency meet or exceed both environmental protection agency (EPA) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration CAFE standards.