Future of Alternative Fuels Presents Test for Texas
There are two markets for electric and natural gas vehicles: private and commercial. On the commercial side, it’s all about natural gas.
“It’s frankly a very exciting time to be in trucking with the prospects of what’s occurring in the natural gas industry,” said John Esparza, president of the Texas Motor Transportation Association.
Audio: Ben Philpott's story for KUT News
Esparza says trucking companies are doing their best to convert fleets from diesel to natural gas. That’s not because of any possible environmental benefit but because it can cost $95,000 less to run a ...
Comments (3)
Dormand Long
The Wall Street Journal ran two separate pieces some time ago on the effectiveness of natural gas which has been converted to a liquid in fueling many of hte cars in England.
There is a process called gas-to-liquid ( GTL ) which requires incredibly expensive plants to convert natural gas to a colorless, odorless liquid which is stored and transported at ambient temperatures.
The Journal reports that GTL can run in auto diesel engines, which are in half of the auto fleet in England.
It appears that it would be sound public policy to facilitate substantially increased utilization of GTL for fuling cars, trucks and buses, particularly given the current glut of natural gas.
Drawbacks to increasing the use of GTL include the capital expenditure for the processing plants which currently runs some $5 billion each, and development of the supply chain infrastructure to facilitate convenient refueling.
Apparently the emissions of GTL fueled vehicles are far below that of conventionally fueled vehicles.
If we could move a critical mass of macro fuel useage to GTL made from domestically produced natural gas, we would minimize the vulnerability we currently have with reliance on inports from the unstable Middle Eastern and Russian sources.
This would also help stabilize our economy which has critical imbalances with the current glut of naural gas. The market price of natural gas in Asia is 400% of US prices, prompting some manufacturers, including GE ( see the December Atlantic ) to move its China appliance manufacuring back to the US.
If there is a critical mass of insourcing of manufacturing from Asia to Texas, this should result in a tremendous economic boom for the state.
One inhibitor for this insourcing to occur is the limit of qualified labor and middle management available.
The ill-advised emphasis on teaching to the test for the TAKS program has resulted in a labor force that is functionally illiterate and thus requiring substantial amounts of basic training before acceptiable levels of productivity can be achieved.
We have students who hold a piece of paper showing that they have a diploma proving graduation from high school who find that they are utterly unprepared to perform college level work.
Economic vitality in Texas will be constrained until this public policy boondoggle is corrected. Those who would care to explore this misallocation of human capital development might review the brief white paper by Hudson Institute Reseach Director and Forbes contributor Edwin Rubinstein "The College Payoff Illusion" which Google can lead one to.
V Marshall
Dormand
RE: The inability of Texas to educate students. I have two kids who are products of Texas public schools. One is a 3rd year student in ChemE @UT, the other working on a PhD in microbiology. Granted they were not entirely educated in Texas. They were in 2nd & 5th grade when we moved here. Perhaps it was that K-1 education that made my son able to compete in a top 5 nationally ranked STEM program. Now you could credit the particular schools my kids attended, but about midway through their K-12 experience, the TEA went to a unified curriculum for primary education (something that made me consider private school). The biggest problem in public education is people who tilt at windmills.
Second the notion that Texas doesn't have enough qualified workers. It is not 1860. No one has to buy a wagon and some horses to get here. I've lived here for 12 years now and I've yet to meet too many native Texans. Society is transient now. It is part of living in a modern, globalized world.
The bigger problem for the oil, gas, chemical industry expansion in TX will be the fact that there are already so many refineries here that expansion within the state will push the state over its limits on pollutants. That is going to limit growth long before the state can no longer attract qualified workers.
John Carpenter
Natural gas is the cleanest of fossil fuels and coal the dirtiest so the change from coal to natural gas in the trucking industry would be worth governmental backing. However when you see how much electricity is produced from coal and realize that production of electricity produces more toxins in the air than any other source, it's hard to see any reason to push for plug in electric cars...........hybrids make sense, but not plug in electrics