Wal-Mart kicks off LNG truck pilot program with Westport
Vancouver, Canada-based Westport Innovations Inc. has kicked off a pilot program with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to test the environmental benefits of the firm's liquefied natural gas truck systems.
Under terms of the pilot program, Westport will supply four Peterbilt 386 trucks adapted with the firm's LNG systems, which will be used at Wal-Mart's distribution center in Apple Valley, Calif., northeast of Los Angeles.
According to Westport officials, the trucks should be in place and operating within the next four to five months. The trucks' performance, fuel consumption, and environmental impacts will be monitored throughout the program.
The deal is a key move for the LNG fuel system manufacturer, representing the firm's first footprint into a large commercial truck fleet. LNG industry analysts have said a major portion of any future growth in LNG truck systems would come in the large private commercial fleets such as Wal-Mart.
The pilot program is an extension of Wal-Mart's internal sustainability program launched last year that seeks to address the retailer's environmental impacts including reducing emissions from its vehicle fleet.
Last fall, the Port of Los Angeles and South Coast Air Quality Management District approved funding for 158 Westport trucks as part of an ongoing effort at the port to convert about one-third of its drayage fleet, 5,300 vehicles, to alternative fuels such as LNG.
In 2006, emission experts at the University of California, Riverside, conducted the only known academic analysis of LNG trucks in a real-world environment. The UCR study found that when compared to current generation on-road diesel engines and under load, LNG engines produced none of the particulate matter — seen as smokestack soot — that diesel engines do, but 46 percent more oxides of nitrogen. NOx are generated during combustion in an engine and are a main component in the formation of smog and the creation of ground ozone, a suspected culprit in respiratory illness.
A comprehensive study done by the California Air Resources Board in 2002 comparing emissions from LNG-powered and diesel-powered buses concluded 'no single 'green' technology is clearly superior to the other for every pollutant indicator measured.'