Research Studies

2011

International Energy Agency, “Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas? June 2011
This report examines the key factors that could result in a more prominent role for natural gas in the global energy mix, including the use of natural gas in the road-transport sector worldwide. The report notes that while the use of natural gas in transportation is growing slowly, there is significant scope for faster penetration if there is both a favborable price differential between natural gas and oil and direct government support.

Marcellus Shale Coalition, “NGV Roadmap for Pennsylvania Jobs, Energy Security and Clean Air,” April 2011
While it is widely known that the Marcellus Shale ’s abundant, clean-burning natural gas resources represent one of the world’s largest energy reserves, this study examines one of the many long-term benefits associated with the responsible development of the Marcellus, in both the natural gas and transportation sectors. The study focuses on expanding Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs), which has the potential to provide Pennsylvania with a unique opportunity to achieve a more economically and environmentally sustainable future.

Energy Vision, “Waste to Wheels: Building for Success,” June 2011Every year, U.S. homes and institutions throw away enough garbage, yard trimmings, farm residues, and other organic waste to make renewable natural gas, a clean, petroleum-free fuel that could power millions of the nation’s trucks and buses. This report, written by Energy Vision, a national non-profit organization, with support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven and Argonne national laboratories, discusses the characteristics of this waste-based fuel. Much cleaner than petroleum fuels, it is chemically similar to conventional natural gas and can be blended with it or used to replace it. Because this fuel is made by processing the waste gases, it is called renewable natural gas, referred to as "RNG" or "biomethane."

PikeResearch, “Natural Gas Vehicles: Market Analysis and Global Forecasts for CNG and LNG Cars, Trucks and Buses,” 1Q 2011Worldwide NGV sales will increase at a healthy pace over the next several years, rising from 1.9 million vehicles per year in 2010 to more than 3.2 million units annually by 2016, according to this report. Corporate and government fleets will represent two thirds of the total market by 2013, according to the report’s Executive Summary. The report also predicts that the U.S. market for NGVs will have the strongest growth, with a prediction that 32,619 vehicles will sold in the U.S. in 2016.

Natural Resources Canada: “Natural Gas Use in the Canadian Transportation Sector: Deployment Roadmap,” January 2011Natural Resources Canada facilitated this project, which discusses the potential for using natural gas as a transportation fuel use across the medium and heavy duty transportation sector in the country, including exploring strategies for overcoming barriers associated with its use. A key finding is that trucking fleets can improve their competitiveness and reduce their environmental impacts by using liquefied natural gas (LNG).

2010

National Regulatory Research Institute: “Natural Gas Vehicles: What state public utility commissions should know and ask,” December 2010.
The premise of this paper is that state public service commissions should foster the market for natural gas vehicles by allowing natural gas utilities to charge ratepayers for investing in and operating the infrastructure to fuel these vehicles. This paper includes identifying issues that state commissions should address and questions they should ask.

Argonne National Laboratory, “Natural Gas Vehicles: Status, Barriers, and Opportunities,” August 2010

This study determined that the country could reduce its daily oil consumption by 8% if commercial intra-city heavy-duty trucks and a significant number off-road vehicles switched to natural gas. Under these projections, the country could that could reduce petroleum consumption by 1.2 million barrels a day, while another 400,000 barrels of oil reduction could be achieved with significant use of natural gas off-road vehicles. The report was done for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Cities Program, which is a public-private partnership that supports local decisions that reduce petroleum use in the transportation sector.

Argonne National Laboratory, “Well-to-Wheels Analysis of Landfill Gas-Based Pathways and Their Addition to the Greet Model,” May 2010
Today, approximately 300 million standard cubic ft/day of natural gas and 1600 MW of electricity are produced from the decomposition of organic waste at 519 U.S. landfills. Since landfill gas is a renewable resource, this energy is considered renewable. This report discusses the size and scope of biomethane resources from landfills and the pathways by which those resources can be turned into and utilized as vehicle fuel. It includes characterizations of the landfill gas stream and the processes used to convert low-Btu landfill gas into high-Btu renewable natural gas.

Center for American Progress, “American Fuel: Developing Natural Gas for Heavy Vehicles,” April 14, 2010
Creating incentives to convert the nation’s heavy vehicle fleet to natural gas would reduce oil use, invest in American energy sources, increase our energy independence and national security, and slash air pollution, according to the conclusions of this report. The analysis, which is based on current fleet turnover rates for each class of vehicle, determines that deployment of 3.5 million of these natural gas vehicles by 2035 would save at least 1.2 million barrels of oil per day, which is more oil than the U.S. imported from Venezuela in 2009.

DENA, the German Energy Agency, “The role of natural gas and biomethane in the fuel mix of the future in Germany,” June 2010
This study shows that if the right policies are in place, the introduction of natural gas and biomethane to the transportation sector in Germany can be accelerated and the number of natural gas vehicles on Germany's roads increased from 85,000 to 1.4 million by 2020. Theoretically, all natural gas vehicles in Germany could be fueled with pure biomethane. The report notes that mixing 20% biomethane can reduce CO2 emissions by 39% in comparison to diesel, while pure biomethane can reduce the CO2 by 97%.

Energy Vision, “The U.S. Can Act Now to Substantially Cut Oil Consumption by Putting Trucks and Buses on the Path to Sustainable Fuels,” June 2010
This paper makes the case that trucks and buses are the best starting point for ending the widely acknowledged dangers of the dependency on oil of U.S. transportation. It describes a practical strategy for moving these medium and heavy duty vehicles toward sustainable fuel and identifies policies that can help drive this shift.

MIT, “The Future of Natural Gas: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study,” 2010
This comprehensive study conducted by a 30-member study concludes that abundant global natural gas resources imply greatly expanded natural gas use, and that natural gas will assume an increasing share of the U.S. energy mix over the next several decades, with the large unconventional resource playing a key role. The share of natural gas in the energy mix is likely to be even larger in the near to intermediate term in response to CO2 emission constraints. In the longer term, very stringent emission constraints may limit the role of all fossil fuels.

National Energy Policy Institute, Resources for the Future, “Toward a New National Energy Policy: Assessing the Options,” June 2010
Targeting oil use by the nation’s heavy-duty diesel truck fleet is the most effective and cost-effective way to reduce oil consumption, according to this research study. The largest oil reductions come from fueling these vehicles with liquefied natural gas, which would result in a 2 million barrel a day reduction in oil dependency by 2030.

National Grid, “Renewable Gas – Vision for a Sustainable Gas Network,” 2010
A detailed study commissioned by National Grid indicates that, over the long term, renewable gas has the technical potential to meet up to 25 percent of the natural gas demand in the four states served by National Grid (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island), not including natural gas demand for power generation (see Table 1). That is enough energy to meet the annual demand of approximately 2.2 million homes that use natural gas for heating in the Northeast.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory, “Business Case for Compressed Natural Gas in Municipal Fleets,” June 2010
To assist fleets and businesses in evaluating the profitability of potential CNG projects, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory built the CNG Vehicle and Infrastructure Cash-Flow Evaluation model. The model demonstrates the relationship between project profitability and fleet operating parameters. This report describes how the model was used to establish guidance for fleets making decisions about using CNG.

2009

American Gas Foundation, “Natural Gas End Use: A Vision for Today and the Future,” September 22, 2009
The report outlines how new innovations in end use technologies can ensure that natural gas will be a vital and integral part of America’s low carbon future. By capitalizing on research, development and demonstration (RD&D) opportunities for natural gas end uses in the residential, commercial, industrial and transportation sectors, the natural gas industry can meet today’s and future energy demands cleanly, efficiently and cost-effectively. The report outlines six near and long term goals for growing the market for natural gas vehicles, including investments in major technological advances leading to advanced natural gas hybrid vehicles and natural gas-to-hydrogen fuel stations for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Center for American Progress, “Natural Gas: A Bridge Fuel for the 21st Century,” August, 2009
This report concludes that because natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel, this creates an unprecedented opportunity to use gas as a bridge fuel to a 21st century energy economy that relies on efficiency, renewable sources, and low-carbon fossil fuels such as natural gas.

Potential Gas Committee, Potential Gas Committee 2009, June 2009
The Potential Gas Committee’s latest biennial assessment of the nation’s natural gas resources indicates that the United States possesses a total resource base of 1,836 trillion cubic feet. This is the highest resource evaluation in the Committee’s 44-year history. Most of the increase from the previous assessment arose from reevaluation of shale-gas plays in the Appalachian basin and in the Mid-Continent, Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain areas.

2006

Marathon Technical Services, “Designing New Transit Bus Garages to be Fuel Flexible,” May 2006
This research report determines that if a facility is designed from the outset to be fuel flexible, that the capital cost impact of constructing a garage that is can be minimal—with much of the equipment virtually identical in performance for diesel and for gaseous fuels.

Resources and Tools

Vehicle Information

Available Natural Gas Vehicles and Engines a listing of Light-, Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles and/or Engines available directly from Large Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) or via Qualified System Retrofitters Using EPA-/CARB-Certified Systems from Small Volume OEMs (SVM)

AFDC Vehicle Buyer's Guide for Consumers - features information about natural gas vehicles and directs users to a database of current model year cars and trucks available to lease or purchase.

GSA Fleet Auction Site - GSA FLEET operates over 23,000 AFVs. Each year GSA Fleet sells two to four thousand used AFVs as they are replaced by new vehicles. All the information you need to purchase AFV vehicles at one of our public auctions is available on this site. You can learn about AFVs, view vehicles expected to be available in 2002, look for specific vehicles now for sale, search for auction locations in your area and more.

Converting your vehicle to natural gas

NGV Fueling Station Locators

NGV Fueling Station Locator - the Alternative Fuels Data Center contains refueling stations for various alternative fuels, including CNG and LNG, throughout the country.

Mapquest Fueling Station Locator - Mapquest service that locates refueling stations for various alternative fuels, including CNG and LNG, throughout the country.

Clean Car Maps - Find alternative fuel vehicle refueling sites throughout California using Mapquest location maps & driving directions and an extensive database of AFV refueling site information.

Cylinder Inspection

CNG Cylinder Inspectors – certified cylinder inspector database

CNG Cylinder Inspector Training – national program to train

Federal Government Information

National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Transportation Research Board
DOE's Office of Alternative Fuels
DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
EPA's Office of Mobile Sources (To report EPAct compliance)

Other Alternative Fuel Sites

Clean Cities
Clean Vehicle Education Foundation
European NGV Guide
Energy Quest (Energy Education from the California Energy Commission Kids Site)
Metropolitan Washington Council of Government's Advanced Technology Vehicle Program - The Clean Alternative
National Alternative Fuels Training Program Consortium
NGVsNOW
Natural Gas Vehicles Australia

Publications and General Information

Clean City News - the official publication of the Clean Cities Program and the Alternative Fuels Data Center, published quarterly, providing information about Clean Cities projects, designations, and conferences as well as up-to-date information about developments in the alternative fuels industry.

The Fuels Fix -a quarterly Ezine from the Clean Cities Coordinators in the Southeast

Fleets & Fuels - biweekly newsletter highlighting news and info on AFVs.

Research and Development

Gas Technology Institute
New York State Energy and Research Development Authority

State and Community AFV-Related Information

California Air Resources Board
California Energy Commission's AFV Site
New York State Clean Fueled Vehicles Program
New York State Energy and Research Development Authority

U.S. NGV Associations
California NGV Partnership

NGV Associations - International

Asia Pacific Natural Gas Vehicles Association
Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance
Chilean NGV Association (Spanish language only)
Dutch NGV association
French Natural Gas Vehicles Association
European Natural Gas Vehicle Association (ENGVA)
Italian NGV Consortium
International Association for Natural Gas Vehicles (IANGV)
Latin American Association for Natural Gas Vehicles
Portuguese Natural Gas Vehicle Association
Swiss NGV Association (French & German languages only)

Environmental Web Sites

Energy Vision
Environmental Defense
Natural Resources Defense Council
Union of Concerned Scientists
The World Bank Group