Reliability of CNG in Hurricane Sandy

The Atlantic City Jitney Association has served as Atlantic City's primary form of public transportation since 1915. In addition to providing transportation services for its tourists and residents, the Jitneys are also charged with the important responsibility of being the city's emergency response vehicles.

Recently the Jitneys made the transformation from traditional gasoline powered vehicles to vehicles powered by an alternative energy source, CNG. The Atlantic City Jitney Association converted its entire 190 vehicle fleet to compressed natural gas and, partnering with Clean Energy, built a state of the art CNG fueling station that is open to the public. Unbeknownst at the time was the pivotal role this station would play in the successful evacuation and recovery from the effects of hurricane Sandy.

With power lost to a majority of the residents of New Jersey's barrier islands and surrounding municipalities, finding reliable sources for gasoline was at a premium. Days later, when power was finally restored gasoline shortages ensued due to the inability to deliver fuel to the hardest hit areas. This necessitated rationing which was problematic for a wide array of reasons.

During the entire evacuation and recovery process the Jitneys were able to rely on its station to provide a continuous source of fuel for its fleet. With the help of the Clean Energy team, on call 24/7, not once did our station experience any down time.

Equally important was our ability to provide fuel for South Jersey Gas vehicles and local refuse operators. With debris from the storm scattered everywhere, in addition to regular collections, the importance of keeping refuse operators in operation cannot be underestimated. Any doubts about the reliability of an up and running CNG fueling station were proven to be unfounded.

Also noteworthy is the fact that the NY/NJ Port Authority reached out to the Jitneys for help in North Jersey and New York City. With New Jersey Transit out of service and the lingering affect of gasoline shortages and mass transportation at a standstill, an inquiry was made by the NY/NJ Port Authority as to the viability of Jitneys providing emergency transportation services for the area. Although gasoline was in a stage of crisis, both the Newark and New York Airports have Clean Energy fueling stations that were not negatively impacted by the gasoline emergency.

The partnership between Clean Energy and the Atlantic City Jitney Association further supports the fact that not only is CNG an economical fuel that is domestically produced and in abundance, it is also reliable.

From: Chuck Feinberg
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2012 3:23 PM
To: Clean Cities Coordinators
Cc: Clean Cities Coordinators; C3VR Seivright;
Subject: Re: CNG - a story of reliability in times of need.

Yes, this has received a lot of attention here in NJ and beyond. For the record, the project to convert the fleet to CNG and build the station was funded in significant part by the New Jersey Clean Cities Coalition using funds DOE ARRA funds. A "success story" can be found here.

Chuck

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GM and Chrysler Investments

Chrysler is making news today, too, as they announce their plans to invest $238 million in three Michigan plants, adding 1250 jobs. GM and Chrysler both announced within the last two weeks the production of HD bi-fuel CNG vehicles for retail and fleet sale. The Detroit three are all pursuing varied pathways as they get into the production of natural gas vehicles. Chesapeake Energy is doing their part to accelerate infrastructure solutions and their latest investment is the development of a $500 natural gas home refueling appliance in conjunction with GE and Whirlpool. A GM spokesperson opined that this is exactly what is needed to incentivize manufacturers to jump into the NG fray.

Climate Change

"The scientific truth about climate change" from CBS News.


Those who appear in this video:

	Rajendra Pachauri Director, Yale Climate and Energy Institute and Professor in the Practice of Sustainable Development Chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 2002.
	Duane Kitzis, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist An article about his work in the Denver Post. PREPARATION AND STABILITY OF STANDARD REFERENCE AIR MIXTURES by Duane Kitzis.
	Pieter Tans Ph.D. University of Groningen (the Netherlands), 1978 Senior Scientist, NOAA's Climate Monitoring and Diagnsotics Laboratory.
	Richard Muller Wikipedia article about him. Professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a faculty senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
	Elizabeth Muller Co-founder and Executive Director of Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature, and CEO of Muller & Associates LLC. Holds a Bachelors Degree from the University of California with a double major in Mathematics and Literature, and a Masters Degree in International Management from the l'École supérieure de commerce de Paris. An article in the Dallas News
	John Mutter Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University Professor, International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
	Beth Russell Manages the data catalog for Science On a Sphere. B.S. Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University, 2007.

Clean Cities Program Recognizes Natural Gas Usage & Top NGV Coalitions

Congratulations on a job well done.

Last month, the Department of Energy's Clean Cities Program released information on the levels of petroleum reductions and alternative fuel use achieved by its more than 90+ coalitions. The list of high achieving coalitions includes a number of successful programs promoting the use of natural gas. In fact, natural gas led all other fuels in consumption with a total of close to 200 million gasoline gallon equivalents (GGE) displaced as a result of Clean Cities' initiatives. CNG by itself surpassed all other fuels with nearly 175 million GGE displaced and LNG adding close to 25 million GGE displaced. The next closest alternative fuel was biodiesel, reporting about 70 million GGE displaced. Nearly 60 percent of alternative fuel use reported by Clean Cities Coalitions was natural gas. The program in 2005 set a goal of displacing 2.5 billion GGE of petroleum fuel by 2020.

In addition to reporting on overall program levels of alternative fuel use, the Clean Cities Program recognized individual programs for their particular achievements. The top natural gas coalitions are as follows:

Compressed Natural Gas

1. Southern California 36.2 million GGE consumed
2. Valley of the Sun (Phoenix) 15.5 million GGE consumed
3. Greater Long Island 11.6 million GGE consumed

Liquefied Natural Gas

1. Valley of the Sun (Phoenix) 8.8 million GGE consumed
2. Long Beach, CA 5.1 million GGE consumed
3. Dallas-Ft. Worth 4.2 million GGE consumed

Other awards were given for most improved coalitions. Included in that category for CNG were the following coalitions: Pittsburgh, PA, Houston-Galveston, TX, and New Haven, CT. For LNG, the most improved included: Southern California, Sacramento, and Long Beach. The most improved category awards are based on having the most significant increases in alternative fuel use for 2011 compared to 2010 levels.

The Clean Cities Program promotes all alternative fuels and the program offers a number of helpful tools and resources on its Alternative Fuel Data Center website. That site includes the station locators, state and local incentives resources, price reports, listings of available OEM alternative fuel vehicles, case studies and many other resources. As part the economic stimulus program (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009), the Clean Cities Program awarded $300 million in funding to support coalition infrastructure and vehicle acquisition program. That effort provided funding for several thousand NGVs and more than 100 new NGV stations.