Investment in Alternative Transportation Fuels Creates American Jobs

In addition to enhancing our energy security, the clean transportation industry is also critical to our economic growth and global competitiveness.

• There are 765,000 plug-in electric vehicles on the road. The global market for lithium ion batteries will grow from $3.2 billion in 2013 to $24.1 billion in 2023 and annual revenue from the infrastructure charging sector is projected to grow to $5.8 billion by 2022.


• The ethanol industry contributes about $42 billion a year to our nation’s economy, including nearly 340,000 American jobs.


• Biodiesel has grown into a 2-billion-gallon per year industry with 125 plants across the country supporting more than 64,000 jobs and providing $11.42 billion in economic impact.


• There are about 200,000 propane-powered vehicles on America’s roads, and a fleet of more than 12,000 propane-powered school buses is used to transport more than 700,000 children to school each day. The propane industry contributed $46.2 billion to U.S. gross domestic product and employed 53,964 domestic workers in 2015.


• The U.S. is the number one producer of natural gas in the world, and American businesses and consumers continue to embrace natural gas vehicles. Approximately 155,000 natural gas vehicles operate on America’s roads today. These vehicles are supported by 1,800 fueling stations that are connected by 1.5 million miles of natural gas pipelines.

by Mark Bentley, Executive Director of the Alabama Clean Fuels Coalition.

Expanded information on alternative fuel and infrastructure tax credit passed 2/9/2018

On Friday, February 9, President Trump signed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (H.R. 1892). Division D of the Act retroactively extends many tax credits.

There are several Bipartisan Budget Act provisions with implications for Clean Cities portfolio items:

• Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Tax Credit. Section 40404 extends the tax credit for alternative fuel infrastructure through December 31, 2017. Fueling equipment for natural gas, propane, liquefied hydrogen, electricity, E85, and biodiesel are eligible for a tax credit of 30%, up to $30,000. Residential fueling equipment may receive a tax credit up to $1,000.
  
  
• Alternative Fuel Excise Tax Credit. Section 40415 extends the $0.50 per gallon tax credit for alternative fuels, including liquefied hydrogen, through December 31, 2017.
  
  
• Alternative Fuel Mixture Excise Tax Credit. Section 40415 also extends the $0.50 per gallon tax credit for alternative fuel used to produce a mixture containing at least 0.1% gasoline, diesel, or kerosene through December 31, 2017. Alternative fuel blenders must be registered with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) will issue guidance for how to submit claims for this credit by March 11, 2018.
  
  
• Biodiesel Income Tax Credit. Section 40407 extends the biodiesel income tax credit through December 31, 2017. A taxpayer that delivers unblended biodiesel (B100) into the tank of a vehicle may be eligible for a $1.00 per gallon of biodiesel, agri-biodiesel, or renewable diesel tax credit.
  
  
• Biodiesel Mixture Excise Tax Credit. Section 40407 also extends the $0.50 per gallon tax credit for biodiesel, agri-biodiesel, or renewable diesel used to produce a mixture containing at least 0.1% gasoline, diesel, or kerosene through December 31, 2017. Alternative fuel blenders must be registered with the IRS. Treasury will issue guidance for how to submit claims for this credit by March 11, 2018.
  
  
• Fuel Cell Motor Vehicle Tax Credit. Section 40403 extends the $4,000 tax credit for the purchase of qualified light-duty fuel cell vehicles through December 31, 2017.
  
  
• Qualified Two-Wheeled Plug-In Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Tax Credit. Section 40405 extends the two-wheeled plug-in electric drive motor vehicle tax credit through December 31, 2017. Qualified vehicles are eligible for a tax credit of 10% of the cost of the vehicle, up to $2,500
  
  
• Second Generation Biofuel Producer Tax Credit. Section 40406 extends the tax credit for second generation biofuel producers through December 31, 2017. Second generation biofuel producers registered with the IRS may be eligible for a $1.01 per gallon of biodiesel tax credit.
  
  
• Second Generation Biofuel Production Property Depreciation Allowance. Section 40412 extends the 50% special depreciation allowance for second generation biofuel production plants through December 31, 2017.
  
  

The changes outlined above are effective immediately. To view the full text of the Bipartisan Budget Act, visit https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-115hr1892enr/pdf/BILLS-115hr1892enr.pdf. See the Alternative Fuels Data Center Federal Laws and Incentives page for descriptions of each incentive.



Mark Bentley
Executive Director
mark@alabamacleanfuels.org

Is Hydrogen Soon To Become Really Practical?

HyTech Power will be introducing products that will be "a way to use hydrogen to immediately reduce pollution while scaling up and driving down costs enough to enable more fundamental changes to the energy system." Specifically...

• An electrolyzer that "can produce hydrogen at about three or four times the rate of electrolyzers with similar footprints, using about a third the electrical current."
• Internal Combustion Assistance which is a modification to internal combustion engines that adds tiny amounts of gaseous hydrogen and oxygen to the engine's cylinders allowing them to burn more completely and put out more power.
• Pure hydrogen retrofits for internal combustion engines.
• Scaleable Energy Storage using hydrogen; a product that would compete against Tesla's Powerwall. This would allow excess power from wind or solar to be used to electrolyze pure hydrogen for storage, to be used later to generate electricity.

Although others have attempted to do all these things too, with varying success, Evan Johnson, CTO, believes his company has made the necessary practical improvements to allow these technologies to pay off.

Hytech Power.

California’s Transportation Emissions Drop While Its Economy, Population Grow

Greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions continue to drop in California even as the state grows its economy and population. Although transportation accounts for the largest chunk of the state’s GHG emissions, data from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) shows emissions already dropping in that sector.

Since 2001, GHG emissions per person have dropped 19% in California, according to data from CARB. While the state’s carbon pollution per million dollars of California gross domestic product (GDP) has declined 33% since 2001, its GDP has grown 37% between 2001 and 2015.

Life-Cycle Water Consumption of Fuel Cell Vehicles Can Be Cut in Half

From the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy:
Life-Cycle Water Consumption of Fuel Cell Vehicles Can Be Cut in Half Compared to that of Conventional Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles

Life-cycle¹ water consumption of fuel cell electric vehicles using hydrogen produced from natural gas with steam methane reforming is almost 50% less than the life-cycle water consumption of conventional internal combustion engine vehicles using gasoline. If the hydrogen is produced from solar power and water, the life-cycle water consumption is almost 60% less.

Life-Cycle Water Consumption per 100 Miles Driven

Horizontal bar chart comparison of life-cycle water consumption per 100 miles driven for conventional internal combustion engine vehicles, natural gas vehicles, battery electric vehicles, and fuel cell electric vehicles.
Note: This data is based on a number of assumptions, which can be found in the Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program Data Record #17005.

¹ Includes upstream fuel production, delivery, storage, and on-board utilization.

Renewable Compressed Natural Gas

"The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and the sustainable energy nonprofit group Energy Vision have released two case studies of successful projects that were among the first to produce renewable compressed natural gas vehicle fuel using anaerobic digesters to capture biogases from decomposing organic waste." One study looks at Fair Oaks Farms, an Indiana dairy cooperative that that converts manure to R-CNG. The other study assesses the Sacramento BioDigester, the first food-waste digester in California to turn commercial organic waste into R-CNG vehicle fuel using anaerobic digestion.

All Clean Energy Stations in the Coachella Valley use R-CNG.

BP predicts natural gas will be world’s main fossil fuel by 2040

February 2, 2018. British Petroleum anticipates that natural gas will take over oil as the world's main fossil fuel energy source by the year 2040, according to a new report by Reuters.

"We see it (gas) take over from coal in the early 2030s. We think there is a very good case for gas actually overtaking oil post 2040 or just before 2040," Dominic Energy, BP's VP for strategic planning said during a conference in Vienna on Wednesday.

Demand growth for gas—in just China alone—will rise 15 percent year-over-year, while global demand increases by 1.6 percent annually for a number of years. The oil demand curve, on the other hand, will slow to 0.8 percent growth in the meantime.

"We do see a very strong chance that (gas) is going to be the largest source of primary energy into the future... By gas we mean natural gas, but also ... we mean biogas, we mean biomethane, we mean power-to-gas."

A previous forecast by the U.K.-based company said oil's share of global fossil fuel markets would shrink from 33 percent to 30 percent by 2035. Most of the gains would go to natural gas, which is considered better to the environment due to lower carbon emissions.