Autonomous electric trucks may ply Hwy I-5
Kings County Association of Government s(KCAG) is supporting use of carry over federal planning funds for a Valley wide I-5 Freight Zero Pilot Study. Kern County Council of Governments will be the fiscal agent for this study. The goal is to have autonomous electric trucks carry freight on I-5 from Fort Tejon to SR205, near Altamonte Pass.
The pilot would support the effort to cut emissions from long haul big rig trucks, 97% of them running on diesel now.Changing how trucks are powered is essential to solving the problems of air pollution and climate change argues a Davis think tank.
The California Air Resources Board is in the process of proposing a new truck sales mandate that would require truck manufacturers to sell ZEV trucks, starting in 2024. How can we power such vehicles with zero emissions?
At the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis, they are working to answer this question from a research perspective by looking at four technologies designed to provide power to long-haul trucks while producing zero tailpipe emissions. These technologies are: a catenary system; hydrogen fuel cells; dynamic inductive chargers embedded in the roadway (capable of charging moving trucks); and battery electric vehicles (BEVs).
Preliminary results suggest three cleaner technologies are all within 30% of the cost of diesel but none quite match it. The preliminary results for BEVs (not shown), based on slightly different assumptions, indicate that their total costs in a long-haul situation could be on the low side, ranging from $0.45–0.82 per mile versus $0.58 per mile for diesel.
Five Points dairy gas pipeline getting funding
The California Energy Commission will help Fresno dairymen market their biogas for clean transpiration fuel offering $3.5 million to support their project at a October 14 meeting. The goal of this agreement is to construct a new facility to clean up and upgrade the gas in Fresno County to process diary biogas from five participating digesters
Price of shipping crude by tanker surges
The cost of chartering a very large crude carrier, or VLCC, to ferry oil from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Asia has surged to $10 million, or $5 a barrel—about twice the price before the attacks in Saudi Arabia, according to analysts reports the Wall Sat Journal.
Coal company faces default
(Bloomberg) — Murray Energy Corp., the U.S. coal giant that had pressed the Trump administration for help averting bankruptcy, may be headed toward default.
The largest closely held coal miner in America failed to make multiple payments to lenders this week, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. Creditors have agreed not to take legal action until Oct. 14, buying Murray some time to figure out how to shore up its balance sheet, the St. Clairsville, Ohio-based firm said.
Murray Energy is struggling to stay afloat, along with the rest of America’s coal miners, as cheap natural gas and renewable energy resources cut into coal’s share of the U.S. power market. At least four companies including Cloud Peak Energy Inc. and Blackjewel LLC have gone bankrupt this year, laying bare the decline of a fuel that once accounted for more than half of all U.S. power generation. Today it’s less than 25%.
Prices for thermal coal — the kind burned by power plants — have slumped, which may have left Murray short on cash, said Lucas Pipes, a coal analyst with B Riley FBR Inc. “You can’t make payments out of thin air if the money isn’t in the bank,” he said.
The company idled some of its mines in West Virginia last month, citing “severely depressed coal markets.”
Rail Traffic Down 7.4%
