Natural Gas Engines for Medium and Heavy Trucks

Truck Talk
Volume 2 Number 5

Diesel fuel is so darned efficient and relatively inexpensive that it’s going to be very difficult to replace as trucking’s preferred fuel. But even as engineers tinker with blends of exotic oils and volatile chemicals in search of a replacement for diesel fuel, natural gas has been out there for several years, quietly powering all sorts of commercial vehicles from transit buses to garbage trucks. And now even heavy-duty highway trucks are running on this clean, abundant, and domestically produced alternative fuel.

Natural gas engines have proven themselves mechanically reliable, efficient, and significantly cleaner-running than diesels – and therein lies the value proposition. More and more jurisdictions across North America are offering incentives of one kind or another to encourage the use of these low CO2 engines, especially in areas where air quality issues trump the traditional concerns about cost.

On this edition of Truck Talk, we’ll hear from three fellows who know their way around natural gas engines. Tony Picarello, vice president of fuel systems with Westport Innovations — A Canadian company that has pioneered the use of natural gas as a fuel for heavy trucks; Bryan Zehr of Westport Innovations, who has been involved with the company’s high-pressure direct injection system used to run the Cummins ISX engine on a blend of 95% natural gas and 5% diesel; and Jeff Campbell, the director of product marketing with Cummins Westport Inc., joint-venture company between Cummins and Westport Innovations, now building a 100% natural gas version of Cummins’ ISL engine.

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