2/15/2012  EPA's SmartWay Looks for a Smarter Way
By Oliver B. Patton, Washington Editor

In this era of complaining about heavy-handed government, here's one federal program that gets cheers all around.

SmartWay, the truck fuel economy and sustainability program run by the Environmental Protection Agency, is "a government program that works," says Dan Kieffer, director of emissions compliance for Paccar.

"[SmartWay works] because it is cooperative and based on common sense," Kieffer said at a recent Freight Sustainability Summit in Washington, D.C.

The program was launched in 2004 by EPA, American Trucking Associations, a group of global corporations called Business for Social Responsibility, and a number of shippers and carriers, including Schneider National, Swift Transportation and UPS.

Its aim has been simple: to spread the word on fuel efficiency technologies and strategies and to make it easier for carriers and shippers to adopt the practices of sustainability.....

1/31/2012  Top Dealers Talk about 2010 Engines
Engine Smarts by Deborah Lockridge, Editor in Chief

So far, the new engines built to meet the Environmental Protection Agency's 2010 emissions mandate are performing far better than their EPA-2007 predecessors. That was the consensus of this year's nominees for the American Truck Dealers/Heavy Duty Trucking Truck Dealer of the Year.

Terry Dotson, president, chairman and CEO of Prestonburg, Ky.-basedWorldwide Equipment Enterprises, puts it bluntly: "2010 engines work. The others that were built in '07 didn't. I'm just glad we didn't make any more of them than we did, because we're all going to have to worry with those for the next few years."

Tim Reilly, dealer principal and president of Miami Valley International in Dayton, Ohio, has seen much the same with his company's lease fleet of nearly 700 units.

"I think with every emissions change, the early engines are in many ways are beta type engines, so you encounter a number of issues, but we've seen constant improvement from launch time until today."....

1/30/2012  Greenspeed to Chase Speed Record for Petroleum Fueled Trucks Using Vegetable Oil

This August, Boise State University's student club Greenspeed will use vegetable oil in hope of breaking the existing 215-mph world land speed record for all vehicles in the diesel truck classification, including those that burn traditional fuel.

Greenspeed from Greenspeed on Vimeo.

....

1/23/2012  'Tall' gearing and a big engine deliver 12 mpg in a Class 7 truck, expedited-freight hauler claims
Engine Smarts column by Tom Berg, Senior Editor

"Tall" gearing and a large engine are giving an expedited freight hauler the high fuel economy he sought, even if most factory engineers won't approve his spec'ing requests.

Tom Buchwald, who heads Expedel Services out of Shelbyville, Tenn., recently purchased a Class 7 straight truck with an engine and transmission about twice the size of what such trucks usually have.

He says it's getting about 12 mpg in highway service, compared to 6 or 7 mpg with a typical medium-duty truck whose powertrain components are much smaller and whose engine races to keep up speed.

While cruising at 55 mph, the 385-horsepower Paccar MX engine in his new Peterbilt 384 loafs at 1,100 rpm, where its torque output is highest at 1,650 pounds-feet. The Eaton UltraShift Plus transmission is in 13th gear, the higher of its two overdrive ratios. This is with a 3.21 to 1 axle ratio.

"I wanted a 2.50 ratio but the engineers wouldn't approve it," he said. "With it, the transmission would've been in 11th-direct, for even more efficiency" while the truck cruised at 55. ....

1/19/2012  Joule Secures $70 Million For Expansion of Biofuel Demonstration Plant

Startup company Joule Unlimited Technologies announced it received $70 million from undisclosed private and institutional investors, and the company hopes this funding will bring it closer to a breakthrough in biofuel technology.

The company, which was founded in 2007, converts sunlight and waste CO2 to infrastructure-ready diesel, ethanol or commodity chemicals with no dependence on biomass feedstocks, downstream processing or precious natural resources. Though many biofuels companies have tried making cellulosic ethanol from non-food sources, none have succeeded at a commercial scale. ....

1/17/2012  High-Tech Fuel Management

Fuel economy is only one part of the puzzle when it comes to saving money on fuel. There also are savings to be had by controlling fuel purchasing, and a number of recent announcements give fleets high-tech ways to do that.

TravelCenters of America and Love's both are installing a new system that uses RFID (radio frequency identification) to automate the fueling process.

Marketed by Comdata, the Fuel Island Manager streamlines fueling for drivers by using RFID to detect and validate the position of a truck in the fueling lane (fleets install an RFID tag on each truck). The system automatically turns on the fuel dispenser, without magnetic stripe cards and with little or no driver input. By the time the driver steps out to the pump, the purchase has been authorized according to specific controls established for his or her vehicle.....

1/16/2012  FuelSmarts: Hybrids Paying Off for Bay Area Produce Fleet

San Francisco-based Veritable Vegetable is committed to being sustainable, from distributing certified organic fresh fruits and vegetables to using hybrids and fuel-saving strategies in its fleet of trucks.

As the nation's oldest distributor of certified organic produce, Veritable Vegetable provides full service distribution to all of California and to parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada.

"Our transportation efforts are only one part of our environmental initiatives here at VV," said Bu Nygrens, one of three owners of the woman-owned company. "We want to maintain as small a carbon footprint as possible in every aspect of our work."....