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Back-to-Base, the First Step in Heavy-Duty Mobility’s Green Revolution

By December 21, 2021 10   min read  (1674 words)

December 21, 2021 |

Fuel Cells Works, Back-to-Base, the First Step in Heavy-Duty Mobility’s Green Revolution

Being reasonably profitable for a class-8 truck owner and/or operator is always a challenge. Some of the difficulty comes from minor issues like the near constant rise in road tolls. For instance, in 2011 road tolls amounted to .017 cents per mile but by 2020 that figure had risen to .037 cents.(1)  Truck insurance premiums are also another minor cost that have steadily risen from .067 cents per mile in 2011 to .087 cents per mile.(2)

It also does not help that safety technologies, like proximity sensors, are making trucks more expensive and resulting in costlier repairs when a heavy-duty truck is involved in an accident. Additionally, the cost for fuel does not even take into account a 15-year maintenance cycle that can be as high as $400,000.(3)

However, fuel costs perhaps present the greatest challenge to fleet profitability because they vary significantly from one year to the next. In 2011 fuel costs were 59 cents per mile, 64 cents in 2012, but by 2015 they had dropped to 40 cents per mile.(4) In 2020 fuel costs per mile stood at 30 cents.(5) While all fleet operators will cheer for a lower cost per mile the fuel cost in 2020 is unreliable in the long-term due to the primary driver for it having been the Covid-19 pandemic. To rub salt in the proverbial wound, there is no future that heavy-duty fleet operators can look forward to in which to cost of diesel drops to $2-3 per gallon and then remains at that rate for five to ten years.

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Another disadvantage to the heavy-duty mobility sector are statistics that relate to the negative environmental impact that it has on the world. For instance, according to a 2017 report from the International Council on Clean Transportation the “heavy-duty freight trucks are disproportionate contributors to pollution, representing less than one tenth of all vehicles but roughly 40% of their carbon emissions, and their activity keeps growing.”(6) In a world that is feeling the painful effects of burning fossil fuels whether it is smog filled skies in parts of India or record-breaking temperatures in British Columbia in 2021, the pain that heavy-duty mobility is continuing to add leaves it with more of a black eye with each passing year.

Certainly, it does not help that while compressed natural gas (CNG), liquid natural gas (LNG), and liquid propane gas (LPG) are cleaner than diesel they are unable to offer a replacement for diesel that does not make a trucking fleet’s bottom line even worse, since all three of those fuel sources are unable to match the energy density that diesel contains.  It may be great that that LPG is cheaper than diesel, but if it requires filling up twice a day then there is no real savings.

Some clean vehicle heavy-duty mobility manufacturers will point to battery electric vehicles (BEVs) as a source of hope for not only getting away from the unhealthy swings in a barrel of oil but also as a way to create a green fleet. Sadly, those manufacturers have no easy solution for how to increase the electricity capacity of utility providers, and the same is true in how to cheaply and quickly build more high transmission electrical lines.  After all, even a fleet operator of 10 class-8 trucks would require a megawatt charging setup in order to keep its fleet up and running (assuming the electricity never stops flowing which is no longer a reasonable assumption).

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With such a bleak outlook it is reasonable for heavy-duty trucking owners and/or operators to forever doubt their ability to be reasonably profitable in any given year. However, starting in 2022 a reasonable solution can be implemented and it starts with a company called Hyzon.

Hyzon has spent over fifteen-years developing fuel cell technology and because of that diligent work today it offers heavy-duty fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) that are every bit as capable as diesel trucks.

FCEVs and traditional diesel or gasoline vehicles are very similar. Both vehicles go to fueling stations, both have very similar refuel times, they have storage tanks for fuel, and both have a powerhouse. In the case of diesel or gasoline vehicle, fuel is taken from the tank and pumped into an internal combustion engine. From there the fuel is burned which produces some energy that is then shunted to the transmission and wheels of the vehicle in order to propel it forward or backward. (In the process a lot of harmful pollution also gets expelled through the tailpipe.) However, in a FCEV the hydrogen flows from the storage tanks to the fuel cell stack where the electrons from the hydrogen atoms are peeled off and sent to power an electric motor. Meanwhile the protons from the hydrogen atoms pass through the fuel cell stack and on the other side by way of a chemical process combine with oxygen and their long-lost protons. The resulting “emissions” are some heat and water vapor. Crucially, FCEVs do not create any pollution and because hydrogen has 4x the power density of diesel hydrogen FCEVs are able to maintain a highly effective power-to-weight ratio, which translates into heavy-duty FCEVs having a similar or better driving range than vehicles that run on diesel.

Fuel Cells Works, Back-to-Base, the First Step in Heavy-Duty Mobility’s Green Revolution

Additionally, Hyzon is partnering with different organizations globally to secure a stable and low-cost hydrogen supply.  One such partner is Raven SR which is a company that takes garbage destined for landfills and converts it into hydrogen. The process does not involve combustion, with means that besides generating a lot of hydrogen it does not generate any particulate matter.  This makes the hydrogen production process cleaner, and it also makes it quicker to deploy due to a lighter regulatory permitting road than a process with combustion would require. Because the feedstock has traditionally been destined for landfills there are also two other benefits with the first being simple supply since humans never stop producing refuse.  The second is that because it is using a feedstock with little economical value to anyone else it is able to save considerably on the cost of acquiring the feedstock. Consequently, Raven SR is able to create a stable supply of hydrogen year after year and it can maintain a stable price for the hydrogen.  The cost per kilogram of hydrogen coming from Raven SR will likely be under $8 which will instantly put it on parity with diesel.

The ability of Raven SR to produce hydrogen locally, instead of a petroleum producer that produces oil on some oil rig in the middle of the ocean, allows back-to-base or return-to-base operators to access a much more proximate supply of the fuel needed to power Hyzon FCEVs. These same return-to-base operators will also be able to enjoy the stability in production volume and price noted above.  As more back-to-base operators move completely to FCEVs this will enable them to also establish a network of hydrogen refueling stations, which will in-turn allow them to convert long-distance heavy-duty truck routes to operate using hydrogen and FCEVs.  Additionally, if a return-to-base operator finds that it typically has more fuel than it needs it will have the option of turning its pumps into being publicly accessible and selling the extra hydrogen in order to further support the profitability of its reliance on hydrogen.

Because FCEVs only produce a little heat and water vapor for their only emissions this will also allow heavy-duty mobility fleets to also go green and gain all of the public relation and other benefits from being seeing as caring for the environment.

Fuel Cells Works, Back-to-Base, the First Step in Heavy-Duty Mobility’s Green Revolution

A truck manufacturer like Hyzon does also offer other incentives to help bring the cost of FCEV ownership to parity with diesel, but because FCEVs do not need oil changes and since fuel stacks have no moving parts the cost of maintenance also inherently decreases when compared with diesel vehicles. As of 2020 the cost per mile related to maintenance was at 14 cents (HDT report).  Even if that cost only dropped by 4 cents per mile with FCEVs it would still result in an enormous savings considering that the typical class-8 truck drives 100,000 miles each year.

By using hydrogen and FCEVs heavy-duty truck operators can essentially decouple the cost of their operations from the wild swings in the price of a barrel of oil, gain much greater control over their new fuel supply, eliminate most of the complexities that are involved in diesel supplies, and they can reduce their maintenance costs all while gaining benefits like trucks that are easier to drive and that are better for the environment. Not only does all of that result in higher operating efficiency of nearly every level of a fleet operator, but it also finally gives fleet operators one thing they constantly struggle for: being reasonably profitable. And there is perhaps nothing more satisfying at the end of a day than being able to pay bills and have money left over to treat employees or save for rainy days.

 

Bibliography:

(1), (2), (4), (5) – Alex Leslie, Ph.D. and Dan Murray, “An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking: 2021 Update” (American Transportation Research Institute, November 2021).

(3) – “What’s the total cost of ownership of a Class 8 truck over 15 years” Randall-Reilly, LLC, accessed November 27, 2021, https://www.overdriveonline.com/business/article/14889720/whats-the-total-cost-of -ownership-of-a-class-8-truck-over-15-years

(6) – Marissa Moultak, Nic Lutsey, and Dale Hall, “TRANSITIONING TO ZERO-EMISSION HEAVY-DUTY FREIGHT VEHICLES” (white paper, The International Council on Clean Transportation, September 2017)

 

About the Author
Jesse Lyon

Jesse Lyon, Contributor

Jesse Lyon is a hydrogen fuel cell thought leader and world-class essayist who is committed to helping bring a hydrogen economy to life imminently. His previous work involved ten published papers on the topics of cyber liability and technology E&O, plus one paper that introduced the insurance sector to robotic liability.

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