Natural Gas: Meeting CO2 Emission Targets Here and Now

Global energy consumption trends are running counter to the need to rapidly and drastically reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The increasing demand for energy and associated growth in emissions means that we must deploy market-ready, commercially-available solutions now. Europe’s recently enacted heavy-duty CO2 regulations require truck OEMs to achieve a fleet average CO2 reduction of 15% (by 2025) and 30% (2030) from the 2019 industry baseline, with significant fines for missing these targets. OEMs are under considerable pressure to abandon the internal combustion engine (ICE) and move toward fuel cells and battery electric solutions. This drive away from ICEs has gathered considerable momentum, but also misses the short term reality – the infrastructure and overwhelming mass of existing product is built on the ICE, and it will take time and considerable investment to replace. In the automotive sector, the path to electric vehicles is already starting to evolve, however cost-competitive, commercially available production solutions are still in their infancy for the commercial heavy-duty trucking sector. This paper will focus on alternative fuel options for heavy-duty trucks, allowing the installed infrastructure to be used and opening paths to evolve existing products while still meeting the legislated CO2 targets. Often seen as a short term solution, this paper will demonstrate that an alternative fuels approach is still valid into the longer term, enabling a smoother and more manageable transition of the transportation industry as a whole.