‘This Really Is the Future’: HGV Manufacturers Race to Decarbonise Trucks

(The Guardian) ... A cleaner alternative is methane produced by anaerobic digestion of food waste, known as biogas or bio-LNG (liquefied natural gas).

Gasrec, a company working on gas refuelling stations for the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda, estimates that a truck running on bio-LNG reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 90% compared to a diesel.

Even Sweden’s Volvo and Iveco, an Italian-listed manufacturer whose S-Way is also available in natural gas version, are open about the fact that methane combustion is a transition technology.

Lars Stenqvist, head of trucks technology at Volvo Group, said: “It’s clear to us that we need more than one solution to decarbonise transport. We currently see three technologies in parallel that will decarbonise the heavy vehicle industry.

“We are investing more than ever into combustion engines, battery electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles.”

One of the big unanswered questions in trucking is hydrogen’s role. Hydrogen is energy dense and offers very quick refuelling. Fuel cells can power electric motors with water as the only exhaust emission.

Brendan Bilton, chief technology officer of Element 2, is building a hydrogen refuelling network in the UK. He argued hydrogen would be needed for the biggest lorries doing long-haul routes without time to recharge.

“We haven’t heard anyone saying, ‘we’re just waiting for our 44-tonne truck to get a battery,’” he said. “It just doesn’t work.”

However, there are big questions over the amount of electricity needed to make green, high-purity hydrogen to power a large proportion of the world’s lorries. For this reason some analysts believe hydrogen fuel cells – or another option, combustion – will play a relatively small role.

“The potential future market for hydrogen vehicles is shrinking daily,” said Gniewomir Flis, who scouts electrochemical technologies at Energy Revolution Ventures, an early-stage investor. “I believe the majority of trucks will be battery electric.” READ MORE