Trucking Down the 2023 Road

by Allen Schaeffer (Diesel Technology Forum) Diesel is the lifeblood of the trucking industry, a familiar refrain to economists, forecasters, and those behind the wheel. What does 2023 have in store for equipment, fuel prices, and policy?

More renewable diesel and biodiesel fuels that deliver immediate greenhouse gas reductions on the order of 50 to 85% depending on feedstocks, will find their way into heavy-duty truck engines in 2023 as refiners boost production of these fuels to meet state and regional low carbon fuel standards and national fleet demand. All heavy-duty diesel engine manufacturers approve biodiesel fuels in a 20% blend with petroleum diesel. Renewable diesel fuel is approved for use in heavy-duty truck engines up to 100%.

Policy

There’s plenty of truck engine, emissions, and fuel policy impacting the industry this year. The ink is barely dry on EPA’s newly enacted 1,150-page final rule setting the stage for the next chapter of advanced diesel engines. EPA’s new requirement takes effect in 2027, and when implemented four years from now these new standards will reduce nitrogen oxide emissions an additional 85% (0.03, down from 0.20) from current levels that are already near zero. Manufacturers must also boost the durability of emissions control systems and the warrantable periods for achieving emissions standards by more than two times the current requirement. We’ll know more about the challenges to meet all the details of this rule in the coming months.

In March, the third phase of the greenhouse gas rules is expected to be proposed by the EPA and the U.S. Department of Transportation. And more state activity is on the horizon in the northeast as New York holds a hearing within weeks on adoption of California’s more stringent nitrogen oxide emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks. Other states are also considering these California standards that add additional cost and complexity for manufacturers and higher costs and fewer choices for truckers. READ MORE

Excerpt from CCJ podcast: Allen Schaeffer
There will be a new focus on the fuels that are going into these engines, and that will be an important strategy for the future. And indeed, we're already seeing that at some levels with the growing use of renewable diesel fuel and advanced biodiesel fuels, as well, and particularly in states that have adopted low carbon fuel standards. There are some unknown aspects to it, for sure, but if you look at where things are headed, I mean, the trend is clearly for more investment in this high quality drop-in replacement for diesel fuel. We see that coming from the conventional refining sector and from some of the new energy providers, like Neste, and the traditional biodiesel producers, like the Renewable Energy Group, the Chevron Renewable Energy Group now.

So, we see tons of investment out there in bringing more capacity to produce these advanced renewable biofuels. That industry, the challenge for them will be access to feed stocks that are going to be appropriate for producing the fuels on a consistent stream and cost basis. So, that will be a dynamic that we'll hearing a lot more about in the next decade or so. But for looking at projections and what the government thinks for now, there's certainly a very strong view that more renewable diesel is coming, and I think the Energy Information Administration projected that at the end of 2022, production of renewable diesel would surpass that of conventional biodiesel for the first time. READ MORE