Business people met in Atlanta GA on November 16 to discuss the possible growth of natural gas fueling stations in the metropolitan region. Among those attending the meeting were gas station owners and truck stop operators, public policy consultants, politicians and regulators, fleet managers, as well as executives and lobbyists from Atlanta Gas Light. Founded by billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, it is the second largest utility in Georgia.

California-based Clean Energy, which is owned by Pickens, is the nation's largest provider of compressed natural gas as vehicle fuel. The company owns one of the two natural gas stations in the metro Atlanta area, and also serves airport shuttles and other natural gas burning commercial vehicles.

Georgia Public Service Commissioner Doug Everett and Atlanta Gas Light are in discussions to give AGL $10 million in state universal service funds (USF) to build competing fueling stations at five other locations. In contrast, Clean Energy claims that it could use the same amount of money to build 15 to 20 fueling stations, because it would be willing to kick in 70 percent of the cost itself. Boone’s company wants any proposed natural gas fuel station incentive to require both substantial private investment and a plan to pay back the USF fund.

Neither proposal is formally on the table but could be by early next year. Commissioner Everett said his interest in natural gas vehicles dates back to when he used propane-fired trucks in his business decades ago. Businesses such as Schwan’s, a frozen-food manufacturer and distributor, are using natural-gas fuelled vehicles, while utilities such as Michigan’s Consumer’s Power also once used such vehicles.

According to Everett, natural gas fired vehicles pollute less than those that use gasoline or diesel and reduce dependence on foreign oil, and also cheaper to maintain. Everett theorizes that the market has not taken off since then simply because there are not enough fuelling stations to justify converting to natural gas vehicles, and not enough such vehicles to justify the fueling stations. “People have been trying to get this chicken-and-egg thing going for a long time,” Everett said.

Companies in the business are anxious to pick “the low hanging fruit,” according to Commissioner Chuck Eaton, who also attended the meeting. The goal is to get more natural gas cars in commercial fleets, although Clean Energy sells, and AGL is considering selling, home fuelling stations, too. Eaton and the other members of the commission will have to decide upon the legality of using USF funds for natural gas stations. The funds are collected from an AGL wholesale pipeline affiliate and AGL's industrial customers. State law lists pipeline system extensions and emergency heating assistance as legitimate uses of the money. AGL and Everett said they believe the law will allow the funds to pay for the gas stations, too.

AGL and Clean Energy claim that they can work together to advance the cause of natural gas-fuelled vehicles. Another meeting will be following by a workshop in January 2011. However, Clean Energy CEO Warren Mitchell said his company was born of a failed attempt to have a monopoly utility jump-start the compressed natural gas market in California. Pickens bought that utility's fueling stations to start Clean Energy, he said. "The point we're trying to make to Atlanta Gas Light and the PSC is that you have the utility fund 100 percent of it, and you don't have private enterprise involved, you're not going to have a program that's sustainable over time," Mitchell said.

AGL regulatory affairs director David Weaver, meanwhile, said Clean Energy's proposal would be feasible only for a well-capitalized company like Clean Energy. "The more you require a company to put up in terms of capital, the harder it's going to be,” he said.

Meanwhile the CEO of Fiat/Chrysler, Sergio Marchionne, vowed on December 5 to reintroduce the Fiat brand into the US market next year. Flouting the wisdom of the Toyota Prius hybrid, GM’s Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid and the Nissan Leaf EV, Marchionne at the same time will push for more natural gas-powered cars. Marchionne says natural gas technology provides a cheaper way of going gree. He said electric vehicles and hybrids are more complicated and less viable due to their costly batteries and their varying recharge times. He also says EVs and hybrids have “too many obstacles.”

Buck