By Mac King

CREATED Aug. 11, 2011
Share EmailPrint Todd Eggers moves people for money. He owns a door-to-door transportation business driving primarily the handicapped and the elderly.

But two months ago, the thought of driving anyone anywhere made Eggers cringe: He was shelling out between $75 and $100 every time he gassed up.

“You start doing that every three days,” Eggers said, “and you’ve got to be able to move a lot of people to be able to pay for that.”

So, Todd made a change. Idaho’s first two public compressed natural gas filling stations would open in a matter of months and Todd chose a ride that ran on natural gas. In his first month with his new whip, he cut the amount he spent on fuel by $480.

“You won’t believe the money you can save,” Eggers said.

With the money he saved in his first two months with a natural gas vehicle, Eggers both lowered his prices and made plans to expand his business.

“The CNG thing has kind of snowballed for us,” he said.

One of the downsides of natural gas is that you need to find a vehicle that takes it. Buying a new natural gas rig, often costs $3,000 to $6,000 more than a regular car or truck. And if you want to convert your current vehicle, you’ll have to travel as far as Salt Lake City or Seattle.

Eggers thinks he has a solution: He plans to open what he believes is the valley’s first full-time conversion shop, adapting vehicles to run on natural gas.

But natural gas in Boise has also proved effective on a larger scale. Allied Waste played a major role in bringing natural gas to the Treasure Valley. The Boise branch converted the company’s first 54 vehicles to natural gas and immediately began saving more than $5,000 a day. The Boise program was so successful Allied’s parent company now plans to add 1,000 natural gas trucks nationwide.

Finding vehicles that run on this $1.60/gallon fuel isn’t easy, and the state’s two fueling stations limit a CNG driver’s range to the Treasure Valley. But for a commuter driver like Eggers, natural gas has moved his business from an idling state to one of acceleration.

Buck