An Investigation of Natural Gas as a Substitute for Diesel in Heavy Duty Trucks and Associated Considerations

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the feasibility of replacing diesel with natural gas in heavy-duty trucks, considering technical, supply, and economic factors, including energy efficiency and resource availability.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of natural gas and diesel for heavy-duty trucks, including supply constraints and economic implications, which is a novel integrated approach.

Findings

Natural gas can potentially replace diesel in heavy-duty trucks.

Supply limitations of natural gas impact large-scale adoption.

Economic considerations include Javon's paradox and resource fungibility.

Abstract

In this paper, applicability of natural gas fuel for transportation as compared to diesel is investigated. This study investigates a promising technology for the heavy duty truck sector of transportation as a target for conversion from diesel to natural gas. The supply of natural gas is limited so we also verify the available domestic supply quantities both before and after a fleet conversion. This paper concludes with an economic discussion regarding Javon's paradox and the fungibility of natural gas as compared to that of oil. In order to determine if natural gas can replace diesel for the country's heavy duty truck transportation needs, the energy equivalent and efficiency of natural gas alternatives should be compared to diesel. There are two alternatives for using natural gas as a replacement for diesel; compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas.