Even if you don’t drive a car or truck that drinks diesel, I’m sure you’re aware at just how absurdly high diesel prices have gotten. Average diesel price per gallon is now close to seven bucks, and it’s never really been anywhere close to that. Because diesel is really the fuel that drives so much of our economy – farms use it extensively for machinery, trains use it, trucking relies on it, and so on – the cascading effects of these high fuel prices are being felt everywhere. This isn’t good, and so far there doesn’t even seem to be a solution on the horizon. It’s really pretty bleak.
All of this fretting over diesel has made me wonder about something: where’s all the biodiesel?
I remember back in the early-to-mid-2000s when it was actively hard to find a Mercedes-Benz diesel wagon for sale because everyone was buying them up to convert to be able to run on used French fry oil. Companies were popping up all over the place to do these conversions – there was even one near where I used to live in Los Angeles that was sort of famous, called LoveCraft Biofuels. These places worked out deals with local restaurants to convert their used cooking oil into usable diesel fuel, provided your car had a few relatively minor modifications to heat the fuel to keep it liquid and some filtration systems.
Look, here’s an old commercial for them, featuring a guy with a name that at first auditory-glance sounds like mine, but he’s a lot better-looking:
Places like these were just small-scale, though. They were converting Benz diesels for hipsters one by one, this wasn’t biofuel on an industrial scale. But that was promised, too! There were plans for plants that turned turkey offal and other slaughterhouse wastes into diesel, or crushing soybeans into oils that can become diesel, and more, and for a while it seemed like we’d soon be able to make as much diesel as we needed from renewable biological sources that would be just turned into waste, anyway.
At some point, though, these biofuel enterprises seemed to recede from the spotlight. Lovecraft closed in 2009, and a lot of other small biofuel companies did as well, and I just generally stopped hearing as much about these sorts of enterprises. So, what happened? Why did all these biodiesel initiatives not seem to pan out, and why hasn’t the biodiesel industry stepped up in this time of diesel crisis to help free us from the tyranny of traditional diesel supply issues?
It turns out that there are a lot of reasons. There’s a number of articles online that explain a number of reasons why, but I wanted to hear from an expert, so I reached out to a few. One of the people who responded to me in detail was Monte Shaw, the executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association. Shaw’s response is quite comprehensive and makes clear that it’s not really one specific reason, but rather a disappointing cocktail of technical, economic, and regulatory reasons:
Biomass-based diesel, which includes both renewable diesel and biodiesel, is stepping up to help in 2026. However, there are practical limitations. Just as traditional refiners can only run their plants at full capacity, the same is true for biodiesel. Each month in 2026 is setting new production records for biodiesel as plants have ramped up and are running flat out today.
You mentioned California. Because of state policies there, I believe over 75% of “diesel” used in the state is actually a combination of renewable diesel and biodiesel. That is a remarkable achievement and should have insulated the state a bit from the current global spike.
But elsewhere inconsistent policy has held back biodiesel. The federal government let the blenders tax credit lapse at the end of 2024 without a replacement for over a year. At the same time the EPA set lackluster Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) blending levels for 2023-2025. These policy signals curtailed the growth of biodiesel production capacity with many projects being cancelled.
This includes soybean crush facilities that extract the soybean oil that had been planned. We need to grow feedstock availability to grow production. With better tax and RFS policy in place for 2026, we’re starting to see projects move forward again, but they take time to build and start impacting the market.
So with over 5 billion gallons of production capacity, renewable diesel and biodiesel are making a significant contribution to diesel supplies in the US, especially in California. And we’re excited to see growth back on track. But just like petroleum refineries, we don’t have a magic switch to flip to double or triple production overnight.
All diesel engines can use B20 (20% biodiesel). All can use 100% renewable diesel. So there is no equipment limit. It’s a matter of ensuring a stable investment market to spur growth. Biodiesel can and will do more in the future if given a chance.
So, there already is biodiesel being made and used, and that’s great, because it is renewable and helps the US maintain some degree of energy independence, but there are inherent issues with it, even if there were no regulatory hurdles. The feedstock for biofuels is simply more expensive than petroleum, and those same feedstocks – corn, soybeans, vegetable oils – are also human food sources, so there’s a limit on how much can be earmarked for fuel use.
Some sources of biodiesel, like soybeans, seem to be significantly more expensive. There are also issues with transporting biofuel diesel, because biofuels tend to be more corrosive to metals, which means they’re not suitable for pipeline transport, and must be shipped by truck or rail, which is significantly more expensive.
I also reached out to Marc Dreyfors, the manager of Orange County Eco-Innovations Park, which includes Carolina Biofuels, which operates a small fleet of biodiesel-fueled buses for Duke University. Dreyfors noted the regulatory and economic hurdles, especially:
So a new product that’s on the market called renewable diesel. Yeah. It is the same feedstock that biodiesel does, and it produces a more compatible fuel with less side effects issues with it running in modern diesels.
So this, you know, there’s a giant sucking sound at this point of renewable diesel to the feedstock that was wants biodiesel. And then there’s also the loss of the producer’s credit. There was a production credit, blender’s credit. There’s still a production credit, but there’s a blender credit for a dollar for every part, you know, part per million of biodiesel that will blend it into diesel, you got a dollar back from the government. Right. So now it’s just a flat producer’s credit, which tends to benefit the larger producers, whereas the blender’s credit was kind of more egalitarian, and that anybody who blended diesel in with biodiesel could claim the credit.
It’s the influence of the large fossil fuel companies. You’ve got the soybean producer association who wants to sell their soybeans and get produced into biofuel when soybean prices are low, you know, or have some kind of subsidy associated with it.
…
If it’s made at an industrial scale, anything, it’s even harder. We’re unique in that we only make our fuel from recycled food waste, but there’s simply not enough of it to really make a dent, and we have a case for simply using that biodiesel in school buses, because that’s the biggest bang for the buck because it’s reducing air toxic exposure and the engines are old.
The current administration hasn’t been prioritizing biodiesel in any capacity, really, domestically produced or otherwise. Imported biodiesel fell dramatically since 2025 due to the loss of tax credits for such fuels, for example.
What all of this adds up to is really a sort of perfect shitstorm for biofuels. While it all seemed so promising – fuel from French fry oils and other wastes! – the reality of scaling it up just hasn’t proven to be economically viable, at least not yet. And without good incentives or support for companies that wish to try to make these sorts of fuels at scale, it’s all a non-starter.
Now, if the current diesel situation continues, this could change: diesel fuels can be made from these waste products, after all, and if diesel continues to rise in cost, it may end up becoming an economically viable proposition. There are also processes that can turn non-food sources like wood waste into biofuel, and there’s currently promising-looking research into these processes, but a large-scale, economically viable enterprise for this has yet to emerge. But it could!
Is it going to help us right now? No. Is the idea of taking wood waste and turkey guts and turning it into usable diesel still a compelling idea? Absolutely. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like we’re there yet, and we don’t have people in power, politically or economically, vested in making sure biodiesel actually happens at larger scales.
Who knows what the future may hold, but for right now, biodiesel isn’t going to be our magic oily bullet.
Top graphic image: DepositPhotos.com
Back in 2007 or so, my roommates friends boyfriend had an old Mercedes Diesel. I watched him put all manner of fuels in the tank that were not diesel fuel. Used motor oil, cooking oil, anything he could find for free/cheap- all mixed together in the tank with no modifications. And it ran. He disappeared from my life orbit while he still had it, so I don’t know how it worked out in the end. But for a solid 6 months that car ran on all sorts of diesel alternatives.
An old diesel will run on anything, from whiskey to whale oil. As long as it burns, it will work. Modern diesel engines, not so much.
I had a 2001 Jetta TDI and there were a couple of places near me where I could get B20. When I filled up with it, I didn’t really notice any difference between how the car ran and how its exhaust smelled. I felt like I was doing some good by buying it and would spend the $0.10/gallon or so difference in what it cost. The difference between running a diesel Mercedes and a much newer TDI on it seemed pretty significant, and that was a road I chose not to try.
In my corner of the world, Boeing, Alaska Airlines and the Seattle and Portland airports are experimenting with Sustainable Aviation Fuel, but I don’t really keep up with details of how that’s going.
Totally unrelated to the actual topic of this article, but fun to put memories to text:
Back when I was flying my 1/4 share of a Cessna 150, people would look askance at my partners and me for getting the STC to allow us to run it on auto fuel, which was about 33% less expensive than aviation fuel. That engine (a Continental O-200) made it to its Time Before OverHaul interval (2000 hours) without issue despite spending half that time running on the cheaper stuff. Engine hours versus miles are wildly variable. Even doing the preflight runups of the engine, taxiing for takeoff, holding short until traffic permits/clearance is granted and coming in for a landing when the plane’s engine is essentially idling, it’s time that counts, not the distance covered.
Under ideal conditions (freeway driving) 2000 hours in a car would be ~120-140K miles. Airplane engines spend a lot more time producing all or a significant percentage of the power they’re rated for. Every takeoff is the equivalent of having it floored for close to two minutes or longer depending on how high you want to climb above terra firma. In a two-seat 150, (weighing 1600 pounds with full tanks and seats) burning 4 gallons per hour (GPH) gives you about 100 MPH and 25 mpg. So, let’s pretend you could midair refuel a 150 and 2000 hours would give you 200,000 miles.
My Accord V6’s engine is loafing along at 70 MPH (often with half its cylinders deactivated) and gets 40 mpg. So, less than 2 GPH. It would be interesting (to me anyway) to see how much fuel it consumed at 100 MPH. The car also weighs at least twice as much without passengers as the 150 did with pilot and passenger. And I have read of many people who have gotten 300,000 miles out of Honda J35 engines.
During flight training, my instructor and I each weighed about 180 pounds, which with full tanks put our plane about 40 pounds above maximum gross weight. The first time I soloed, and the plane was now 180 pounds lighter, the difference in takeoff performance was really noticeable.
I can have one or four butts in seats in my Accord and I don’t really notice the difference. But then again, I am not flooring it every time I pull away from a light or merge onto the freeway.
I hope that someday I get to meet Mercedes Streeter, sit down and compare notes. And apologies for the tangent.
I was interested in DIY biodiesel years ago even bought a 98 TDI Jetta with the idea of running it with biodieasel and bought and read Josh Tickel’s book “From the fryer to the fuel tank”.
After reading it, to make it practical, would of involved creating a DIY bio-diesel plant which would have taken up at least about a 5’x5′ section of my at the time 2.5 car garage, a space that would soon be taken up by a 3rd (classic) car.
Not to mention of course the on going time investment in thr end I decided the ‘juice wasn’t worth the squeeze’ so to speak
Thoughts on the article form:
Given the dark background reading and the green text, I do think the quotation segment (and only segment) would do well with a different color to differentiate the neon green continuity.
Well, while I can’t talk about the diesel side, on the gasoline side, there’s more and more people around here that send the money for the black box that gives them the ability to use E85… just because E85 is below 1 Euro per liter while gasoline is well above 2 Euros (unless you manage to get a few drops from a price capped gas statio)
I know something similar can be done with diesel, but there’s no real distribution network for it…
Anyway Frogs being Frogs, old oil used to make fries seems to work fine in the engines of those that managed to secure a source.
To make renewable diesel, buy an oil refinery and refurbish with a different catalyst to remove oxygen instead of sulfur with high pressure hydrogen gas. The byproduct is propane.
The byproduct of biodiesel production is glycerol. Low quality and mixed with water. Much harder to sell the byproduct and impossible to compete with the scale of an oil refinery.
Just found out that there is so much glycerol in Europe from FAME biodiesel production that Formula E uses it in their generators to charge EV race cars. Wild. Probably cheaper to make into biomethane than to separate it from water.
If all cars were designed by Toecutter we would have so much extra diesel we wouldn’t know what to do with it.
If all vehicles were designed by Toecutter we would have more diesel than we would know whact to do with.
That or if we still had work from home policies.
And again, the current WH fails at doing anything for anyone other than extractive industries. We could be much more energy independent, but . . .
Good. if it helps lower carbon emissions, I call it a win.
Hey now, they also start unneccesary wars, stifle the media, and treat the people of the US like braindead cattle to be forced through a fine mesh screen. Oh and make us a laughingstock on the world stage. I only have two officers that I work with in my department that still support them, and nearly everyone I work with has been a hard line republican for as long as I’ve worked here.
But those windmills, they stopped those evil offshore windmills that ruined the view from the golf course.
Idk if it’s still the case, but for many year the single biggest buyer of biodiesel *by far* was the us military.
“we don’t have people in power, politically or economically, vested in making sure biodiesel actually happens at larger scales.”
30 years ago, I delved deep into this topic, learning all I could find, and concluded that incentives are decidedly against small, independent start-ups, making a go of it. It all makes abundant sense. Some farmers have become self reliant, producing all the fuel they need, but must have older- user modifiable machines. The obvious, clear solution of any responsible government, is to promote all viable alternatives that lead to energy independence. Algae, like in the national mirror, can be grown in deserts within tubes, and become viable feed stock for biodiesel! Small scale pilot programs have proven it! Lobbyists have corrupted the decision makers. I am somewhat optimistic, that our long depravity is coming to an end, and the national zeitgeist will return to benefiting humanity.
At some point, we will see electric farm equipment.
Farmers have space for solar & wind in abundance, and to use that to power their tractors would be really appealing.
That would be rather cool, and would fit a self-reliant farmer ethos nicely. Wind probably would work well for most farms, but I imagine only certain farms would be able to use solar effectively. If all your cleared land is productive, you’d probably rather be farming it than covering it with solar panels, but if you have cleared land that can’t be economically farmed, it would make a lot more sense.
I haven’t a clue on how much electrical power it might take to power a farm’s worth of equipment but there’s a lot of rooftop space on barns, storage sheds, farmhouse, and on the verges of fields.
But large turbines scale incredibly well and don’t consume a lot of fieldspace, and probably make the most sense as a feed-in offset back to the grid.
A lot of cleared land is used for pasture, which turns out can work great with solar in small scale trials.
The biggest problem though is getting farmers to buy in on the idea in the first place. I have family that lives in Madison county Ohio, the new big thing is selling out the family farm to the solar company. Several hunderd acre solar farms are popping up all around central Ohio. The solar panels are put on wooden telephone poles about 8 feet high. Up there you have to bury them 3 feet deep in concrete cause of the frost line. Then all the gravel service roads, what they do completely rapes the land to where you can never farm on it again once the solar fad goes away.
Anyways the locals are PISSED about these solar farms, they know hands were greased at the local and state level to allow this to happen. And I dont blame them, it ruins some of the most productive farm land on the entire planet.
Maybe wind turbines would be a better sell to farmers, but once again farmes dont have a spare million dollars lying around to put them in and buy all new electric tractors and combines. Also when its harvest time, some of these machines are operating 80-100 hours straight at a time without being shut off.
“ once the solar fad goes away.”
Solar is not a fad.
Though I agree that putting solar on good farmland is a terrible idea in the long term. Solar should be going on the roofs and sides of buildings. Or on land that is NOT well suited for farming.
Where did this idea come from that land can never be returned to farming? Especially after something as minor as puting some telephone poles in the ground. First, that land can be grazed today which is a far more environmentally friendly way raise meat than growing corn and soybeans, then trucking them to a feedlot, to feed cattle, that then you have to truck away and treat massive amounts of concentrated animal waste.
Second, you can absolutely farm land that was previously used for other things. Something you learn from living in a now dead industrial town. Both the land that was under the foundry that my father-in-law worked at and land that was under one of my old schools is being farmed today. Pull up the concrete, plow the land, and farm.
Gonna cost a lot of $$$$ to remove 600 acres worth of poles spaced every 5 feet.
Anyways reason I say the solar farms in Ohio are a fad is most of that land is within 30 miles of Columbus. Once the solar panels need replacing in 10 or 20 years some developer will buy it and farm houses 8 to an acre.
A lot of backroom dealing and bribing for the zoning changes is what Ive been told by relatives. Im guessing that the solar farm is marginally more profitable than farming for these land speculators who bought it cheap to hold until the city eventually grows out there.
The land originally had trees that had to be chopped down by hand and the roots dug and burned out. Then all the rocks picked out over years.
My understanding is that leasing to solar farms is far more lucrative than farming commodities like corn and soybeans and stable money. About 10x more to farm the sun than the ground.
Out here in the west farmers are getting about $25K a year per turbine and they can still farm under them.
Many farmers are accustomed to being upsidedown on bank loans, so what’s a $1M wind turbine that has a theoretical 5-year payback (~10y realistic) where the local energy regulator offers a feed-in-tariff (FIT)?
The problem is that palms are greased so that there’s no FIT, or that it’s intentionally uncompetitive for a farmer to take advantage of such distribution of energy infrastructure.
Distributed energy generation helps make the grid more resilient.
And somehow there’s still gonna be issues. I mean, someone’s going to need to go to Tosche Station and pick up the power converters.
I’m far more concerned about the critical shortage of old MB W123 diesel wagons.
For anyone in Washington there is a Chevron facility in Aberdeen that makes 100 million gallons of biodiesel a year from soybean oil. Same port also exports the crushed soybeans as feed for animals in SE Asia.
Apparently, the soybean tariffs are on the whole bean, so no issue exporting the crushed ones for food stock.
Why ship crushed soybeans to Asia probably cheaper to feed local farmers cattle and reduce the cost of beef.
I remember when the producers started taking the oil for free instead of paying a company to take it. Then the demand was so high they started paying for the used fryer oil. But then restaurants started to use healthy oil more expensive so less available if usable. This started with people producing bio diesel in their garages and basement for 63 cents a gallon. But government subsidy made it impossible for the DIY guy to even get used oil because big time were buying it. I always wondered:
1. Why not use genetically enhance product that people are scared to eat?
2. Why not use kudzu, an invasive plant the south can’t get rid of.
3. Why not use algae blooms to clean the ocean and fuel our cars?
4. Why not create a program to collect yard waste and use for fuel instead of a landfill?
5. At recycling center why can’t we drop off kitchen oil? It works for cars at a parts store.
None of these may work on its own but add them together and you might have something.
“All diesel engines can use B20 (20% biodiesel).”
This is untrue.
If you’re reading this and hoping to jump on the biodiesel bandwagon, please check your owners manual first.
Per Cummins and my owners manual for a “modern” 6.7l:
A maximum blend of 5% biodiesel meeting ASTM specification D-6751 may be used with your Cummins diesel engine.
I know my old 7.3 loved it but I was clogging up fuel filters more often.
I read/heard somewhere that biodiesel actually was great at lubricating the engine just from use. Is there no way to purify biodiesel to the degree hippies did when they created it?
Yea hippies!
Yes, the limits have changed over time. Current model Cummins and Detroit Diesels allow 20% biodiesel but that was a recent change.
And if you do run higher levels of biodiesel, it can substantially affect your maintenance schedule. On my old truck running higher than B10 put you on essentially the severe duty maintenance schedule for anything engine-related.
Finally, my chance to be pendantic around these parts!
For a few years, I worked at one of those early odds biodiesel businesses.
The main thing that people got confused, and we had to repeat every other day, is that running cars on vegetable oil and running them on biodiesel are different things.
Most diesel engines do no need any modifications to run on biodiesel. Zero. People with the company had everything from, yes, old Mercedes diesels to newish VW TDIs, even an RV. All stock, all running on biodiesel.
The modifications are needed if you want to refuel at your local McDonalds with their straight, unprocessed, waste vegetable oil.
We even made a series of DVDs explaining how to make biodiesel at home to run on your unmodified diesel car.
The fun part is that the waste product from that process could also be used as soap!
How did soap like that smell?
It depends on what source oil you are starting with! If you are using recycled KFC oil, probably best not to use it for laundry 😀
Exactly. I was going to say all those 300Ds were converted to WVO.
The other thing, which im sure you know, is that the whole biofuels industry was massively hurt by large scale organized fraud. So what should have been seed money to spin up an industry was pocketed and legislators went “ok, I guess we won’t try that again.”
I was about to point this out.
I looked up the global production of biodiesel just last night. It represents about 4% of all transport energy use. So no, probably not going to fix anything soon….
Or won’t it?
At the risk of beating a dead horse yet again what about natural gas? Why aren’t we seeing more of a push to move diesel trucks to pilot ignition engines? Those are supposed to offer all the performance of diesel on a mix of up to 80% NG / 20% diesel by energy content in wit only minor modification to existing engines and up to 95%, maybe more NG and only 5%, maybe less diesel in more heavily modified engines again with all the performance of burning straight diesel.
Downsides? Less range since NG contains less energy. And cost since high pressure tanks aren’t cheap. And its a potent GHG so that must be factored into the engineering of fueling.
Upsides? Natural gas is a domestic fuel we have in great abundance. It burns way cleaner than diesel so these engines burn much cleaner and should require less emissions controls and less maintenance. And natural gas is so cheap sometimes drillers have to pay you to take it. And it can be made renewably like you are doing RIGHT NOW.
If these engines CAN run on a mix of <= 96/4 NG/diesel then maybe, just maybe we can make enough biodiesel to meet demand. Or at least take a huge amount of pressure off a tight supply of regular diesel.
So how about a report on the current state and future of natural gas powered heavy transport?
Every thing is cheaper until you find a use for it that makes it so desirable that it becomes in great demand and then very expensive. That is why EVs only won’t work but EVs along with hybrids and ICE, and any other option is the only option
We already use a LOT of natural gas and yet it’s still relatively cheap because we have so much of it.
I currently drive an LNG modified Chrysler Town&Country, and it works great.
Range on the LNG tank is about 150 miles, which is not too bad for daily use. When the LNG runs out, the full tank of gasoline is still there.
Another upside, since the fuel is less energy dense, the engine is supposed to wear less.
Downside: no spare tire. That is were the LNG tank goes.
Where do you get your LNG? How much does a tank fill up cost?
LPG (my mistake).
1.25 gallons of LPG are about the equivalent of 1 gallon of gasoline energy wise. So cost is about half that of gasoline when you factor that in.
LNG? Not LPG or CNG? How did you get a van like that?
LPG, good catch. I got my wires crossed 🙂
LNG is very popular for trucking in China. It does not need the 5% diesel for ignition. The conversion is so cheap that it pays off in ~6 months. Basically just an insulated tank and injectors I believe.
LNG comes off the boat as a liquid. That is a big advantage, because the only place that can turn it into a liquid is where it gets loaded on the boat. Making a small machine that could make LNG efficiently would be a huge breakthrough.
Natural gas can run just fine in spark ignition gasoline engines as well. NG also has an octane rating of about 130 so spark ignition engines can be designed with huge compression ratios to increase efficiency to help offset the lower energy content of the fuel.
My point with pilot ignition engines is that even existing diesel engines can be adopted to pilot ignition NG in fuel ratios of up to 80/20 NG/diesel. Given all the apocalyptic rhetoric it’s a mystery to me why this technology hasn’t even been discussed as a solution especially, after all the coverage hydrogen has been getting for the past several years despite it clearly being a far inferior solution.
My guess is that regulations make dual fuel setups more expensive than they should be. It is obvious that NG/diesel is going to burn cleaner than just diesel, but there is going to be a cost to prove that to the government.
Hydrogen has the advantage of easily capturing carbon dioxide during production. Then pump that down into an old oil well and get out even more oil. Lots to like about hydrogen trucks if you are in the CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery business.
That’s the pinkie promise but not always the reality:
https://fuelcellsworks.com/2024/12/06/clean-energy/multibillion-dollar-plan-to-convert-coal-into-clean-hydrogen-falters
https://cen.acs.org/energy/hydrogen-power/Air-Products-cancels-blue-hydrogen/104/web/2026/07
https://ieefa.org/resources/carbon-capture-crux-lessons-learned
It is easier to design carbon capture from the start than to try to retrofit it in later. The Air Products plant had a decent design from a technical perspective, but they were depending on the subsidy for permanent geologic sequestration. This subsidy used to be higher than for EOR but now it does not exist anymore. The subsidy for EOR still exists because reasons.
The Australian coal to hydrogen project promised sequestering from the very start:
“Carbon emissions from burning coal are expected to be minimal for the trial phase but if the project is scaled up to a commercial plant then carbon capture and storage (CCS) would be needed to make the endeavour creditable from an environmental point of view.
That’s why Brad Page, CEO of the Melbourne-based Global CCS Institute, said the scheme is a chance for CCS technology to prove its value.
Attending the launch ceremony, Page said making hydrogen from coal involves separating out the CO2 anyway, and added that the location of the trial provided opportunities for geological storage.”
https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/australia-and-japan-team-build-390m-coal-hydrogen/
Even so the promise of sequester ideation failed.
With the Louisiana project, they were also counting on being able to sell their product to Europe at a premium. If the CO2 is used for EOR they would have had to pay the tax as if nothing was captured, because it is the oil/gas company that gets to sell at a premium to Europe with utilization.
Coal it still has to be gasified with steam just like before, while for natural gas there is an entirely different pathway. Partial oxidation hydrogen production uses pure oxygen carefully metered to make carbon monoxide before adding steam, meaning there is less (no air) to separate compared to steam methane reformation.
But wait! There’s more!
“The volume of carbon capture capacity cancelled in Europe in 2025 exceeded that reaching final investment decision: 5.4MtCO2 of capture-related projects were cancelled, while only 4.2MtCO2 of projects received investment approval.
Of the 2025 cancelled projects, blue hydrogen represented the largest share of capture volume at 71%, followed by a refining project at 20%. The balance was from a waste-to-energy plant.
Four hydrogen projects were cancelled, most notably the BP-owned H2Teesside Phase 1 & 2 in the UK, which accounted for 2MtCO2, and the Equinor-backed H2M Eemshaven project in the Netherlands, with 1.8MtCO2. The companies behind these projects put the cancellations down to weak hydrogen demand, site planning challenges and funding uncertainties”
https://ieefa.org/resources/europes-potential-carbon-capture-and-storage-project-pipeline-losing-steam
Have you seen natural gas prices in Europe? They are 8x higher than in the US. Nobody wants to buy products made from blue hydrogen at those prices. It is cheaper to import them and pay the carbon tax.
Most of the carbon being captured in Europe today comes from biomethane production. It is relatively simple to separate CO2 from methane. It is also simple to make money at those prices.
That’s strange since two of the most successful sequestering projects are in Norway, a country that last time I checked is in Europe and last time I checked is a petrostate.
https://ieefa.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/CCS-review-inforgraphic_0.jpg
And high natural gas prices in Europe don’t explain failed blue hydrogen sequestering projects outside of Europe.
The European Union has a good statistics agency, but this does not include Norway. Statements like all diesel sold in Europe contains 7% biodiesel also does not apply to Norway, because Scandinavians have different laws.
I do not think you realize how serious the situation in Europe is becoming. Ten years ago they made over 2.4 million tons of methanol, but today it is down to 800k tons and still falling. This is not even enough domestic production to make all of the FAME biodiesel that is required. They are importing hydrogen in liquid form because they are in an energy supply emergency. I have still been reading about biomethanol and e-methanol projects in Europe going forward, because they are no longer in a strong enough position for geologic sequestration.
Blue hydrogen projects in the US did not start construction before the government pulled the rug.
Been there / tried that. 15 years ago CNG and LNG was going to be the clean transport fuel for heavy duty trucks. You could meet emissions without a DPF or SCR and the fuel was cheap compare to diesel. (Even EPA 2027 only requires a simply catalytic converter for NG trucks)
What happened? The trucks themselve cost tens of thousand of dollars more because CNG and LNG tanks are very expensive. Those tanks also have a set DOT lifespan when they have to be discarded and replaced. Then there is the fueling. Yes, we have natural gas piped all over but CNG and especially LNG fueling stations of very expensive. It is the same chicken or egg problem as DC chargers. You need customers to justify building the fueling stations. But few companies are going to buy trucks that they can’t fuel.
Then there are repair requirements. Because NG is lighter than air any mechanical shop has to be retrofitted to meet NFPA 52.
End of the day CNG and LNG exist today and have niches where they work. Some large fleets running set routes like UPS, FedEx, and Amazon run CNG trucks and have installed their own fueling stations on dedicated routes. Places like large dairies and landfills where environmental requirements force the collection of methane (Natural Gas) it makes sense to compress it and fuel trucks because the fuel is essentially free.
For CNG to work a truck has to run a lot of miles so the fuel saving pay back the extra purchase price before the tank expire. If fuel prices stay high more people might look at making that investment but in trucks and in a fuel station.
All of the above is why I laugh when people talk about H2 trucks. The barrier is much higher there.
The times, they are a-changin’
Thanks to the money squandered on hydrogen nonsense manufacturers now have the ability to make 10k psi pressure tanks that I imagine are overkill for use with CNG.
https://www.toyoda-gosei.com/news/details.php?id=443
The H2 tanks in the Mirai are rated for 15 years with hydrogen stored at 10k psi:
https://www.go-parts.com/garage/fuel-tank-toyota-mirai-2016-2020
so I can easily imagine a far longer service life storing CNG at lower pressures*. Given the typical lifetime of a semi truck is 15-20 years these and future tanks may outlast the truck. Or the service station. Or humanity.
Are they expensive? Yes. Much more expensive than a diesel tank. But AFAIK that 15 year service life does not mean end of life, it means the tank needs to be tested to become recertified. If true these tanks would continue to be serviceable for several decades, perhaps allowed to be resold to recover some of the high purchase price.
And the truck itself should last far longer all the while burning much cheaper fuel, requiring fewer oil changes, less maintainence, less down time, less pollution so (presumably) less emissions equipment. There’s a lot to like.
But of course there is still a lot of devil in the details so I put it to the crack journalists at the Autopian to deep dive into them. Given how Toyota is STILL betting on hydrogen I think it’s worth a look to see if the maths math better with natural gas.
And there is no reason to limit this to diesel. A CNG hybrid truck with an Atkinson ICE might be an even better option.
*CNG does not follow the ideal gas law under very high pressure so a longer service life at lower pressure may be worth the trade off of a somewhat lower capacity.
CNG tanks have a hard expiration date and the clock starts when they are made and the manufacturer stamps a date on them. They also require inspection every 36 months or 36,000 miles.
FMVSS 304
As I said the times, they are a-changin’
That code was passed in 1995 for (I presume) 3-3.6k steel tanks, long before the bullet resistant, much higher pressure capable carbon composite hydrogen tanks I’m referring to existed.
If the concern is safety then it would make sense DOT codes should be applied even more rigorously for hydrogen vehicles since since hydrogen is an embrittling escape artist held at 3x the pressure. The Mirai does indeed call for a 15k/60k inspection of its hydrogen system but as part of a broader service:
15,000 mi Cabin air filter, brake inspection, tire rotation, hydrogen-system visual check $80-160
60,000 mi Brake fluid flush, FC stack coolant service, hydrogen system inspection, deionizer/ion-exchanger check $300-600
https://carlyle.vin/maintenance/toyota/mirai
At thoset stealership prices the H2 inspection is essentially free.
That not to undermine your point that DOT codes would indeed need to be updated IF these tanks are capable of holding NG at least as safely as they do hydrogen. I assume this is the case but I have yet to see test results proving it.
FMVSS 304 was last updated in 2022. They changed the inspection interval for NG vehicles over 10,000 lbs to every year instead of 3 years or 36,000 miles. They also considered matching the EU’s 4 year inspection schedule but declined to do so because we use higher pressure carbon tanks in the USA.
NHTSA also estimated that when the the DGE (diesel gallon equivalent) for natural gas is $1.25 less than diesel a HD natural gas truck has to drive 125,000 mile per year to make it worthwhile. The current DGE for natural gas is about $3 so at current prices CNG makes a lot of sense. The problem is converting is a multi million dollar bet that diesel will stay high and CNG low.
At the truck level just a behind the cab CNG cabinet is about $50,000 to hold the energy of 120 gallons of diesel. All in you are paying about $80K more for a CNG truck vs diesel.
About that:
“The inspection interval for these vehicles is modified from the currently-specified interval, “at least every 36 months or 36,000 miles, whichever comes first,” to “at least every 12 months.” For commercial operators of CNG heavy vehicles that often travel 100,000 miles per year or more, this change will eliminate the need to perform unnecessary multiple visual inspections of their vehicles’ CNG fuel containers per year”
Which means those trucks were already having their tanks inspected almost 3x per year. And it’s a visual inspection, same as the Mirai gets at 15k for nearly free at a dealership. Not a big deal.
I have another estimate:
“Converting heavy-duty trucks to compressed natural gas (CNG) costs $30,000 to $50,000 per vehicle for equipment and installation. Fleet fueling infrastructure adds $2-5 million for medium-sized facilities serving 30-50 vehicles.
These upfront investments deliver 30-50% fuel cost savings for high-mileage commercial operations. Companies like UPS operate over 1,000 CNG vehicles nationwide, demonstrating the technology’s viability at scale across diverse operational environments.
Fleets running over 70,000 miles annually typically achieve positive ROI within 3-5 years through sustained fuel cost reductions. The $1.50 per gallon price advantage over diesel offsets the 10-15% lower fuel economy inherent to natural gas operations.”
Last Updated: October 2025
https://heavydutyjournal.com/natural-gas-truck-conversion-cost/
Diesel was about $3.75/gal at that time, as of today its $6.50 and it contains 40.7 kWh of energy. This is retail price
As of today the current price of natural gas at Henry Hub is $3.17 per million Btu where 1 million BTU = 293.07107 kWh of energy.
Its not a perfect apples to apples comparison but it does show that natural gas can offer considerable savings in fuel costs. Tank inspections do add their own costs but other reduced maintainence might make those a wash.
$30K to $50K is low – at least if we are talking a Class 8 with a Cummins X12N or X15N and a behind the cab cabinet capable of doing the UPS routes described in your link.
End of the day CNG trucks are available to buy today and have been for decades. Current take rate is less than 5%.
I don’t doubt that low take rate. The real question for those fleet managers and owner operators is what would it take to get you to buy this fine product today?
Again FWIW these hydrogen tanks aren’t necessarily expensive. For example the 199L 700 bar tank used in the Nero can be purchased on eBay for $1k
https://hyfindr.com/en/shop/products/hydrogen-type-4-cylinder-350-bar-199l
https://www.ebay.com/itm/126622951464?var=0&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&campid=5338590836&toolid=10044&loc_physical_ms=86421&customid=10724291309b1c81b81f28263d7c73d7&gclid=10724291309b1c81b81f28263d7c73d7
By my maths that tank if filled with 5.5k PSI CNG holds the equivalent energy of 17.5 gallons of diesel so you’d need about 7 of them for a total of $7k. That ain’t bad.
Slight correction: That H2 tank is rated for 350 bar, not 700 bar (probably why it’s cheap) so we are limited to a max pressure of 5k psi, not 5.5k.
That changes the math a bit to each tank holding the equivalent energy of 16.7 gallons of diesel. Therefore 8 tanks will be needed to meet the energy equivalent of 120 gallons of diesel or the truck will be limited to *only* 117 gallons of diesel equivalent.
The good news is 8 tanks at 5k psi can hold the energy equivalent of 134 gallons of diesel.
None of the numbers I’ve given you on CNG tanks or truck costs are theoretical. That is what they cost.
It has been a few years but I used to be the manufacturing engineer responsible for our CNG tank assembly procedures. The assembly process in the plant is a huge pain. You can’t install them on the assembly line without updating the factory and every other offline building to CNG code so we put a small temp tank across the frame rails with just enough CNG to get the truck off the line, through dyno, and other offline processes. Then the truck is driven over to a building that is CNG rated to have the small temp tank removed and the side saddle or cabinet CNG tanks installed.
CNG trucks cost a LOT more than a diesel truck. There are some applications and customers that make them work and where the fuel and maintenance savings offset the extra purchase cost and cost to install your own fueling stations. To date the market is limited.
Like I said above – a lot of this is Chicken or Egg. More companies would drive CNG trucks if there were more fueling stations. More fuel station would be built if there were more trucks. It is the same infrastructure problem as DC charging for BEV trucks. Logically with current tech we would use BEV trucks for local routes and CNG for long haul. Making that happen will require federal dollars to get the infrastructure built and incentives for companies to buy more expensive trucks.
I appreciate your industry insights and I do not disagree that what you say was true and may still be true. That does not mean it will always be true.
If the hydrogen boondoggle had never happened I’d agree with you and drop it; however hydrogen is happening and as utterly ridiculous as hydrogen for transport is Toyota, Hyundai, Volvo, Farizon and maybe others are making or have plans to make hydrogen trucks:
https://www.toyota.com/about-us/h2solutions
https://ecv.hyundai.com/global/en/products/xcient-fuel-cell-truck-fcev
https://www.volvotrucks.com/en-en/news-stories/press-releases/2026/mar/powerful-and-fuel-efficient—meet-volvo-s-future-hydrogen-truck.html
https://ctinsa.com/new-trucks/5215
Fuel cells are a lot more expensive than an equivalent ICE based generator. And the efficiency gap between ICE and FC is closing. The market for hydrogen trucks is WAY more limited than the one for CNG powered trucks. And yet these manufactures somehow insist there is a business case for these trucks, that not only can these trucks be built profitably but there are enough customers who can use them profitably despite the laughably severe shortcomings of hydrogen.
I see a silver lining to this in a far stronger case to build these trucks to run on CNG instead. This may be as simple as swapping the FC with an ICE generator whether that generator run the diesel or Atkinson cycle. That is a relatively simple task. The hardest work has already been done.
Now converting an existing truck is a different matter. I get that there are concerns over infrastructure and capital costs. So it is my hope that the silver lining in this recent fuel price fiasco is fasttracking CNG as a real, long term solution with the federal dollars to get the infrastructure built and incentives for companies to buy more expensive trucks or help cover the costs of CNG conversion you say are needed.
Where will the money come from? Same place as the money for hydrogen. Let’s save that hydrogen for making fertilizer and steel instead.
Nobody is making H2 fuel cell heavy duty trucks because they think there is a commercial demand for those trucks. They are made as a hedge against the possibility that governments will follow through on a carbon free transport mandates.
They are also teaming up in hedging their bets to save money. In 2021 VW and Daimler combined their program into a joint venture call CellCentric. In July 2026 Toyota joined.
Similar with batteries. Daimler, PACCAR, and Cummins created a joint venture called Amplify Cell Technolgies.
Will governments throw money at CNG? Unlikely. The push for H2 is a push for reduced pollution – both global carbon and local pollution that causes smog. Natural gas does nothing for either of these goals.
A shift from diesel to CNG would make the trucks themselves simpler by getting rid of the aftertreatment systems but it is a stretch to ask the Feds to spend billions on a CNG conversion to save truck fleets some money while doing nothing for pollution.
The USA is a net exporter of both Natural Gas and Diesel so it would be hard to argue for a switch based on national security.
It is different for a country like Nigeria which has large reserves of natural gas but is an importer of diesel and those imports consume a large part of the budget
There’s a ginormous heavy truck CNG fueling facility a couple miles away from me, right next to , in decreasing likelihood of relevance, the Amazon Big Bird qwarehouse, dozens of other warehouses including FEMA, and the animal shelter. It’s pretty close to I-205 and I-5 so maybe it’s a public facility. I was surprised when they built a few months ago. I see more Tesla semis than CNC semis around here.
Amazon has a Class 8 CNG fleet. Mix of Freightliner and PACCAR tractors.
Don’t remember if they have the folding “truckwings” that extend out from the CNG cabinet at 50 mph.
Good. Lets hope others follow their example.
Like others the CNG fleet is a small percentage of their total fleet.
Thanks to Cheap Bastard and *Jason* for this thought provoking thread.
“They are made as a hedge against the possibility that governments will follow through on a carbon free transport mandates”
If true then the ability to modify those trucks for CNG is also hedge for when those carbon free transport mandates fail to materialize. Even if the mandates pass those CNG trucks could be run on renewable sources gas.
“The push for H2 is a push for reduced pollution – both global carbon and local pollution that causes smog. Natural gas does nothing for either of these goals.”
That argument is undermined by the fact hydrogen is ultimately a less efficient way to use fossil fuels including natural gas. It is further undermined by the fact until renewable hydrogen is made exclusively from surplus renewable power and/or carbon capture plants AND industrial demand is satiated by that hydrogen any hydrogen used by transport is just green washing emissions. And claiming natural gas does nothing to reduce pollution is just plain wrong:
“Cleaner than diesel
Natural gas engines with near-zero emission technology produce 90% fewer nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions than the cleanest diesel engines, without harmful particulate matter from diesel exhaust. These clean-burning engines stay clean during all duty cycles, from idle to high-speed operation.”
https://www.nwnatural.com/business/for-your-business/natural-gas-vehicles
“The USA is a net exporter of both natural gas and diesel so it would be hard to argue for a switch based on national security.”
And yet here we are paying twice as much for diesel because of a conflict in the Middle East. That affects not only civilian life but military budgets as well. How is that not a national security issue?
They seem to be finding hydrogen by drilling for it. Either as trapped gas or in mineral deposits that they inject water into releasing hydrogen gas. Prices may be as low as $1 per kilogram.
It doesn’t solve the storage and transport problems, but it’s not as stupid as reforming natural gas which is just as bad as burning it in term of CO2 or using electricity to make hydrogen to turn back into electricity which isn’t nearly as efficient as a battery.
Maybe for airplanes hydrogen would make sense trading efficiency for power density. Just need to get over the unfortunate associations between hydrogen and air travel first.
White hydrogen certainly sounds promising but If you look at what they are actually finding you’ll see the amounts are absolutely laughable in the face of the energy needed, even from the most promising ares:
The researchers gathered data from an active mine near Timmins, Ontario. They found that boreholes drilled into the rock release an average of 0.008 tonnes of hydrogen each year, roughly 8 kilograms, which is about the weight of a typical car battery. According to the study, the gas can continue flowing for at least a decade.
When expanded across the site’s nearly 15,000 boreholes, the estimated hydrogen output exceeds 140 tonnes annually. The team calculated that this amount could generate approximately 4.7 million kilowatts of energy per year from just one location, enough to meet the yearly energy demands of more than 400 homes.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/05/260519224317.htm
That’s roughly the same amount of energy yielded by a single average natural gas well in the US.
The more pressing need for any white, blue or green hydrogen is to replace the gray hydrogen used by industry to make steel, fertilizer, etc. Those customers have no option other than to use hydrogen.
Is that using natural gas stratified charge engines? From what I understand they have all the benefits of both running rich ( higher compression without pinging) and lean ( higher efficiency and ultra low emissions) with fewer nitrogen oxides and unburned hydrocarbons compared to stoichiometric mixtures.)
My initial comment was referring to pilot ignition CNG diesel engines. These are lightly modified ordinary compression ignition diesel engines in which NG is plumbed into the intake manifold. The engine inhales a mix of NG and air, compresses it and injects a much smaller portion of diesel fuel. The diesel ignites as it normally would, acting as a massive spark plug on the natural gas rich charge.
From what I have read these engines have several advantages:
This tech can be taken further in the form of dedicated pilot ignition engines which can run on much lower amounts of diesel, however these cannot run on pure diesel and are more expensive to buy.
As *Jason* has pointed out conversion to pilot ignition ain’t free, usually $30-$50k but there are program available to offset the costs and as I have already stated the tanks developed for HFCV should also have the ability to store CNG. This should bring the most expensive material cost of this conversion down considerably.
Of course natural gas isn’t limited to the diesel cycle. Spark ignited NG engines would run on 100% natural gas to be part of a hybrid system where the torque poor but fuel efficient Atkinson cycle ICE would be boosted by electric traction motors.
As a bonus in some areas like city centers with strict emission restrictions hybrid trucks trucks can be run on 100% electricity via overhead catenarys:
https://www.energy.ca.gov/publications/2018/demonstration-natural-gas-plug-hybrid-class-8-trucks
CNG is a hedge against diesel and gasoline prices. Nothing more, nothing less.
Yes, using NG to make H2 is stupid. However, that isn’t the idea. The idea, or really dream, is that some day we will have so much renewable energy that we can waste it in trucks. (A H2 fuel cell truck uses about 3x more electricity than a BEV truck)
The statement you linked from the Natural Gas Alliance is based on EPA 2007 emission standards. For EPA 2027 allowed NOx dropped by 80% and PM by 50%. (CARB requires a 90% reduction in NOx). All engines, CNG, Gasoline, and Diesel required updates to meet that standard. Gone are the days that you can run a CNG truck with nothing but a muffler and meet emissions.
What EPA 2027 does is close the gap in cost. Meeting EPA2027 with a diesel cost more than $10,000 and that number is according to the regulators.
We are paying more for diesel because diesel is sold on the global market to the highest bidder. Same with LNG and the current administration’s goal is to make the administration’s goal is to make the USA the largest LNG exporter in the world. The more gas we can export the closer our natural gas prices are connected to the global market. Even 4 years ago our NG prices doubled when Russia invaded Ukraine and cut off supply of NG to Europe.
Natural gas is by its very nature cleaner than diesel which is precisely why you could meet emissions with nothing more than a muffler. So it stands to reason whatever emission levels is possible with diesel will be much easier to achieve with natural gas.
The study from Riverside embedded in my link showed even then “the cleanest heavy-duty natural gas engine available today is certified by CARB at 0.02 g/bhp-hr” which is already well below the 0.035 g/bhp-hr of EPA 2027
So if anything this is a furthers the argument to switch to CNG rather than keep burning expensive diesel.
Yes, it is easier and cheaper to meet emission standards with CNG than diesel. I mentioned that. It helps close the gap but a CNG truck is still almost 50% more than a diesel truck.
CARB 2024 requires all medium and heavy duty engines to be under 0.02 g/bhp-hr NOx. That regulation is being met with diesel and gasoline engines.
To date there has not been a shift from diesel to CNG in response to CARB 2024. There has been a shift to gasoline in the medium duty segment.
Cummins made their 6.7L Octane engine in response to CARB 2024 and EPA 2027 and the steady shift away from diesel. They have hedged their bets and now have a diesel, gas, and CNG engine available for the medium duty segment.
It helps close the gap but a CNG truck is still almost 50% more than a diesel truck.
Again what was true yesterday and what may be true today may not be true tomorrow. Cheaper high pressure tanks greatly reduce CNG truck cost. Federal grants offset CNG truck cost. Higher diesel prices shorten payback time. Stricter emissions increase the price of diesel trucks.
Again we are taking a chicken and egg scenario. The Class 8 CNG market is tiny selling 5,000 trucks in a good year. Who is going to enter that market and try to undercut the major players? (Cummins and Hexigon). There is no volume to drive down prices or to bring in new competitors
There also are no federal incentives. Those disappeared in 2014 and even with them CNG was a small niche. Today those dollars are now going to BEV trucks
Today there is no emission benefit to CNG so incentives are unlikely. Incentives for alternative vehicles have always been driven by emissions.
Who is going to enter that market and try to undercut the major players? As I’ve said before, the manufacturers of hydrogen trucks who have already surmounted the major technical and manufacturing cost hurdles of 10k PSI compressed gas trucks but still face an appalling lack of hydrogen infrastructure, an appalling lack of low carbon hydrogen, an uncertain regulatory future that may make hydrogen trucks unnecessary and see $7+/gal diesel as an opportunity to make lemonaid from the aforementioned lemons.
“There also are no federal incentives”
What about this one?
https://www.epa.gov/dera/national-dera-awarded-grants
There are several recently awarded grants to CNG trucks on that list.
The manufacturers of H2 trucks are the the same manufacturers of CNG, Diesel, Electric and Gasoline trucks. Every CNG truck they sell is a diesel truck they don’t sell. There isn’t any incentive to push CNG over diesel.
Again, these manufacturers have to have H2 and BEV programs as a hedge against future CO2 regulations. This is money that has to be spent but as I mentioned above they are getting smarter and creating joint ventures to minimize the individual cost.
Yes, there were 152 CNG vehicles funded in the last round of DERA grants. Most of them trash trucks where CNG already has high adoption rates. Did you notice there were 258 new diesel vehicles and 259 BEV / H2 vehicles funded?
Conversely every diesel truck they sell is a CNG truck they don’t sell. So why would they push diesel over CNG?
“There isn’t any incentive to push CNG over diesel.”
Sure there is. You said it yourself:
“Yes, it is easier and cheaper to meet emission standards with CNG than diesel”
And the most expensive, most daunting development costs are already spent.
So the real question is why WOULDN’T manufactures push CNG trucks just as much or more than their diesel trucks? Especially when the benefits for customers to buy CNG over diesel is cheaper operating costs which is an easy selling point.
“Buy a CNG truck. It cost tens of thousands more and you have to build your own fuel pumps.” Not a very compelling sale pitch.
The development cost for diesels that meet CARB 2024 and EPA 2027 are also done. Manufacturers paid those costs out of their own pocket. They make more when they sell a diesel truck. Why would they push CNG?
Today fuel NG is cheaper than diesel (assuming you ignore the costs to build your own CNG stations and upgrade all your repair shops). In 2024 and 2025 CNG was only $0.25 DGE cheaper. Nobody knows what the price will be next year.
“Buy a CNG truck. It cost tens of thousands more and you have to build your own fuel pumps.” Not a very compelling sale pitch.
Buy a diesel truck and pay $7+/gallon. That’s not much of a sales pitch either. Especially here in California where it’s closer to $9/gal.
Or fill at one of the several hundreds of public CNG fill stations for about $2.80/DGE
https://afdc.energy.gov/stations#/find/nearest?fuel=CNG&cng_psis=3600&cng_fill_type=Q
https://energy-maps.com/?metric=gasPrice&state=CA
“Nobody knows what the price will be next year.”
Absolutely. We’ve certainly seen price spikes before. And of course YMMV when it comes to fuel prices, proximity to filling stations, incentives, all that.
But that shouldn’t detract from the reality that natural gas is the best foreseeable alternative to diesel for long distance heavy transport and is the most practical option to replace diesel should the price of diesel remain where it is.
One of the problems with the idea that customer will buy CNG trucks is response to fluctuations in fuel prices is that you can’t go onto a lot a buy a truck. Especially not a niche product like a CNG truck.
For Class 8 trucks the VAST majority of them are custom ordered. Put in your order then wait. The wait is a bit less at the moment as customers aren’t wild about ordering new EPA 2027 trucks until they really need one. Current wait is about 6 months for a generic truck. I’ve seen it as high as 18 months.
If we were discussing something like a dedicated CNG fuel cell truck I’d be more inclined to agree it’s too risky; however the point of these trucks is the engine is just a regular diesel engine so they can switch back and forth between diesel and CNG.
I understand this is easier said than done the way things are now BUT I wonder if trucks couldn’t be designed with that kind of inherent flexibility to at least reduce the consumption of diesel.
No Class 8 manufacturer I know of makes a truck that can switch back and forth between diesel and CNG or use a blend of the two fuels.
If you want a CNG truck you order a dedicated CNG truck with a Cummins natural gas engine.
That’s because what I’m talking about is a retrofit kit:
American Power Group’s Dual Fuel Technology is an EPA-approved, aftermarket upgrade system that seamlessly meters a secondary fuel into the induction system of diesel engines for over-the-road and return-to-base fleets. APG provides an affordable solution that reduces both costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
APG’s efficient and reliable systems do not interfere with the OEM diesel engine integrity or impact the base engine warranty, and owners can switch back to diesel-only operation at any time.
Our Dual Fuel Technology is a negative pressure system that uses the diesel engine’s governor to reduce diesel fuel usage, as the higher energy value of the secondary fuel mixed with air is recognized at the point of compression flash point. Remaining diesel fuel provides proper engine lubricity and helps retain the power and torque of the base engine.
Depending on the secondary fuel source, owners can expect an average range of 40–55% displacement, with potential peak displacement up to 75%.
Fleet owners have seen fuel savings up to 40% and can achieve their environmental goals by choosing carbon-neutral or carbon-negative fuel sources.
https://americanpowergroupinc.com/technology/v6000-vehicular/
The switchback for truck kits I’ve found so far appear to require a service to switch back but the kits used on stationary engines used for generators and pumps DO offer on the fly regression back to 100% diesel:
Automatic fallback: if gas pressure drops or combustion parameters drift, the system reverts seamlessly to 100% diesel at full rating.
https://csdieselgenerators.com/bi-fuel-generators-explained-how-diesel-natural-gas-hybrid-power-works/
So from a technical perspective there doesn’t seem to be a reason this feature couldn’t be offered on trucks as well.
I can’t see anyone putting one of these on a truck that is still in warranty.
Which doesn’t matter because they only have certifications for 2010 – 2012 model years (Detroit, Cummins) and 2010 – 2013 for Volvo.
Alternate Fuel Retrofit Systems EO List
Plenty of EPA certifications though:
https://www.epa.gov/ve-certification/lists-epa-compliant-alternative-fuel-conversion-systems
Which helps keep older trucks on the road.
Also worth noting:
January 20, 2026 / American Power Group Corporation (OTC Pink:APGI) the leading U.S. based dual fuel diesel engine conversion technology company is pleased to announce it has received approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) to convert Cummins X15 heavy-duty diesel engine model years 2018-2023 to APG’s dual fuel solution. APG now has a continuous set of EPA HD IAV Cummins 14.9L ISX and X15 approvals for model years 2005 through 2023. We have also requested EPA to extend the approval to include engine model year 2024 given the functional similarities with model year 2023.
…
This family of engines was designed at the outset to be “fuel agnostic” for diesel, NG and hydrogen. So it makes sense to develop a dual fuel kit for it too.
APG utilized third-party emissions test lab, Energy Environmental Analytics (“E2A”), a leader in verifying engine performance and emission control in heavy-duty engines that are fueled by a variety of dedicated and alternative fuel solutions. E2A’s main thrust is to perform emissions testing on heavy-duty engines and is one of the few engine test labs in the U.S. recognized by both California and Texas Air Quality Boards.
So CARB certification may not be out of the question yet, at least if CARB eventually figures out hydrogen and electric trucks aren’t going to replace diesel.
Interesting. I didn’t know that EPA had separate certifications for new and used vehicles. I don’t see any recent EPA certifications for new vehicles but like you said there are quite a few for “Intermediate Aged” vehicles
Which makes sense. As I said above I can’t see many owners throwing away their warranty to install one of these systems.
Does this kit really cost $30K though? If so that is about the cost of a used Cascadia with 500K miles.
Looking at another one of their press releases it doesn’t look like these kits sell very well. At least not the stationary ones:
“ALGONA, IA / ACCESS Newswire / June 1, 2026 / American Power Group Corporation (“APG”) (OTC PINK:APGI) the leading U.S. based dual fuel diesel engine conversion technology company announced today that it has received approximately $250,000+ of stationary dual fuel conversion orders from its network of stationary certified dealer/installers. APG’s stationary/off-road dual fuel installation base has exceeded 1,500 installations since 2010″
As I showed with that (admittedly sketchy) eBay auction fairly large 10k PSI tanks certified for hydrogen can now be pretty cheap. That I believe is going to be the most expensive part of any compressed gas truck fuel system. Whether cheaper tanks are a game changer has yet to be seen. And of course those tanks would need to be certified for CNG but that shouldn’t be hard. Hydrogen is by far the bigger containment PITA.
I dunno what the future hold any more than you. My hot take is if gas and diesel prices remain this high much longer there will be huge push to alternatives. Which will happen anyway eventually.
Propane would be the most attractive from a technical perspective but I dunno if there is anywhere near enough of that gas to go around. Ammonia is brought up but that stuff is toxic AF and it’s energy intensive to make, hydrogen is a bad joke, biofuels ain’t happening at scale, DME sounds intriguing but it’s a close chemical cousin of diethyl ether which has a nasty habit of forming crystals of explosive, shock sensitive peroxides and I dunno if DME does the same. If so that’s a deal breaker right there. BEV? Not sure where all the power is supposed to come from.
AFAIK the only things left are NG and horses. If you have other plausible suggestions I’m all ears.
Using waste for biodiesel makes sense.
Making biodiesel from farmed vegetables seems like it would end up with the same higher than just distilling crude total carbon footprint that ethanol from corn produces.
Yes, I would really like to see the numbers on biodiesel from things like soy. We know that the energy we get from corn ethanol is less than what it takes to produce it, so I have to wonder if biodiesel is the same.
This is like saying solar panels never generate the energy used in their production. It might have been true in 1970, but in 2026 has not been true for decades.
Solar panel technology has made radical progress from a materials science perspective, and economies of scale. Corn plants are pretty much the same as ever, and the biology of how much nitrogen fertilizer it takes to produce a given amount of carbohydrate remains the same. Ethanol still kills the fermenting microorganisms (like yeast or bacteria at the same levels. There isn’t much left to optimize that wasn’t done centuries ago.
Solar panels still have a lot of potential optimizations left.
Spin flip looks exciting.
The biggest optimization at the facility level is combined heat and power. Electricity is generated by a turbine and the waste heat is captured to run the distillation column and the byproduct feed dryer. They used to burn natural gas directly for heat for these processes, but now so much electricity is exported to the grid that it greatly changes the overall energy balance.
Corn plants and the yeast to make ethanol are not the same as 20 years ago. Genetic engineering has improved yields ~1.5% each year, and those small gains add up for decades. The commercial ethanol yeast strains are greatly improved. They have been selected for improved heat tolerance as well as high ethanol tolerance. This year’s strains are up to 42°C and 20% ethanol. Try googling yeast for commercial ethanol production, you will find lots of companies selling yeast to US ethanol makers based in Europe and the UK. Synthetic biology has even better strains in the pipeline, such as being able to ferment starch without cooking it first and also not adding any enzymes.
“the biology of how much nitrogen fertilizer it takes to produce a given amount of carbohydrate remains the same.”
This is also not true once you consider genetically modified soil microbes like those sold by PivotBio.
https://aces.illinois.edu/news/gene-edited-soil-bacteria-could-provide-third-source-nitrogen-corn-production
Corn ethanol has been energy positive for the past few decades. How energy positive depends on who you talk to but IIRC the best cases are abotu 3-4x as much energy out as in.
Furthermore the “waste” of corn ethanol production becomes an even healthier animal feed than the original corn. So corn ethanol can legitimately be considered a waste product of animal feed processing.
Where are you getting those numbers? What I’m reading has about 25% more out than in, plus a lot of water used and fertilizer runoff. The fuel user to grow corn is a small part of the energy budget.
https://ethanolrfa.org/file/2216/Ethanol%20Energy%20Balance%20Update_RFA_2022-04.pdf
I remember reading that the only (ay the time which was probably 20 years ago), actually environmentally green method where the emissions were less was in Brazil where sugar cane was used.
For ethanol production using corn it took the equalization of 1.2 gallons of diesel for every gallon of ethanol produced.
If the energy going into the ethanol production could be green, say from excessive solar or excessive wind production then ethanol from corn could be sustainable as long as it was excessive dent corn production that wasn’t otherwise needed for animal feed. Keeping in mind feeding corn to cows is rather idiotic since they are ruminating animals
Soy beans are probably a lot more efficient at producing bio diesel than corn is at producing ethanol mainly because you do not need to give soybean fertilizer but corn absolutely sucks up fertilizer and to make fertilizer you use a lot of energy.
Additionally, to get ethanol for corn, you have to ferment and distill it, which is energy intensive. To get oil from soy beans all you have to do is squeeze them.
The best case scenario for ethanol from corn is about 25% more energy than it takes to produce, with soy beans you get about 93% more energy.
Of course that makes it sound like they are both much better than they actually are. Even at “93% efficiency” you’re putting more than half the energy into producing the crop then you get out of it.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/farm-fuel-feedback-soybeans-have-advantages-over-corn
Ethanol from corn is just a terrible idea and is completely politically motivated.
Biodiesel fuel from soy is certainly a less terrible idea but it’s not going to solve any problems other than being a convenient way of burning soybeans now that Trump killed the exports to China and the Brazilians are cutting down the rainforest the plant soybeans.
Of course, converting the Amazon to soybean production is probably one of the worst things that we can do so overall despite being much more efficient bio diesel is just as evil is corn ethanol.
The typical assumption is that a 60 pound bushel of soybeans yields 48 pounds of high protein soybean meal (46.5 percent), 11 pounds of soybean oil, and 1 pound of processing waste.
Bushel of soybeans costs $13 to make 1.45 gallons of soybean oil. Soybean meal costs $371 per ton, so a bushel makes $8.90 worth of animal feed. The economics are good, but the limit is crushing capacity.
Next, After Biodiesel comes
Soylent Diesel!
In your best Cheston voice….
….. it’s People!!!!!
….. iiittssssss PPPPPeeeooopppllleee!!!!!!!
I prefer the Mr. Fusion option, but the Soylent Diesel was just too convenient. Neighbor piss you off? Congrats, Gladys, you’re going in the tank.