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Nearly every good consumed in the U.S. is put on a truck at some point. As a result, the trucking industry hauled 68.9% of all the tons of freight transported in the United States in 2003, equating to 9.1 billion tons. The trucking industry was an astounding $610 billion industry in 2003, representing 86.9% of the nation?s freight bill[1]. Put another way, on average, trucking collected 86.9 cents of every dollar spent on freight transportation. Both the tonnage and revenue figures included for-hire (truckload and less-than-truckload) and private carriage.
In 2003, over 24 million trucks (all classes) hauled over 9 billion tons of freight. Of the more than 24 million trucks, 2.6 million were Class 8 vehicles[2]. Also, there were 4.9 million commercial trailers registered in 2003.
All trucks, (excluding vehicles used by the government and on farms, but including all weight classes) used for business purposes logged a total of 444 billion miles in 2003, which accounted for 15.6% of all motor vehicle miles and 37.6% of all truck miles. Class 8 trucks drove a total of 114 billion miles according to Martin Labbe Associates. That means that on average a Class 8 truck drove over 43,000 miles in 2003, although many long-haul Class 8 trucks travel in excess of 100,000 miles each year.
In 2003, trucks (all classes) consumed nearly 50 billion gallons of fuel, including both diesel and gasoline. Most heavy-duty trucks run on diesel fuel, which is hwy over 69% of all fuel burned by trucks is diesel fuel, equating to 34.6 billion gallons
This speaks from ignorance.trucks should simply get replaced by trains...
This speaks from ignorance.
Over distances of ~1000 miles or less, trucks are more cost-effective than trains.
I thought that trucks couldn't run well on NatGas?
During whathisname's pitch to transform passenger vehicles to NatGas and make a huge wind farm in the middle of the country, I thought I remembered hearing that big trucks would have to continue to run on diesel?
This is my understanding as well. Trucks will probably be one of the LAST forms of transportation to switch over to a more efficient/clean source of energy.
Ok, to some degre, yes. Bulk coal, for instance -- but then, the idea was that OTR traffic should go rail, and bulk coal doesn't go OTR.I've worked in logistics, and it really depends what you're shipping, how much of it, and how soon you need it.
Given that trucks run on diesel, and are putting many more miles than your basic automobiles, should the trucking industry be making a shift to natural gas?
Changing fuels for the sake of cleanliness is idiotic.
Depends. NG has a lot of hidden costs that get ignored,
Depends. NG has a lot of hidden costs that get ignored, though, but anything can look 'economical' when the main source of vehicle fuels that the economy has been geared toward reaches ridiculous price levels and gets scarcer and scarcer, 'cleaner' fuels look better and better.
Cleaner fuels only look if they are just as good and cheap or cheaper than the regular fuels. Ethanol for example is a crappy alternative considering the amount of land it needs, the land it takes away from food crops and the fact it increases the price of corn. How would converting diesel trucks to natural gas not increase the price or decrease the supply for those who use it to heat their homes, hot water tanks, cook with and etc?
Should commercial trucking be moved towards natural gas?
That was tried over thirty years ago by Consolidated Freightways, at that time CF was the largest LTL carrier in the United States (they do not exist now, at least under the CF banner, see Con-Way).
They tried it with some of their city fleets, they would go out and make deliveries and most times they got job done but a lot of times they would run out of fuel which would cost in addition to the lost delivery time of the city driver but they had to send a service truck.
There was no way of fueling up on the road. I’m sure that with today’s improved trucks you could, and some companies do use Natural Gas (as my link to Transport Topics shows) You could not go over the mountains with a very heavy load and carry enough fuel for a days run. As for fuel economy, we have some trucks approaching 12-15 mpg with a fairly light load in the plains.
Crossing the Rockies, in snow and ice, loaded with heavy machinery? Not with this old man at the wheel; I’m not crossing the divide with something running on hot air. :shock:
As for as using more trains, check it out, you will see more and more company trucks being pulled by “diesel powered” trains and switched out with “electric powered” switch engines in the fright yards.
Then you have the “diesel-powered packers” in the Port of Long Beach. Yes a lot of the containers that come thru the port get put on trains but I haven’t seen many Wal-Marts, Targets, Costcos, with a rail siding, yet.
Until that time comes we will be stuck with the smelly diesel fumes coming out of my two stack Peterbilt. :2wave:
Here’s a link to an old TT with some of the companies that use natural gas. Mostly local deliveries.
http://www.lmtruck.com/lmt100/LMT_webtop100_08.pdf
The cost of building entirely new trucks and infrastructure for natural gas would be huge. Natural gas isn't a good replacement for oil. While we have large amounts of it, we are still going to be running out in a few decades, and will inevitably have to import foreign sources.
While I don't have a problem with individual people or private business who want to switch to NG, it shouldn't be a national policy.
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