Heavy Duty can be Green

The Green Tech Connect Forum in Pasadena was a success for so many reasons.  One issue that I was thrilled to see addressed was the role of heavy duty trucks and equipment.  In front of the Pasadena Convention Center, not only could you see buses, but trucks and hauling equipment was on display as well.

  I always find that the search for green transportation focuses on passenger cars.  Obviously, automobiles need to be addressed, because when I last checked, California had more cars than all of Europe.  Unfortunately, we are lagging, in part because of the Bush Administration’s nefarious push for hydrogen cars at the expense of electric vehicles, giving nice photo ops of Governor Arnold and other spicy celebrities in their million dollar hydrogen-run vehicles.  Meanwhile, consumers like me that didn’t quite have that budget bought Altimas or Civics.

Trucking, however, is an industry on which government and companies should be concentrating.  Trucking is the backbone of the American economy:  most of our goods get from warehouse to shore shelves by trucks, and yet at the same time, the amount of pollution trucks (mostly diesel) spout out is alarming.  Yes, California has an obscene 20+ million cars, but the 900,000 diesel trucks in our state double the emissions of toxins such as particulate matter (which lodge into your lungs) and nitrogen oxide (which gives smog that reddish hue, good for sunsets, bad for developing children and the elderly—well, and everyone!) that our passenger cars spit out.  Scary!

So providing our pathetic state budget doesn’t completely collapse, California is moving into two directions in addressing our trucks:  first, retrofitting them so that they emit as much as 85% less pollutants.  Second, government agencies such as the AQMD are starting programs that will encourage trucks to use cleaner fuels such as natural gas . . . and in a dream world, hybrid technology or even purely electric engines!

Anyone who lives near the ports of LA or Long Beach would appreciate these efforts . . . I’ve heard horror stories of folks cleaning their homes, only to return after a day of work to find everything covered in soot.

To this end, I’d like to see more attention paid to industries such as shipping and trucking:  not sexy or headline inspiring, but they are what our economy relies upon, and there’s a need for scalable solutions to clean them up while letting businesses remain profitable, which means more people will stay employed.