Pollution prevention and efficient energy production are two objectives of alternative fuel usage. Ohio State trying to institue these objective to make university-owned vehicles environmentally friendly.
“Ohio State is aware of and interested in affordable and practical conversion of vehicles to alternative forms of fuel,” said Steve Bassinger, assistant director of operations in OSU’s Transportation and Parking Services.
Alternative energy sources, including natural gas, biodiesel, propane and ethanol, have been proven to be more effective and produce less waste than traditional fuels, according to the Central Ohio Clean Fuels Coalition.
The Energy Policy Act of 1992 encourages both publicly and privately owned fleets to power new vehicles with alternative forms of fuel. Over 10 years later, 75 percent of new over-the-road vehicles purchased should be running on alternative fuels in order to reduce pollutants emitted into the atmosphere.
Bassinger said many of the vehicles in OSU’s bus fleet have been replaced over the past few years, and while these run on diesel fuel, the engines are more efficient. The less efficient engines in older buses have been cleaned in order to decrease the amount of pollution the buses produce, he said.
“At this time, there is no viable alternative fuel solution for the buses,” he said.
Transportation and Parking has been investigating different types of alternative fuels, with a particular interest in biodiesel, a clean-burning alternative fuel produced from domestic resources, Bassinger said.
Yet, a conversion of OSU’s bus fleet powered by biodiesel cannot take place until a biodiesel fueling station exists in central Ohio.
“Biodiesel can be used on any conventional diesel vehicle on the road,” said Sam Spofforth, from OSU’s Center for Automotive Research and the Central Ohio Clean Fuels Coalition. “A blend of biodiesel and petroleum diesel can cut pollution from vehicles dramatically. Yet, issues holding back these alternative fuels are issues of cost and speed of deployment.”
Spofforth said the University of Michigan is active in working to comply with the Energy Policy Act of 1992. The university is committed to using a 100 percent blend biodiesel in its campus transit bus fleet; its goal is to be using up to a 20 percent blend biodiesel in the buses in the next few years, he said.
Penn State is working to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations through the use of natural gas to power its buses.
“They have a refueling station on campus and several buses that run on natural gas,” Spofforth said.
While OSU’s bus fleet remains dependent on petroleum diesel, other vehicles at OSU operate using alternative fuels, said Bruce Raynor, a national representative for FuelMaker, a company that encourages the use of natural gas as an alternative fuel source.
“Natural gas is a great fuel for indoor arenas because it burns cleaner than propane or gasoline,” Raynor said. “It’s great for areas that want to avoid carbon monoxide and minimize other pollutants.”
The Schottenstein Center uses several vehicles that run on natural gas. The Zamboni and several forklifts operate using natural gas rather than propane or gasoline, in order to decrease the amount of pollutants released into the arena, Raynor said. The Schottenstein Center even has its own on-site natural gas fueling center, he said.
There are so few of these natural gas vehicles at OSU because the nearest natural gas fueling station is about two miles from campus. There is also a lack of funding to convert existing vehicles to run on natural gas, and a lack of funding to build a closer natural gas station, Spofforth said.
The up-front costs of converting fleets to a system of natural gas or biodiesel can be staggering.
“But, it can be less expensive to operate alternative fuel vehicles, and alternative fuels typically cost less than fuels commonly used today,” Spofforth said.
Complying with federal air quality regulations will soon be a greater concern than the costs of making the transition to vehicles running on alternative fuels.
In the 1990s, the Federal Clean Air Act was renewed, and new standards requiring a decrease in the amounts of ground-level ozone, or smog, and in the particulate matter found in the air in the United States were instituted. These types of pollution are primarily expelled from vehicles running on diesel fuels.
By 2005, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will enforce the new smog and particulate matter standard.
“Ohio will violate the smog standard, and possibly the particulate standard,” Spofforth said.
“Because of the violation, the state will have to spell out how the region plans to come to attainment with the standards,” he said. “This puts more pressure on the state to take stronger measures to prevent pollution.”
The Central Ohio Clean Fuels Coalition was formed just over a year ago to create and work on projects to comply with Ohio’s stricter standards for air quality, Spofforth and Bassinger said. The organization has worked with a number of schools besides OSU to develop projects, including Antioch, Otterbein and Columbus State.
The coalition is working with the city of Columbus to acquire natural gas vehicles for the city and build natural gas fueling stations for the vehicles. The coalition is working with COTA and central Ohio schools in order to create a biodiesel project.
The coalition has also worked to create educational programs for grades six through 12 to be used within the science curriculum, focusing on the use of alternative fuels, Spofforth said.