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Not standing idle: trucking industry working to reduce truck idling; grants fund idling reduction technology and TSE sites.

Article Excerpt
The on-highway trucking industry has been anything but idle in its recent pursuits to reduce truck idling. More than 20 states have instituted idling regulations that limit or prohibit truck idling and a number of grant programs are doling out serious funds for the installation of anti-idling technology and the construction of new truck stop electrification (TSE) sites.

For those that need a refresher, truckers idle their engine to generate heating or cooling in their cab, warm the engine block for cold-starts and power hotel loads. The amount of energy, and emissions for that matter, produced by the engine is far more than is needed to power these loads. "It makes no sense to run an engine all night with 400 hp to power a small electric heater that you can plug into your garage," said Joe Tario, senior project manager, New York State Energy Reduction Development Authority (NYSERDA). "It's just overkill."

Estimates from Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) Argonne, Ill., suggest that truck drivers idle six to eight hours a day and on average 1830 hours per year. With seven million trucks on the road, ANL said, fuel consumption during truck idling is around 840 million gallons annually. On top of that, ANL said, these same idling trucks emit 7.6 million tons of CO2, 140,000 tons of [NO.sub.x] and 2400 tons of CO annually, which is especially damaging in the U.S. nonattainment and near nonattainment areas.

The ramifications of emissions, while still important, are no longer the main driver of the anti-idling arena as rising fuel prices are spurring much of the buzz. "These escalating fuel prices have made fleet owners, trucking companies, and even off-road vehicles who've found themselves idling a lot at $2 per gallon really take another hard look at where they stood when it came to $3 per gallon," said John Dennehy, vice president of marketing and corporate communications at Espar Heating Systems. "It was an extra $1 per gallon and that was some significant savings these guys could recognize by implementing anti-idling technologies."

"People notice their fuel costs going way up and when they hear that there is some way to save some money they pay attention," said Linda Gaines, transportation system analyst at ANL.

This is further impacted by the increased idling regulations at city, county and state levels. While not...