LNG fueling station the shape of things to come
‘This is how the industry is going to evolve,' says local exporterRight now, the liquid natural gas fueling station going in off Interstate 10 in Palm Springs is a rather unimpressive sight — a 30-foot-long tank on an acre of raw land with a U-shaped, paved road running from entrance to exit.
But, for Greg Braun, president of Border Valley Trading, a hay exporter in Brawley, it's the first step in getting more diesel trucks off the highway — along with the air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions they cause — and replacing them with cleaner-running LNG vehicles.
The large trucks rolling down Interstate 10 account for about 30 percent of the Coachella Valley's annual emissions of 4.31 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, according to a regional greenhouse gas inventory the Coachella Valley Association of Governments released in June.
“We think this is how the industry is going to evolve,” said Braun, who replaced most of his diesel fleet with 20 LNG trucks about about four years ago.