J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell announced in mid-September it would participate in a trial run for a new tractor powered by renewable natural gas.
By the time you read this, the two-week trial will be wrapping up and the early returns are exceeding expectations. The reviews are so good that J.B. Hunt apparently wants more time behind the wheel of the Cummins X15N-powered tractor.
As a quick aside, there are actually four companies involved in the partnership. Peterbilt is the manufacturer of the tractor, Cummins is the manufacturer of the engine, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. is the manufacturer of the RNG, and J.B. Hunt is the provider of the drivers.
Once J.B. Hunt finishes its two-week trial, the RNG tractor will pass on to the next transportation company. Clean Energy, in the original announcement, said it hopes the trials last through 2025.
J.B. Hunt has been public about its dedication to cutting carbon emissions in recent years, an initiative led by former Chief Sustainability Officer Craig Harper, who retired this past year. In 2022, J.B. Hunt set a goal of reducing its carbon emissions intensity by 34% by 2034. New CEO Shelley Simpson said at J.B. Hunt’s shareholders meeting in April that the company was more than halfway to that goal already.
Biogenic fuel was one of the chief levers the company wanted to employ to reach those goals. The rub of RNG, as it is with electric vehicles, was the question of performance.
An electric vehicle, for instance, costs a lot and has a very short range compared with traditional diesel trucks. In addition, there isn’t a supportive infrastructure. A previous RNG-powered tractor didn’t perform nearly as well as one with a traditional diesel engine.
“The feedback has been amazing,” a Clean Energy spokeswoman said. “They like it so much, they want it back.”
J.B. Hunt isn’t a stranger to RNG tractors, using about 180 in its fleet in service to specific customers. Infrastructure isn’t a problem, either, as Clean Energy has 600 stations in North America, including 200 that are open to tractor trailers.
Renewable natural gas is considered a much better fuel option than fossil fuels or even natural gas. RNG is extracted from livestock waste — in Clean Energy’s case it comes from dairy cow manure — that is then broken down in a facility Clean Energy calls a “digester.”
The resulting methane gas is then funneled into fuel. It is environmentally friendly because it is methane that is going to be emitted from a cow anyway but, instead, is used to provide a transportation service before being emitted from the tractor’s tailpipe.
Clean Energy said the engineering could be a “game changer” and help reduce a truck’s carbon emission intensity by 300% compared with diesel. The company said agriculture is responsible for 10% of greenhouse gas emissions and trucking is another 28%; RNG takes a whack at reducing both of those.
“[W]e are constantly exploring and testing opportunities that have the potential to deliver value for customers who are looking to reduce carbon emissions in their supply chain,” Greer Woodruff, J.B. Hunt’s executive vice president of safety, sustainability and maintenance, said in mid-September.
“Vehicles powered by renewable natural gas produce significantly less carbon emissions throughout their lifecycle and are more compatible with today’s available infrastructure than most competing emissions reduction technologies. The new technology and supporting fuel network in this pilot have the potential to be a viable, cost-effective solution for customers wanting to decrease their carbon footprint in the near term.”
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