14

Antequera/Bobadilla

Cartagena

Murcia

Palermo

Valletta

Bari

TarantoNaples

Rome

Ravenna

Ancona

Bologna

La Spezia

Livorno

Genova

Turin Milan

Novara Verona

Innsbruck

Munich

Stuttgart

MannheimLuxembourg

Metz

Frankfurt

Düsseldorf

Cologne

Würzburg

Nuremberg

PragueOstava

RegensburgPassau

Wels

Linz

Basel

Strasbourg

Venice

Udine

Koper

Trieste

Villach

Klagenfurt

Graz

Ljubljana

Vienna

Bratislava

Katowice

Warsaw

KaunasGdynia/Gdansk

Poznan

Szczecin/Swinoujscie

Frankfurt/OderBerlin

Dresden Wroclaw

RigaVentspils

Klaipeda

Tallinn

HelsinkiHamina KotkaTurku Naantali

Stockholm

Malmö

Copenhagen

Hamburg

Hannover

Bremen

AmsterdamUtrecht

Enschede

OsnabrückRotterdam

Zeebrugge

Gent

LiegeBrusselsLille

CalaisDover

Le Havre

Southampton

London

BirminghamHolyhead

LiverpoolManchester

Cork

Dublin

Belfast

Glasgow

Edinburgh

Felixstowe

Paris

Bordeaux

Vitoria

Bilbao

Madrid

Zaragoza

Seville

Algeciras

Sines

Lisbon

Aveiro

Porto

Valladolid

Barcelona

Tarragona

Valencia

PerpignanMarseille

Lyon

Dijon

Antwerp

Rostock

ZilinaBrno

Budapest Arad

Timisoara

Brasov

BucharestConstanta

Sulina

Burgas

Thessaliniki

Athens/Piraeus

Limassol

Lefkosia

Igoumenitsa

Patras

The European Parliament Committee on Transportation and Tourism convened a hearing on the Clean Power for Transport package on 18th June 2013 in Brussels to listen to stakeholder presentations on natural gas, electric and hydrogen vehicles. Associations representing road and non-road transport, cities, regions and the European Investment Bank also made brief presentation and highlighted their various perspectives on the Clean Power for Transport provisions now being debated in Parliament (COM (2013) 18/2), also known as the (proposed) Directive on the Deployment of Alternative Fuel Infrastructures.

The proposed directive lays out ambitious plans to break the alternative fuels ‘chicken and egg’ syndrome by requiring countries to build fuelling infrastructures for electric, natural gas (CNG and LNG) and hydrogen road-and-non-road vehicles. (LPG is not included as the fuelling infrastructure is deemed ‘sufficient.’) The first targets include CNG stations every 150 kilometers and LNG stations every 400 kilometers along what is called the Ten-T European Transport Core Network corridors by 2020. LNG refueling stations for waterborne vessels would have to be available in all maritime ports and inland ports of the TEN-T Core Network. Hydrogen fuelling stations would be built every 300km along the TEN-T Core and 800,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging points would be built Europe-wide. This would amount to a total of, according to the European Commission impact assessment (document SWD(2013) 6-2), 143 hydrogen stations; 139 LNG ports; 144 LNG truck stations; and 654 CNG fuelling stations for an estimated cost of between €5.1 and 10.6 billion. The cost of the infrastructure build-out would be, according to the Directive, left to the member states in both the public and private sectors, with no EU money supporting the targeted build-out.

After brief presentations divided into two sessions – the first on setting optimal targets and the second on societal benefits and costs – members of the European Parliament (MEPs) asked questions of the presenters, which revealed clearly what they do and don’t know about alternative fuels. The discussions also made clear that potential regulatory barriers and basic financial and timing factors to installing fuelling infrastructures are not being fully addressed in the Directive nor in the Parliament debate.

One MEP took a broad swipe at alternative fuels saying, “EVs are not a serious choice because of limited range;” “CO2 advantages are undetermined unless the fuel is renewable;” and “CNG and LNG are not an endless resource but the costs are enormous.” Another MEP asked what the difference is between LNG and CNG.

There were several common subjects that were raised multiple times, some of which indicate that the task of educating policy makers about the value of methane as a transport fuel is an on-going process:

•Who pays? A general concern had to do with the cost of the infrastructure developments and who will pay, particularly at a time when many European member states are dealing with very challenging economies at home. The idea that the development of these infrastructures could have a positive impact on employment was not raised.•Fuel storage and range continues to bean issue. The representative speaking on behalf of the Waterborne Technology Platform sidelined LNG ships to inland waterways, saying that gas storage in vessels is inadequate for seafaring shipping. The representative of the International Road Transport Union (IRU) also made comments about gas vehicle ‘autonomy’ (a euphemism for ‘range’) and the weight-to-volume ratio of cylinders that can take up valuable carriage space on long haul vehicles, buses and garbage trucks.

•Safetystillisaconcern. The IRU speaker mentioned ‘You Tube videos’ that showed pictures of CNG bus fires and specifically a recent fire in the Netherlands where dramatic horizontal natural gas flames shooting across the roadway resulted from a CNG bus fire. Concerns about NGV safety also were mentioned by two other MEPs during the question and answer session.

EUROPEANPARLIAMENTDEBATESCLEANPOWERFORTRANSPORTPACKAGE

I n t e r n a t i o n a l L P G & C N G & L N G m a g a z i n e

EducationonNGVsafetyandgassupplystillneeded

cont. on p.16 ►

15

Antequera/Bobadilla

Cartagena

Murcia

Palermo

Valletta

Bari

TarantoNaples

Rome

Ravenna

Ancona

Bologna

La Spezia

Livorno

Genova

Turin Milan

Novara Verona

Innsbruck

Munich

Stuttgart

MannheimLuxembourg

Metz

Frankfurt

Düsseldorf

Cologne

Würzburg

Nuremberg

PragueOstava

RegensburgPassau

Wels

Linz

Basel

Strasbourg

Venice

Udine

Koper

Trieste

Villach

Klagenfurt

Graz

Ljubljana

Vienna

Bratislava

Katowice

Warsaw

KaunasGdynia/Gdansk

Poznan

Szczecin/Swinoujscie

Frankfurt/OderBerlin

Dresden Wroclaw

RigaVentspils

Klaipeda

Tallinn

HelsinkiHamina KotkaTurku Naantali

Stockholm

Malmö

Copenhagen

Hamburg

Hannover

Bremen

AmsterdamUtrecht

Enschede

OsnabrückRotterdam

Zeebrugge

Gent

LiegeBrusselsLille

CalaisDover

Le Havre

Southampton

London

BirminghamHolyhead

LiverpoolManchester

Cork

Dublin

Belfast

Glasgow

Edinburgh

Felixstowe

Paris

Bordeaux

Vitoria

Bilbao

Madrid

Zaragoza

Seville

Algeciras

Sines

Lisbon

Aveiro

Porto

Valladolid

Barcelona

Tarragona

Valencia

PerpignanMarseille

Lyon

Dijon

Antwerp

Rostock

ZilinaBrno

Budapest Arad

Timisoara

Brasov

BucharestConstanta

Sulina

Burgas

Thessaliniki

Athens/Piraeus

Limassol

Lefkosia

Igoumenitsa

Patras

TheEuropeanCommissionviewoftheTen-TCoreNetworkTransportCorridors

I n t e r n a t i o n a l L P G & C N G & L N G m a g a z i n e

•Is gas supply adequate? The European gas industry stakeholders must continue delivering the constant message that, even if 10% of the vehicles in Europe were NGVs it would only impact total gas consumption by approximately 5%. The positive impacts of a large, adequate diversified European gas supply network clearly has not been absorbed by some of the Transport Committee MEPs, which suggests that they probably are not alone among the MEP community in their mis-conceptions about gas supply potential.

•Timingoftheinfrastructureconstruction. This is a genuine concern. Even if all the funding for the station construction was in place, the lack of European or international standards or regulations inevitably adds to the time it takes to certify NGV fuel stations. (The International Standards Organization (ISO) is finalizing fuelling station standards for CNG, LNG and L-CNG – liquid-to-compressed natural gas, but the final standards are not anticipated before the end of 2014.) Even when national standards for CNG stations exist, as they do in Italy, the licensing and permitting of a CNG station can take two years! For an LNG station the decision and planning easily can take one-to-two years; safety studies that are required by some regulatory authorities can take another year at least; building the station is the easy part but getting it approved is still another issue. At best this is a three year process for a small LNG station; four-to-five years may be more realistic, depending on the country. Assuming the Clean Power for Transport legislation is adopted by committee on schedule in 2013 and voted in plenary in early 2014, it will take another 18 months to come into force in the member states. The likelihood that the infrastructure targets as they now stand will be fulfilled completely by 2020 is about zero percent.

IT’SWHATWASN’TSAIDTHATMAYBEMOSTIMPORTANT

The European Commission targets for LNG bunkering and fuelling in ports is a very important message for proponents of LNG shipping. But, at this moment LNG in vessels traveling on inland waterways and inland ports governed by the Central Commission for the Navigation on the Rhine (CCNR) in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland is prohibited. So far there is one exception: a pilot-project Dutch ship for which certain regulatory provisions were waived starting in January 2012

until 2017. While standardization and harmonization is one important goal of the new Clean Power in Transport legislation, prohibiting regulations need to be addressed specifically in the legislation. Potential regulatory conflicts must be evaluated and overcome to allow safe but economical passage of LNG on inland waterways.

The United Nations agreement on the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (ADR) has provisions to allow a range of fuels used for propulsion of ADR-certified vehicles. However, there is a provision regarding fuel tanks that requires leaking fuel to flow downward to the ground. This regulatory conflict could be a show-stopper for ADR vehicles running on CNG, LNG or LPG. (The regulatory conflict is being investigated and discussed by the United Nations Working Party 15, including some key NGV stakeholders. Road vehicles that are not involved in the carriage of dangerous goods are unaffected by the ADR rules. Nevertheless, the prohibitions and conflicts must be dealt with to ensure a completely open market for gaseous fuel heavy duty vehicles.

OPPORTUNITIESTOMAKEADIFFERENCE

The Chairman of the European Parliament’s transport committee laid out the schedule for the debate on the Clean Power for Transport package as:•16th September: Draft version of the Committee Report will be ready;•1st October amendments will be provided.•14th November the bill will be up for Committee vote.• Plenary vote in early 2014 (?)

But the provisional language as has been suggested by the Commission likely will undergo change; in some cases radical changes due to stakeholder advocacy efforts. So NGV industry stakeholders might want to make sure that their best wishes for amendments to the directive are advocated in Parliament as soon as possible.

Source: Jeffrey M. Seisler, CEO Clean Fuels Consulting

◄ cont. from p.15