ACTION Going Green

Gungahlin Al said :

I have significant concerns about this move. It may be less polluting, but only against old diesel engines – not than CNG. And the GHG impact? What about that comparison TP (who writes like they are on the ‘inside’ so should be able to advise us).

CNG is clean but it is not the magic panacea. Also diesel is not dirty like many in Aust would make us believe. Head to Europe and have a look at the amount of clean Diesel vehicles they have over there, car’s in particular. CNG is certainly an improvement over say the Renault buses that ACTION have and either on par or slightly below par compared to modern diesels which conform to Euro IV and Euro V standards.

By the way ACTION did have two trail gas buses, these were the first PR100.3’s (fleet numbers 991/992), these have in the past 18 months been converted to diesel as they were orphans in the fleet. As a result of the trail ACTION have in the past 4-5 years added around 70 gas buses in the fleet all based in Tuggeranong, they are mostly Scania’s with a dozen or so MAN buses. Bit hard to miss as they have whopping great pods on the roof for gas storage.

TP3000, you will find the reason Belco doesn’t have CNG buses is because there isn’t a large enough gas supply going past Belconnen depot to add gas refueling facilities for a sizable fleet of gas buses. Remember CNG is very low pressure. This is the same issue faced by other operators in the country such as STA in Sydney and BT in Brisbane, hence why these cities have in recent years ordered a mix of CNG and diesel buses.

That would be like Zebedee from the Magic Roundabout?

Spectra said :

I think the confusion here is what various people consider “green” or “clean” and what they’re talking about when they say “emissions”. It sounds like this bus still kicks out CO2 at much the same rate as any other bus (most of our current ones are diesel – I think they were trialling some LNG ones at one point, but I may have made that up; they certainly trialled an ethanol blend, from memory – not sure what because of that). What it doesn’t do, however, is kick out that black smoke that we associate with big diesel engines – the “particulate matter”. While it’s not a huge issue in Australia, the added prevalence of diesel cars in Europe (combined with the bigger, higher density population) makes this soot quite a problem – besides the respiratory issues it can cause, it tends to leave a black coating on everything after a while.

i do hope that you aren’t saying that diesel is dangerous for the carbon particles released into the environment?

Diesel seems to be the new fuel, biodiesel even more so, but until the by-product is steam, or water, these new vehicles will still be polluting us… When they can make a hydrogen fuel cell at a reduced cost, which won’t level a building if it goes off, maybe we can get closer to a green solution.

personally, I would like to see maglev trains and springs at each end sending them down the lines…

According to this page, action has been using CNG since circa 1994. The original post is about new buses, but its not about ‘action going green’, but maybe ‘greener’. As others have said though, when comparing diesel to CNG, ‘greener’ is a relative concept.

The story behind why Canberra isn’t going for CNG buses is they don’t really have a resale value. Only Government run operators have CNG facilities, so they are the only ones who will buy our CNG buses in 10 to 20 years time. While anyone will be interested in purchasing ACTION’s diesel buses.

OzPhoenix said :

Can anyone fill in the blanks? Are current Action buses unleaded? Or is this simply using more modern diesel technology – which can make a massive difference?

The older ACTION Buses run on diesel. As you have also said, it is just modern technology at work.

I have significant concerns about this move. It may be less polluting, but only against old diesel engines – not than CNG. And the GHG impact? What about that comparison TP (who writes like they are on the ‘inside’ so should be able to advise us).

I think the confusion here is what various people consider “green” or “clean” and what they’re talking about when they say “emissions”. It sounds like this bus still kicks out CO2 at much the same rate as any other bus (most of our current ones are diesel – I think they were trialling some LNG ones at one point, but I may have made that up; they certainly trialled an ethanol blend, from memory – not sure what because of that). What it doesn’t do, however, is kick out that black smoke that we associate with big diesel engines – the “particulate matter”. While it’s not a huge issue in Australia, the added prevalence of diesel cars in Europe (combined with the bigger, higher density population) makes this soot quite a problem – besides the respiratory issues it can cause, it tends to leave a black coating on everything after a while.

My memory is that there were already a few trial buses in Canberra running on CNG.

Presumably these are ‘new-tech’ diesel with far less emissions than their old stinky counterparts.

I’m surprised there hasn’t been more of a push towards CNG to be honest. Possibly the $$ factor I guess.

Euro V emissions standards are strict, with particulat matter of .005 parts per million.

Its cleaner than the majority of cars on the road.

Can’t wait for SGS review of how the bus drives and rides in the future 🙂

I thought Action buses were already Diesel? Surely something like that would not be running on Petrol – it’d cost a small fortune!

But yeah, they already have gas busses up in QLD etc, so when I first read the title I thought action had done the same – even more so seeing I thought they already ran on diesel.

Can anyone fill in the blanks? Are current Action buses unleaded? Or is this simply using more modern diesel technology – which can make a massive difference?

Since when does diesel count as a green fuel? LPG or NGV maybe but diesel? If anything diesel is a lot dirtier than unleaded and results in more emissions.