OCTA Considers Switching Gears, Buying Cleaner-Fuel Buses

Orange County may have purchased its last diesel-powered bus.

Instead of buying more, transportation officials said Monday, they are considering several cleaner energy alternatives that could make those big, smelly vehicles history by 2010.

“If the technology is there, and we feel that we can afford it, we’d like to order cleaner buses,” said Jim Ortner, manager of alternative-fuels and air-quality programs for the Orange County Transportation Authority.

The change is being fueled by new state emissions standards that will become effective in five years and will reduce by 50% the amount of bus pollution allowed. It will basically outlaw diesel engines purchased after 2002.

Two years ago, Ortner said, the OCTA decided to lower emissions by installing cleaner-running engines in half of its 400 buses, all of which are powered by diesel. The agency is expecting delivery of 117 buses early next year, which will increase to 80% the portion of its fleet operating on the cleaner engines. OCTA officials hope these will be the last diesel engines they order.

In five years, Ortner said, even the most efficient diesel engines will be unable to meet the new air standards.

Topping the OCTA’s list of acceptable alternatives to diesel fuel, he said, is propane gas, a petroleum byproduct that the authority has been testing since 1992. While the fuel is inexpensive and clean, Ortner said, the OCTA has been less impressed with the engines manufactured to run on it. OCTA officials are waiting to see whether a Detroit bus-engine manufacturer will fulfill its promise of producing a propane engine capable of withstanding the heavy demands of commercial use.

In the meantime, Ortner said, OCTA is evaluating several other energy alternatives, including compressed or liquefied natural gas, as well as a combination of gas and electricity.

The agency hopes to make a decision before purchasing its next batch of buses next summer.

While Orange County transportation officials knew of the impending new emission standards more than two years ago, Ortner said, they postponed switching to alternative fuels partly because of the experience of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, which had already begun switching earlier.

After converting 300 of its buses to methanol about four years ago, MTA spokesman Jim Smart said, “we had troubles with the methanol. We did not get the wear and tear out of the engines that we wanted to.”

The MTA then switched many of its buses to ethanol, which comes mostly from corn, which Smart said “is working better, but we still don’t think it’s the solution we’re looking for.”

Finally, the Los Angeles agency began running 361 of its buses on compressed natural gas which, according to Smart, “is currently the best solution we see” short of a new, lightweight bus Northrop is developing.

The new buses, about 9,000 pounds lighter than their predecessors and run by small fuel engines that power electric motors, are expected to begin testing in October.

OCTA officials say they have learned from MTA’s mistakes.

“The MTA’s board wanted to be in front, and, unfortunately, they paid a very heavy price for that,” Ortner said. “That’s one of the reasons our board is more conservative--they looked at L.A. and didn’t want to get into that mess.”