Delhi Transport Orders 3,125 Natural Gas Buses with Cummins Westport B Gas Plus Engines
16 October 2008
Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) has ordered 3,125 natural gas buses equipped with Cummins Westport Inc.’s (CWI) B Gas Plus engines. The 5.9-liter, six cylinder 230 hp (172 kW) B Gas Plus engines, powered by compressed natural gas (CNG), are licensed by CWI and manufactured by Cummins India Ltd. (CIL).
The order of more than 3,000 engines is CWI’s largest single order to date.
New Delhi began an aggressive natural gas vehicle program ten years ago, beginning with the conversion of approximately 60,000 auto rickshaws to CNG for fuel. A Supreme Court order in 2002 mandated the city’s entire bus fleet to convert to cleaner-burning CNG. A government report showed that while the number of vehicles on the road has doubled, the pollution rate has halved.
Outside of New Delhi, ten other major Indian cities also have aggressive natural gas vehicle conversion programs.
DTC is one of the main public transport operators of Delhi and operates more than 3,000 CNG buses on 773 routes throughout Delhi and surrounding areas. Delhi operates one of the largest CNG bus fleets in the world.
May be a good interim step to reduce pollution in a major highly polluted city.
However, India with 17% of the world population has only 0.6% of the world NG reserves but is allready producting 1.02% of the world NG production.
At the curent rate, their NG reserves will run out by 2050. If the consumption rate is accellerated, India may run out of NG by 2030-2035.
Plug-in CNG buses (+trucks and other vehicles) with large batteries may be a better compromise to extend the NG duration.
Posted by: HarveyD | 16 October 2008 at 11:40 AM
great interim step.
Posted by: | 16 October 2008 at 01:30 PM
great interim step.
Posted by: | 16 October 2008 at 01:30 PM
Even non-plug in hybrid buses would be about 30% better.
India does not have a lot of electricity to spare at present.
It is a good, practical step.
Posted by: mahonj | 16 October 2008 at 02:07 PM
India is one of the world leaders in the design of small methane generators. The sewers,dumps and rivers could be "mined" for all organics to be processed into methane. India is also able to make a very cheap compressor for filling tanks of vehicles.
Eventually methane will be synthetic and made from recycled CO2 and hydrogen made at nuclear power plants. Methanol may also be made, and it is more convenient to store and just as clean burning.
..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 16 October 2008 at 02:38 PM
India has 800,000 + CNG powered vehicles and is in Top-5. Many public transport organizations in many countries can convert to CNG to escape from Diesel price increase.
Posted by: Max Reid | 16 October 2008 at 08:18 PM
This raises the one aspect of T Boone's idea to use NG for transportation. Both Delhi and US cities would do well to replace diesel buses with NG/hybrids. Especially utilizing heavy duty batteries like the AltairNano titanate. If a municipal charging infrastructure were created to supply high capacity charge (10 minutes)at the end of each bus route - more AER would result in cleaner (near zero) emissions, vastly reduced operating/fuel cost and a path to sustainable energy use.
And the costs for battery packs will decrease as operation between charges decreases. By building a mass transit charging infrastructure now, cities will be prepared to convert to fully electric buses in the future.
Posted by: gr | 17 October 2008 at 12:09 PM