I had the chance to sit down with Craig Burrows at the U of C today, and he offered a few very interesting points. He discussed what he believed should have happened with the west-leg of the LRT, and the objective of extending the line to MRU. While he didn’t offer much in regards to a full vision for the city, he did reiterate his proposal for the conversion of Calgary Transit buses to natural gas.
After some preliminary analysis, it seems as though this might actually be a feasible alternative. Depending on the costs of conversation, it might be a policy worth pursuing. I haven’t been able to find any concrete numbers on the for conversion, but the operating costs are a tempting proposal. The report can be found here
On a per gallon equivalent basis, Compressed Natural Gas is approximately $0.70 cheaper. That is in US dollars, and in gallons, so if we convert that to $CDN and Liters, we can assume it’ll be about $0.15 cheaper to use natural gas. 800 city buses driving 20 hours a day will use a fair bit of fuel. In a year, it could be a substantial savings. Even the infrastructure will be easier to establish as the city buses all operate from a single hub. One conversion will allow the full fleet access to the new fuel.
On the environmental side, we can smile knowing that CNG results in about 30% less CO2 emissions. That isn’t a bad sum either.
Best of all? It will support a local industry which has been suffering due to excess supply driving down prices. The proliferation of new fracking techniques down in the US and Canada has allowed significant sources of natural gas to come on stream at rock bottom prices. Sell clean Canadian natural gas to power clean Canadian mass transit. If Craig can offer a complete plan, he may just have a convert.
