Green Orchards
Many carmakers are pledging to go all-electric in the near future, so other forms of hard working machinery are starting to follow suit…including down on the farm where Green Acres is truly the place to be.
Although farm tractors and the jobs they do have become more sophisticated and high-tech over the years, the heavy chassis and engines under the hood haven't always kept pace with that progress and most still rely primarily on diesel fuel.
Hummingbird EV is one company looking to upset that status quo apple cart. They’ve teamed up with the San Joaquin Valley Clean Cities Coalition, Project Clean Air, and others to place four prototype zero-emission electric tractors in service at one of the country’s largest fruit growers.
These EV tractors are fitted with 120 peak kilowatt electric motors tied to Hummingbird controllers and software. With 25 kilowatt-hour battery packs and 65 horsepower, performance is equivalent to a gas or diesel tractor of the same size.
Moonlight companies, in Reedley, California, is an ideal test bed. They operate year-round, growing all varieties of citrus and stone fruits...from peaches, plums, and pomegranates.. to grapes, lemons, oranges and -- during our visit, lots and lots of mandarins -- and shipping them fresh to markets all over the globe.
This third-generation farm is committed to using environmentally-sound practices and investing in the latest technology. They even have a 2-megawatt on-site solar farm which powers much of their packing and cold-storage operations. So trying out these EV tractors for the past year was an easy call.
TY TAVLAN: We use approximately 80 small diesel-powered tractors during the harvest season to pull our fruit through the field. For this particular function, since it pulls fruit, and then it stops..then it pulls fruit again and then it stops, we can get approximately two days worth of work out of the tractor.
What we really like about it is, it’s basically maintenance-free, it starts every time, and it works just fine.
JOHN DAVIS: The battery-electric tractors in this test are paired with an all-electric class 6 vehicle-to-vehicle charging truck, also designed by Hummingbird. It can provide up to 40 kilowatts of level 2 AC charging, enough to juice up two tractors simultaneously, eliminating time-consuming round-trips back to the charging station; a big advantage, especially during harvest. The truck itself has an 88 kilowatt-hour battery pack and 90 miles of range.
Hummingbird’s expertise is designing and scaling electric powertrains for medium duty applications like mining, utilities and food delivery. And they are challenging the notion that one size fits all down on the farm.
RAKESH KONERU: Every tractor has a certain demand in terms of the battery pack size and things like that..how long they use, how long they drive, so on and so forth, so where we’re unique is we’re trying to adapt where the commonality of parts come into play. So, when you try to scale it up, it’s easy to mix and match a production line with different scale of vehicles with the same system.
JOHN DAVIS: Like any farm in America, economics comes into play here too. Drought conditions in California and elsewhere have forced growers to cultivate fewer acres to conserve water, meaning tighter crop density is the key to making ends meet. So tractors of the future may need to hug the ground to fit under closely-planted trees, or be extra skinny to drive between them.
RAKESH KONERU: The main idea for us was to showcase the capability of what an electrification can bring into farming, but at the same time we’re also exploring the idea of what it takes for the farmer to be ready for future farming.
And every farm has a different, unique, requirement. If you go to a vineyard, for example, their needs are completely different, so when we see the market expansion, we want to explore the idea of, let’s design a chassis from the ground level up, which is well thought out you know, which can stick on for the next generations.
JOHN DAVIS: This type of custom design is well-suited for the flexible packaging afforded by electric battery packs. So it looks the E-volution of modern farming in the near future may well be fueled by the EV revolution of today.
Waste Not Want Not
JOHN DAVIS: The concept of renewable fuels made from non-petroleum sources has a long history. Indeed, over the last four decades, we’ve seen how renewable fuels have been used with great success as sustainable alternatives to traditional gasoline and diesel. So, we thought we’d check out three examples where fast responses rely on reliable fuels, and see how green solutions are leading the way forward!
Our first stop is Vancouver, Washington, where the city’s fire department has made the switch to renewable diesel for its 27 fire trucks, engines and EMS squads. Also called RD or R99, renewable diesel is not the same as biodiesel. It is refined from plant oils and animal fats to become chemically identical to conventional diesel, which biodiesel is not. R99 performs better in cold weather and can be used without modification in any diesel vehicle.
The process of burning carbon soot out of a conventional diesel’s exhaust particulate filter, known as regen, can take a truck out of service for several hours over the course of a week. Using R99 instead, less soot builds up, increasing the regen intervals and requiring a less intense regen procedure.
The Vancouver Fire Department responds to 51,000 emergency calls each year, so every minute of downtime in the shop can be the difference between life and death.
CHUCK WINKLER: These vehicles have to work 100% of the time, all the time. So, reliability is our number one… Safety and reliability is our number one goal here, and R99 has really helped with that 100% reliability.
JOHN DAVIS: Then there is UPSA, one of world’s largest delivery fleets with 125,000 vehicles. UPS obtains nearly 40% of their transportation fuel from low-carbon sources, and has driven over 4 billion miles on alternative fuels. They are also the largest consumer of renewable natural gas in the transportation industry.
AL MURAT: While electric cars, electric vehicles, Es are going to play an important role, right now CNG and RNG is one of the important bridge points to getting there. So, rather than wait for those alternatives to grow in technology, we’re leveraging RNG right now as one of the best solutions.
JOHN DAVIS: RNG, also known as biomethane, is derived from decomposing organic matter at landfills, wastewater treatment plants, livestock farms, and food production facilities. RNG is interchangeable with conventional natural gas and can be used in existing pipelines.
This renewable natural gas fueling station at UPS’ eastern zone hub in Pennsylvania, is the largest in the UPS network. It services 220 tractors and 150 delivery vehicles, displacing 8 million gallons of diesel fuel per year. Renewable natural gas literally turns waste into clean energy, and is helping big brown deliver on its longtime commitment to go green.
Whenever a green flag drops, the extreme conditions of motorsports competition have long served as a testing ground and accelerator for technological development, and that now includes sustainability. Race organizers around the world have set a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030, and aim to reduce race-related emissions by 30%. The world endurance challenge series, which includes the 24 Hours of Le Mans, now runs on a 100% renewable fuel derived from grape residue.
In a sport where lightning fast reflexes and instant throttle response can mean the difference between first place and also ran, a stable, power-dense fuel is a must, and you gotta admit, running race cars on wine is pretty dang cool!
These three sustainable petroleum substitutes are all winning formulas, ones we will be keeping an eye on.