Valero Energy Corp. is planning for the gasoline station of the future — or perhaps the term should be “fuel station” of the future.
As Valero builds new stores, it will design them to handle alternate fuels, including natural gas as well as E85, a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gas that it has already added at a few locations.
“In certain markets they’re already consuming natural gas in vehicles,” CEO Bill Klesse said, and the San Antonio-based company will add natural gas pumps in Texas if there is market demand.
Valero already has some stores capable of dispensing natural gas in Colorado. The San Antonio-based refiner and fuels marketer will do the same in Texas “if there is market demand,” he said.
The first Texas Valero station with natural gas dispensers will be built near the company’s headquarters, Klesse said at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting Thursday.
Also, where a Valero station has enough land, it may add electric charging stations “to help people get home.”
But Valero’s chief seemed less enthusiastic about adding charging stations, saying electric power is “problematic.”
The company now sells E85 at five stores in Texas, though none in Houston.
It saves money to plumb Valero stores for alternative fuels as they’re being built rather than modifying stores. To add E85 pump to an existing store costs $100,000, Klesse said.
natural gas dispensers? I’m impressed…that’s not a trivial app…due to the pressures required for CNG and the heat generated by compressing any gas. I’d like to see one of these in action and how quickly they work. And how much elec their compressor uses.
Chicken and egg, they will build more CNG stations if market demands it, but many won’t buy CNG vehicle till there are more stations.
Sort’ve a Catch 22 for nat gas , at the present.
@ntangle, could not the compressor operate on nat gas ?
We could follow the same roll-out model with natural gas fueling stations that is being used for the electric vehicles. If the feds were not so prejudiced against O&G companies they could make this happen almost over night if they wanted to. Chesapeake Energy is doing this in Oklahoma by converting thousands of vehicles to nat gas and working with major truck stops to establish nat gas fueling stations. The state of Texas should join with Louisiana and Oklahoma to make this a high priority.
Dollar wrote: @ntangle, could not the compressor operate on nat gas ?
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Of course it could. It could be powered by any energy source, certainly by a piston engine or a gas turbine. But there are existing offerings that look pretty much like conventional gasoline pumps. And they need some elec anyway for the card reader, sensors, lighting, etc. So I’ll bet the compressor is powered by an electric motor too, for the sake of initial cost, noise, instant warmup, and perhaps easier to get code approvals, since gas pumps are already electric. But I don’t know for a fact…it’s one reason I’m curious.
@Dollar – correct, the current method of transporting natural gas is by using some of that gas to power compression stations along a pipeline. That same process could be applied here. If a customer needs to purchase say enough NG to fill a 25 gallon canister he would need to purchase an additional amount, say 1/2 gallon, to power the compressor which would inject the NG into the tank in his car/truck.
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