ClearFlame Engine Technologies, a startup company developing technology that allows diesel trucks to run on straight renewable fuels, recently successfully completed an on-road test.
The company installed its technology in a Class 8 diesel truck running on a Cummins X15 500hp 15L heavy-duty engine -- commonly used for long-haul truck and off-highway applications. It ran on E98 ethanol. The engine can run on 98% ethanol straight off the rack or even on E85 ethanol. The company said its technology is fuel agnostic and can run on a range of renewable fuels.
In October 2021, ClearFlame announced it had received about a $17 million investment from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, John Deere, commodity trader Mercuria and Clean Energy Ventures. The funding is expected to enable commercialization of the company's engine technology for the long-haul trucking, agriculture and power-generation sectors.
The company said it will continue testing trucks under various operating conditions throughout the first quarter of 2022 and plans to launch customer beta testing, or user-acceptance testing, by the end of 2022.
"This demonstration proves the workability of our technology that takes the dirty diesel fuel out of heavy-duty trucks. The transportation sector is currently the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions. Simply hoping that we get to net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050 is not good enough,” said ClearFlame CEO and Co-Founder BJ Johnson.
Johnson added, “Diesel fleets would have the potential to achieve a 40% reduction in carbon emissions and a $45,000 cost savings.”
Another selling point for the ClearFlame technology is it can replace petroleum fuels with ethanol in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as particulate matter and smog, at the same time reducing overall engine cost. All the while, the ClearFlame engine has 30% more torque than engines running on diesel.
EDITOR’S TAKE:
This technology has the potential to create a large market for ethanol. According to the ClearFlame company, even an optimistic 20% market penetration into the $231 billion heavy-duty diesel market would create demand for 15 billion gallons of ethanol per year. That would be huge. That is potentially doubling current output/usage of ethanol. That is why we continue to report on developments of this nature. They have a real potential to help the environment, reduce truck operating costs and increase demand for ethanol, which would put even more money in farmer/rancher bank accounts. Hopefully you can appreciate why we are so optimistic about farmers and ranchers being great truck customers. We trust that as a CAD member you are excited as well!
