Some businesses in Albemarle County are hoping to fuel their vehicles with cheap alternative to gasoline, but it would require community support.
Those businesses are interested in compressed natural gas or CNG. A meeting was held Monday morning to talk about the cost saving benefits of this fuel for companies in the area.
Virginia Eagle Distributing would like to use CNG for its fleet of trucks, but the closest CNG fueling station is in Virginia Beach.
Brad Theado is the director of operations at Virginia Eagle Distributing in Charlottesville and said the company uses about 3,500 gallons of diesel fuel and 3,500 gallons of unleaded gasoline each month within its Albemarle County facility.
CNG currently sells for roughly $1.20 per gallon. With compressed natural gas, the company could cut its fuel costs by two-thirds.
Virginia Eagle Distributing has partnered with the nonprofit group, Virginia Clean Cities, and Charlottesville Gas to hold the meeting Monday in hopes of generating interest in the Charlottesville area.
"The fuel companies want to build them, but they're very expensive to build and without a customer base that's willing to invest in CNG vehicles they don't want to spend the money to actually create it," Theado said.
Theado also said fuel tanks have to be modified to run off of CNG. There are conversion kits available. He said vehicles can be purchased from manufacturers already equipped to handle compressed natural gas.
CNG is also a cleaner fuel, and there's an abundant supply in the United States. To learn more about it, click here.
The meeting was held 10 a.m. at CitySpace on the downtown mall in Charlottesville.
