Landi Renzo has entered into a two-year, multimillion-dollar contract with the city of Long Beach, California to deliver new Super Duty Ford Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) trucks.

According to Landi Renzo USA, the Eco-Ready RNG system delivers a negative carbon intensity rating due to it taking more carbon out of the environment than it emits. The contract with Long Beach covers multiple commercial vehicles for Long Beach, to include Ford F-250, F-350 and F-550 work trucks.

"We started using RNG in 2015—it’s a simple, “drop-in” fuel that makes a huge emissions reduction. It’s carbon-neutral and we pair it whenever we can with Near Zero engines, leading to even lower emissions for the fleet," stated Dan Berlenbach, CPFP, Long Beach fleet services manager.

Already, 60% of the city’s 2,100 vehicle fleet is alternative fuel. Berlenbach noted that departments in the city of Long Beach have been using RNG since 2015 with nothing but positive results.

"We run renewable CNG and LNG, renewable diesel, EV, plug-in hybrids, and propane," Berlenbach noted. "The city has a long tradition of adopting and pioneering alternative fuels, going back to at least the 1990s."

Long Beach's proximity to two large ports and the transportation infrastructure associated with them and their goods movement means that air pollution is a significant concern for the area," Berlenbach explained, adding that "as the stewards of the city’s fleet we have an obligation to minimize the fleet’s environmental footprint as much as possible. RNG greatly helps us to do that while we transition to zero emissions."

A Carbon-Negative Fuel Option for Fleets

According to the the Environmental Protection Agency, "RNG is a term used to describe biogas that has been upgraded for use in place of fossil natural gas. The biogas used to produce RNG comes from a variety of sources, including municipal solid waste landfills, digesters at water resource recovery facilities (wastewater treatment plants), livestock farms, food production facilities and organic waste management operations."

As a substitute for natural gas, RNG has multiple end uses, including:

• In thermal applications.

• To generate electricity.

• For vehicle fuel.

• As a bio-product feedstock.

Landi Renzo’s RNG system is designed to help fleets run cleaner by lowering vehicle Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emissions. 

"As we progress to a zero-emissions fleet, using all the available tools to minimize emissions is critical to our city’s residents’ health and well-being," Berlenbach noted. "Not all vehicles are available in a practical, available, and affordable zero-emissions configuration, so RNG provides a great bridge fuel enroute to zero-emissions."