DEVICES DRIVE UP BIG RIG EFFICIENCY.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

The first-ever establishment to sell truckers on equipping their rigs with fuel- and pollution-sparing devices has opened near the I-5 Coburg exit.

Because no prototype existed, creator Sharon Banks got to imagine what a green trucking showroom would look like. And to her, it has the ambiance of a soda shop. She decorated the new Cascade Sierra Solutions showroom with black-and-white checkered floors, a lunch-counter-like table with spinning stools, and a menu of 40 different kinds of technology to improve heavy, long-haul, tractor-trailer rigs.

It's all part of Banks' ambitious plan to retrofit all 600,000 U.S. trucks built pre-2007 with the air-cleaning devices that new trucks receive on the assembly line.

The nonprofit agency that Banks created has five goals: Improve fuel economy, reduce air pollution, slow climate change, improve health and promote prosperity for truck owners.

The last comes as a natural part of putting fuel-reducing technologies on trucks that usually get only 5 miles per gallon of diesel.

A full retrofit can save 25 percent on a trucker's fuel bill, Banks said. "If you're going to keep your truck for three, four or five years, you can get a good return on the investment," she said.

The upgrades vary based on the age and style of the truck, and the trucker's desires and budget, but the cost of equipment most likely will be in the $10,000 or $25,000 range.

Some of the technologies include:

Auxiliary Power Units, which provide power to a truck cab when the main engine is turned off. The little units prevent truckers from idling, which saves them 80 percent on their resting fuel bill.

"(APUs) make a lot of sense," said Mike Swehla, a Sacramento-based trucker who was idling at the Coburg stop on Friday. "I'm running a 480-horse-power engine to keep me warm."

Banks will probably find a ready market for APUs in the 100,000 trucks that ply the I-5 corridor daily from British Columbia to Mexico. California has outlawed idling by long haul truckers beginning Jan. 1, 2008.

Resting in a stuffy cab is not really an option, said Rick Wallace, an analyst with the Oregon Energy Department, which funds Banks' efforts.

"They have to stop because they're required to stop after 11 hours. It gets awfully hot in the summer and awfully cold in the winter for these guys," he said.

The Coburg showroom carries APUs from 10 different manufacturers.

Single tires: The showroom sells a truck tire with 17-inch wide tread that can replace double 11-inch wheels on long-haul trucks - converting an 18-wheeler to a 10-wheeler.

"It takes less energy to get the tire rolling and keep it rolling," said Chuck Anderson, a Michelin fleet account manager.

Michelin projects a 4 percent fuel savings, but Bank said truckers are getting as much as 8 percent.

The showroom also sells radio-controlled tire pressure monitors so drivers will know instantly when their tires need more air. Running fully inflated tires also saves fuel.

Another company produces a 3-by-5 inch dash board display that gives a driver a continuous reading of fuel efficiency during the drive. The driver can adjust his or her technique to maximize savings.

The showroom also sells $18,000 diesel air cleaners that reduce emissions by 90 percent. "You can literally put a white hanky over the tail pipe and it won't turn black," Banks said.

Banks opened the showroom to display the technologies to overcome two barriers that are stalling the technology.

The first is that truck drivers are hard to reach because they're on the road. So the showroom, located in the Truck N' Travel parking lot, brings the technologies to the drivers. Five truckers bought systems in four days of operation, Banks said. The second barrier is that owner/operator truck drivers generally can't afford the upfront capitalization to install the fuel or pollution saving devices.

"When somebody has to plunk down $7,000 to $8,000, that's damn hard," said Swehla, the 33-year truck driver out of Sacramento.

Banks has gathered up $5.6 million in loanable funds from the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Oregon Energy Department. In addition, the showcase is equipped to process U.S. Small Business Administration loans.

In addition, she's lobbying for tax credits and grants from Oregon, Washington and California to cover the cost of the more expensive pollution saving devices.

It's in the public interest, she said.

"Diesel particulate is the worst," she said, citing a California Air Resources Board statistic that states: "Seventy percent of cancer risk from breathing is from breathing diesel exhaust."

In addition, she figures, the 360 APUs she's helped install since late 2004 will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 72,000 metric tons over their 10-year life span. Carbon dioxide is a primary gas implicated in global warming.

Coburg neighbors, meanwhile, would be happy with a reduction in fumes, said Jim Lockard, who lives just west of the truck stop.

The fumes surround his house at night when the truckers stop to sleep and leave their engines humming, he said. "It smells like cat urine. It's a big, heavy stench," he said. "The whole eastern edge of town, we get the diesel."

Lockard said he'd prefer that the truck stop install RV hookups so the truckers would enjoy power with no engines running at all.

Banks said that would be the ideal solution, and Truck N' Travel eventually will get such "shore" power, but there won't be enough plug-ins to handle all the trucks. So the APUs are a good interim measure, she said.

The Coburg showroom is one of six she has planned for Seattle, Portland, Coburg, Medford, Sacramento and Los Angeles. The Sacramento site is next, and Banks hopes to open its doors in July, in partnership with the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District.

"We heard her talk about it and get excited about it," Executive Director Larry Greene said. "She's the catalyst that brought a lot of people together to make this happen."

LEARN MORE Log on: www.cascadesierrasolutions.org/ Check: www.epa.gov/otaq/retrofit/ Health risks: http://cfpub.epa.gov /ncea/cfm/recordisplay.cfm?deid =29060