Autogas goes Alaska

© Denali National Park and PreserveQuieter, cleaner, cheaper, better!

We don't know exactly how popular autogas is in Alaska (not much, probably), but one thing we know for sure – Denali National Park and Preserve is replacing some of its diesel-powered buses with equivalents running on LPG. Even though the news doesn't revolve around school buses this time, if the vehicles used by the park were repainted yellow and filled with pupils instead of tourists, there wouldn't be much of a difference.

But that's hardly the point. The point is that thanks to making the switch air in the park will be cleaner, the vehicles will be quieter and the fuel bills will be significantly reduced. The environment and the park's authorities are not the only ones to benefit from ditching diesels in favour of LPG – half a million tourists visiting Denali each year will be able to have a closer look at wildlife (such as bears and caribou) due to lower emission of exhaust gasses and noise by the buses.

As for the vehicles themselves and the LPG technology underpinning them, there's no surprise here – the buses come from Blue Bird's offer and their Ford-sourced engines are converted with systems developed and supplied by Roush CleanTech. For a start, 14 new autogas-powered buses will enter duty on the 90-mile (approx. 140-km) tourist route in the park in spring 2016, with more bound to come later.

Authors of the initiative hope it will serve to encourage other entities, such as companies and organisations, including school district authorities, to replace diesel vehicles with LPG counterparts. We keep our fingers crossed, although we're quite confident that people who need to be convinced to use autogas in the US are quickly becoming few and far between. Stay tuned for more news!