Green Energy Parks Program
In 1998, DOE RBEP started a Green Energy Parks Program based on DEQ’s successful projects with Yellowstone NP. Green Energy Park Program is designed to assist national parks and surrounding areas use renewable and alternate fuels to help reduce environmental pressures in these areas.
In the 1999 funding cycle, DEQ and Yellowstone NP expanded the use of biodiesel in the area. In the 2000 funding cycle, activities in both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks focused on gasoline engine fuels. An ethanol blend of regular gasoline and 10 percent ethanol (E-10) was made available to the public by NPS for year-round use. An E-85 and propane administrative refueling facilities are being installed during the summer of 2001. GEP assisted with the introduction of B-20 in off-road diesel vehicles used by the U. S. Forest Service in neighboring national forests.
For funding cycle of 1999, the Green Energy Parks (GEP) Program matching grant helped with the incremental cost of biodiesel for a longer-term endurance test on the Truck in the Park biodiesel demonstration. Biodiesel (temporary) refueling tanks are being installed at Mammoth Hot Springs, Lake Yellowstone, and Old Faithful areas to allow for a gradual fleet conversion to biodiesel. After those area fleets are converted, the tanks will be moved to other areas of the park to provide fuel as more vehicles are converted.
DEQ assisted the NPS in its decision to use B-20 (a blend of 20 percent biodiesel with low-sulfur diesel) in its Employee Rideshare bus that travels over 500 miles per week from Livingston, MT to Mammoth, WY. The Green Energy Park Program provides for the incremental costs of biodiesel to the Rideshare Program. In the Rideshare Program, employees pay a fee for maintenance and operation of the bus. Use of the bus for commuting replaced the daily use of 42 privately-owned vehicles. This eliminates the pollution caused by about 300 gallons of gasoline that would be used each day by the cars and trucks.
The Green Energy Parks Program also expanded the use of biodiesel to the trucks that move 70 percent of the Park’s trash.
For the year 2000, the Green Energy Parks Program helped expanded the use of biodiesel in the greater Yellowstone region to the U. S. Forest Service vehicles in Bridger-Teton and Caribou-Targhee National Forests (the southern boundaries surrounding Yellowstone and Grand Teton NP). Four refueling stations will be installed during the summer of 2001 to allow the USFS off-road diesel equipment to use B-20. The GEP Program also will help with propane refueling in Grand Teton NP and the incremental costs of an E-85 refueling station in Yellowstone NP. Both parks are making E-10, a blend of 10 percent fuel ethanol with gasoline, available to the public at service stations.
