24-7 Travel Stores Rolls Out Biofuels, Moves Forward With EV Vision

In the years ahead, there will be many alternative fuel funding opportunities for fuel retailers to consider. These opportunities can help minimize the capital expenditures necessary to adapt to different fuel technologies that will be commercialized in the years ahead. Mark Augustine, president of 24-7 Travel Stores by Triplett Inc., embraces alternative fuels. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced recently that it plans to award approximately $22 million in competitive grants to expand the sale and use of renewable fuels, including biodiesel. Specifically, USDA said the Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentives (HBIIP) program aims to encourage a comprehensive approach to marketing higher blends by sharing the costs relating to upgrading fuel dispensers (gas and diesel pumps), related equipment, and other infrastructure required at a location to ensure the environmentally safe availability of ethanol blends containing greater than 10 percent of biodiesel blends greater than 5 percent… 
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Freight Waves – How Truck Stops Could Drive The Electric Revolution, FreightWaves

Truck stops have incorporated a number of side businesses to keep up with the changing needs of customers – gaming, branded restaurants, and crude-oil hauling to name a few. 

But generating electricity hasn’t even been on the radar. 

Now, as the prospects for electric trucks shift from concept to reality, Neil Chatterjee believes electricity generation could be the next big thing. 

As Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission – the top regulator of the nation’s power grid – Chatterjee said the need for a stable electricity infrastructure to support the trucking industry is analogous to a trend occurring among the world’s technology platforms. 

“If you look at the big energy users – Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) – they’re moving beyond the traditional model where they’re just energy consumers, they’re actually impacting energy markets because their data centers consume so much power,” said Chatterjee, speaking with FreightWaves on February 12 after a NATSO board meeting at the fuel retailer group’s annual conference in Orlando… 
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