Kingman, Kansas has a new fuel station for clean-burning compressed natural gas (CNG). Mid-Kansas CNG operates the station at 636 N. Thompson. The station is open to the public now however, the official Grand Opening will be held at 11 am on November 10, 2017. It will include a ribbon cutting by Stacey Meireis, Executive Director of the Kingman Area Chamber of Commerce, and representatives from KGS, Central Kansas Clean Cities and Kansas City Regional Clean Cities Coalitions.
Mattie Giefer was looking for a cheaper fuel option for his fleet of vehicles with GCI Construction and turned to Mark Molitor, who is in the oil & gas field, for a solution. Together they formed Mid-Kansas CNG to fulfill the need for natural gas fueling in the Kingman area. After consulting with trucking companies, they selected a site on the US-54/US-400 corridor. The station will fill a fueling gap between Wichita, 50 miles to the east, and Garden City and Liberal, both about 175 miles west. Molitor and Giefer believe that CNG is a more economical and better environmental choice for transportation. They are open to inquiries about fleet fueling on the site.
TIME CHANGE. To bring you all the latest developments, we are starting at 9:00 a.m.
Clean, alternative fuels are the future of school district transportation. Propane, natural gas and electric vehicle options are becoming mainstream, and Kansas City districts are already committing to these alternatives to diesel buses. Alternative fuels give school districts a new approach to long-term substantial fuel savings, while protecting students from the risks of diesel emissions.
What: 2017 School Fleet Alternative Fuels Summit
When: Wednesday, November 15, 2017, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm
Where: Blue Springs School District’s Bartow Administrative Center, 1801 Northwest Vesper Street, Blue Springs, MO
Who: School district fleet managers, superintendents and district purchasing professionals.
Guest speakers will cover the latest in alt-fuel technology, reports from districts already using alternative fuels, information on financing alt fuel projects, and a tour of the Blue Springs District’s compressed natural gas fueling and fleet facilities. Lunch is included as part of the program. See full tentative agenda.
Contact David Albrecht at MEC with any questions.
Final week! Survey closes Monday, November 6, 2017
If you work or reside in the Kansas City metro, you are invited to take part in a virtual workshop to update the region’s Clean Air Action Plan. The MARC Air Quality program is in the process of updating the plan and your feedback is requested. The purpose of the plan is to set forth a variety of voluntary strategies to reduce ground-level ozone pollution. Current strategies encompass education, green infrastructure, mobility options (bike, ped, transit), diversified energy sources (such as alternative fuels), green building, etc.
Your feedback will help update these strategies and provide a sense of relative importance of each.
Please take a look at this worksheet which will walk you through an exercise to compare two strategy areas at a time (28 total comparisons). I recommend reading through the list A-F and then compare the letters vertically in each row, highlighting the one you think is more important. Question 1 in the survey will ask you to report your results.
Following this exercise, there are a series of open-ended questions, 4 sets of the same questions, each focusing on 4-5 different strategy areas. The entire exercise takes about 20 minutes. If you can, please fill out the whole thing – take a break if you have to!
SURVEY: http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07eelv6vjij7mddl39/start
In the first page of the survey, you have the ability to identify your affiliations. In the “Other” box, please write in Clean Cities, so that MARC can aggregate responses by Clean Cities members and stakeholders.
If you have any questions, please direct them to Doug Norsby, MARC Air Quality Planner.
Thank you in advance for your time in completing the survey exercise.
Catch up on news about the Volkswagen Settlement with these presentations! Included are an overview of the dispute, a breakdown of settlement funding for Missouri and Kansas, as well as a timeline regarding the use of the Environment Mitigation Trust.
Join us at the last of our four events in Kansas on October 3rd to learn about the Volkswagen Settlement and what it means to fleets in the state of Kansas. At each event, we’ll provide the latest information, a forum for discussion, and give you tools to participate in decision-making for the state’s plan for its $15 million share of the VW Environmental Mitigation Trust.
MEC and Kansas City Clean Cities encourage all stakeholders in Kansas to let their views be known on this important settlement. This includes private-sector fleet operators, school district transportation directors, public works and public transportation professionals, along with transportation contractors, alternative energy providers and elected officials. We’re hosting this event to let you know about what’s at stake – and we need you to let the agencies in charge of the settlement what direction you think the state should take.
Join us at Wichita State University Old Town, 238 North Mead in Wichita Kansas, 672025
Click here for parking information. To register for this event, just click here to sign up through EventBrite.
Metropolitan Energy Center invites you to our second Home Energy Open House on Saturday, October 21st from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM at 917 Emmanuel Cleaver II Boulevard in Kansas City, MO 64110. It’s is all about home energy efficiency, and how you can make it a reality in your home. This free event is open to the public.
Anyone interested in learning more about home energy efficiency, long-term utility savings and how efficiency lets you live more comfortably is welcome. You’ll be able to meet with energy efficiency experts and contractors, get up to speed on utility rebates for home energy improvements, or learn about adding solar power to your home.
You’ll also be able to tour Project Living Proof, MEC’s energy demonstration site. This 100-year old house was completely gutted and rebuilt with multiple energy-saving and renewable energy technologies. It’s a fascinating look at what’s possible with an existing property, and we enjoy introducing it to our guests.
We’ll also feature free drinks and snacks. Parking is available at the Anita B. Gorman Discovery Center, 4750 Troost, Kansas City, MO 64110. From the Discovery Center parking lot, look for the wooden walkway to Project Living Proof and enter through the back door.
Please contact David Albrecht at (816) 531-7283 with any questions. Hope to see you there!
After joining Metropolitan Energy Center as Training Director and following promotion to Executive Director in 2014, Warren Adams-Leavitt finished his tenure on August 31st. He’ll be returning to his roots, in a sense, by returning to Communities Creating Opportunities, which he led between 1989 and 2004. He’ll be working on issues of poverty, health and community engagement – and much more – on both sides of the state line in his new position. We’ve greatly enjoyed, and will greatly miss, his unflappable demeanor, his sense of humor and his unstoppable diligence. For more information about CCO, check out their website at http://cco.org/#wearecco
Kelly Gilbert, who began her career at MEC with the Kansas City Clean Cities Coalition in 2008, is our new Executive Director, after stints as Transportation Director and Programs Director. In those nine years, she’s worked with engineering firms, city governments, fleet managers and manufacturers to make clean alternative fuels a reality in Kansas City and in cities and towns across the Midwest. She has also administered millions of dollars in federal grants, and brings a world of real-world experience to the position. Kelly was named to the DOE’s Clean Cities Hall of Fame last month as recognition of her accomplishments, and we’re looking forward to working with her in writing the next chapter of MEC’s history. Congratulations!
Kansas City Regional Clean Cities Coordinator Kelly Gilbert Inducted into Clean Cities Hall of Fame
KANSAS CITY – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) honored Kansas City Regional Clean Cities Coordinator Kelly Gilbert for her dedication and outstanding accomplishments in reducing Missouri and Kansas’s dependence on petroleum in transportation. DOE’s National Clean Cities Director Dennis Smith and Co-Director Linda Bluestein inducted Gilbert into the Clean Cities Hall of Fame on Thursday, August 24, while in Golden, Colo., where representatives from nearly 100 Clean Cities coalitions from across the country gathered for the 2017 Clean Cities Coordinator Workshop.
Gilbert began her work with Kansas City Regional Clean Cities nine years ago and has since led the coalition to leave a monumental impact on the region it serves. In 2016 alone, the coalition averted more than 34,000 tons of greenhouse gases and saved more than 9.7 million gasoline gallon equivalents of petroleum through the deployment of alternative and renewable fuels, advanced vehicles, idle reduction, and fuel economy improvements.
“Kelly has a unique ability for building lasting connections that benefit the program,” Bluestein said. “There is no doubt that she has made a lasting impact on the local alternative fuel market in the Kansas City region.”
Gilbert rose through the Clean Cities ranks quickly, beginning to work with the coalition in 2008, becoming Coordinator in 2009, Director of Transportation Programs at nonprofit Metropolitan Energy Center in 2010, and is now its program director. Every step along the way she’s been a leader and an innovator.
She secured and oversaw four U.S. Department of Energy grants including the Midwest Region Alternative Fuels Project in 2009 and the EV Community Readiness “Electrify Heartland” project in 2011. She banded together four states—Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas—for the 2012/2013 Mid America Collaborative for Alternative Fuels Implementation or “MAC” project. The grant allowed Kansas City Regional, St. Louis, and Iowa Clean Cities to establish a fleet recognition program called “Mid-America Green Fleets.” More recently, she managed the Safe Alternative Fuels Deployment in Mid-America project, which partnered with two University Fire Institutes in Kansas and Missouri to establish first responder training for compressed natural gas and propane vehicles. The training is now available nationwide to state fire training directors for use in their programs.
In addition to all of these projects, Gilbert has worked closely with Kansas Soybean Commission on biodiesel outreach and training, helped school districts and local governments access Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement funds, and directed Diesel Emission Reduction Act funds to local freight projects. Representing the Kansas City Regional coalition, Gilbert has established herself as a key player.
“It is a tremendous honor to be recognized by the Clean Cities community. I’m proud to be part of a network that, working largely out of the limelight and without huge budgets, has done so much to improve air quality, encourage new technologies and partnerships, and make a real, measurable difference in improving the environment that all Americans share,” said Gilbert.
Kansas City Regional Clean Cities is a program of Missouri nonprofit Metropolitan Energy Center and is a designated member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Cities program. Clean Cities advances the nation’s economic, environmental, and energy security by supporting local actions to cut petroleum use in transportation. A national network of nearly 100 Clean Cities coalitions brings together stakeholders in the public and private sectors to deploy alternative and renewable fuels, idle-reduction measures, fuel economy improvements and emerging transportation technologies. For more information, visit metroenergy.org, cleancities.energy.gov and cleancities.energy.gov/hall-of-fame.
(30 August 2017) – Metropolitan Energy Center and Kansas City Regional Clean Cities are delighted to have been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for federal funding to move the adoption of clean, domestic fuels even further into the transportation mainstream. The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy announced yesterday that Kansas City Clean Cities was one of five organizations nationwide sharing a total of $13.4 million in competitive grants. DOE link
This funding will assist multiple projects and fuels in both Missouri and Kansas. Private- and public-sector partners will cover just over half of total costs with their own commitments to cleaner fleets, new infrastructure and improved fueling facilities.
The grant covers the following projects:
- Propane fleet fueling for buses operated by the Grain Valley, MO R-5 School District
- An expanded time-fill compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling facility for the City of Garden City KS, and new CNG-powered heavy trash haulers
- Publicly accessible CNG fueling at the Sapp Brothers Travel Center in Harrisonville, MO
- Additional CNG and electric-drive (EV) vehicles for Kansas City, MO’s municipal fleet
- Expanded public CNG fueling for the City of El Dorado, KS
- Biodiesel blending facilities for on-campus vehicle use at the University of Kansas in Lawrence
- Expanded time-fill CNG fueling infrastructure for the Blue Springs, MO R-IV School District
- Deployment of EV shuttle buses at KCI, along with construction of high-speed charging systems
- New public CNG stations along I-70 in Salina, KS and TBD location in western Kansas. Though designed for access by any CNG vehicle, these stations are planned with heavy freight traffic in mind; construction will close a natural gas fueling gap that stretches from Topeka to Denver, and will encourage CNG adoption by additional freight fleets
We project a cumulative reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 3,377 metric tons by the end of Year Three of the project and the elimination of 46,375 barrels of petroleum. A conservative estimate shows savings of $888,615 in fuel costs through the end of year three for our partners and for fleets and drivers making the switch to cleaner, domestically produced energy.
A partner in the US Department of Energy’s Clean Cities Program, Kansas City Regional Clean Cities is a coalition of public and private partners seeking to build the awareness and use of alternative fuels in fleets throughout Kansas and western Missouri. The coalition consists of fleet operators, alternative fuel providers, vehicle manufacturers and distributors, and others interested in improving air quality and reducing the use of foreign oil. It has been active since 1996 and was designated a DOE partner in 1998.
Metropolitan Energy Center is a 501 (c) (3) tax-deductible organization working in Kansas City and surrounding areas for greater energy efficiency in transportation and the built environment since 1983. Our mission is to create resource efficiency, environmental health and economic vitality in the Kansas City region. For additional information, please visit our website www.metroenergy.org