We spill a lot of ink on engines in our October issue. A couple of road tests, a story about belts, hoses, and heat… There’s even a squib in our Dispatches section speculating on the cost of diesel engines made to comply with emission rules starting in 2007. In that item, Don Schneider, whose company has 16,000 pumpkin-coloured tractors revved up for the pre-Christmas freight frenzy, figures the cost to buy and operate trucks with ’07 engines may be beyond what his little enterprise, Schneider National, can afford. A few years ago, no one had ever heard the term pre-buy. Now it’s the most distressing word in the industry lexicon. Wanna scare the pants off a truck OEM executive this month? Trick-or-treat dressed as January 2007.

The irony is that while most heavy diesel engines built today emit half the nitrogen oxides as those made prior to October 2002, they consume more fossil fuel-2 to 5 per cent by most estimates. Indeed, the prospect of such a fuel economy pinch is why truck-buyers loaded up the order books to avoid these cleaner-burning engines. Probably not the effect the EPA had in mind.

“If you’re going to be scared off buying a new engine because of a 2-per-cent hit in fuel economy, give your head a shake,” says Robert Jordan. “If you’re really so concerned about wasting fuel, and if the government really wants to reduce harmful truck-engine emissions and cut down on the amount of fuel trucks burn, there’s only one way to go: reduce idling.”

On average, idling trucks consume 2.6 million gallons of fuel in the United States and Canada every day. Jordan, an owner-operator from Juneau, Wisc., hasn’t just reduced the idle time on his 1997 Mack CH. He’s eliminated it, and he’s done so “without freezing my toes off in the winter,” he says.

Jordan has spent the past decade fine-tuning his tractor to be more energy efficient, creating a vehicle that “blows no excess exhaust and makes no excess noise,” he says.

His truck has a 2,000-watt inverter/charger (an RV2012 model from Xantrex Technology of Burnaby, B.C.) to convert on-board DC power into the AC needed to run household appliances in the vehicle. He has a pack of isolated batteries which the truck’s alternator automatically recharges when Jordan restarts his vehicle. To avoid low battery voltage, Jordan takes advantage of “shorepower” wherever he can. He gets more out of the batteries in cold weather by using a 12-volt thermostat to turn off power to the heater when the bunk is warm enough.

Jordan also keeps heater use down with an innovative engine heat transfer system which circulates hot engine coolant to the cab or bunk after the truck has been shut down. A 12-volt magnetic drive pump moves the coolant to both the cab and bunk heater cores, providing up to three hours of warmth. The system has the added benefit of engine cool-down during hot months. “I have a summer switch connected to a 150-degree engine temperature switch that will shut off the pump automatically once the engine block cools to 150 degrees,” Jordan says.

I bring up Jordan’s anti-idling endeavour for several reasons. First, it’s October, which is winter in my book. Second, he’s passionate about it and willing to talk. And third, in Canada, the federal government is offering to rebate up to $350 when you buy a cab heater or air conditioning unit and up to $1,400 on auxiliary power generators. There are folks in Ottawa-at the Office of Energy Efficiency’s FleetSmart program-who understand that truckers don’t stick their hands in their pockets to warm them up. They do it to see if there’s any money in there. If you’ve said it’s time the government gave you a tangible incentive to get you to reduce your idle time, then start-er, stop your engines.

“I think it’s wonderful that there’s some sort of effort on the part of the government to promote idle reduction,” Jordan says. “If it takes a little cash back to get a guy to install a decent cab heater or an APU, that’s great. But you know, at 1.5 gallons per hour, eliminating 40 hours per week of idling will save you $3,000 a year in fuel costs,” he says. That’s big money.

“I also know that when my truck is running, it’s earning revenue: I average 48.2 miles for every hour the truck is running. My length of haul is 600 miles, and I’m gone five and a half days a week,” he adds. “You want a competitive advantage? Look around you at all those trucks running their engines. Listen to them. Smell the air. That’s money burning.”

Jordan has a web site with details about his idle-free system: go to www.idlefree.net. To learn about Ottawa’s rebate program, go to www.climatechange.gc.ca, or contact FleetSmart at oee.nrcan.gc.ca/fleetsmart or 613/992-9608.