Alternative fuels aren't solving Phoenix's air-pollution problem, and it's doubtful that they will anytime soon

A few years ago, the city of Phoenix owned about 1,400 light trucks and cars that can run on compressed natural gas as part of its effort to reduce dependence on gasoline and help clean the air.

Now it has cut back to 1,073 such vehicles. And over the next several years, the city will shed most — if not all — of its remaining light-duty natural-gas vehicles.

For now, the replacements burn standard gasoline.

As the fleet shrinks, much of the decade-old $13 million in infrastructure for these vehicles will slowly be rendered useless. Burly compressors for the natural gas and maintenance equipment will be sold off.

The trend is affecting government fleets all over the Valley, as well as private vehicles. A look at the state Motor Vehicle Division's license plate statistics shows that the number of alternative-fuel vehicles in the state — in spite of the so-called green movement — is going down.

Alternative-fuel license plates for government vehicles dropped from a high of 5,616 two years ago to just 4,925 this year.

In 2002, the state issued 13,159 of the special clouds-and-blue-sky license plates for private automobiles. This year, it issued 11,799.

Most of these private vehicles are bi-fuel natural-gas vehicles, meaning they can also burn gasoline. And actually, they burn almost nothing but gasoline.

With few exceptions, the only time owners use alternative fuel is for a once-a-year emissions test that qualifies them to display the special plates.

But before you go thinking they do this out of the greenness of their hearts, note that the law allows these owners to use freeway HOV lanes — and, most importantly, it allows them to pay a fraction of the normal vehicle license tax.

The tax rate for most vehicles is based on 60 percent of the vehicles' value. It's a paltry 1 percent for vehicles with the special plate — a lingering perquisite from a scandalous 2000 state government giveaway program that funded the purchase of most of the state's personal alternative-fuel vehicles (more on that later in this story).

For a host of reasons, and despite heavy promotion, alternative fuels haven't worked for personal vehicles. The cost of buying and operating such vehicles never became worth the benefit. They're more expensive than regular gas-eaters, and they aren't necessarily better for the environment.

Experts say that older natural-gas-powered vehicles, which make up the bulk of the public and private alternative-fuel automobiles on the state's roads, spew at least as much pollution into the air as the latest gasoline burners.

Because of the lack of demand for natural-gas vehicles, Detroit all but stopped making them a few years ago. Valley cities that made a heavy commitment to such vehicles for their fleets are now forced to find different options.

Like Phoenix, Mesa has touted itself for its seemingly forward-thinking investment in alternative fuels. The city used to have about 400 bi-fuel cars and light trucks, capable of running on natural gas or gasoline.

That's dwindled to 185 — 150 of which are police cars. The cops, who have always hated the limp acceleration of the bi-fuel vehicles and the bulky second fuel tank in the trunk, can't wait to see the rest go.

The city will then shed the costly infrastructure needed to maintain the vehicles and fill them with natural gas.

Pete Scarafiotti, fleet director and automotive engineer for Mesa, predicts the city's natural-gas-compression equipment will be useful for only another two or three years.

Mesa's buses will continue to run on compressed natural gas, but the light-duty fleet will have converted back to gasoline.

The switch already has happened in Glendale, which has swapped out most of its older natural gas and propane vehicles for those that run on gasoline.

But, as in Phoenix and Mesa, some of Glendale's newest vehicles are at least capable of running on another type of alternative fuel: ethanol. Fleets for state agencies like the Department of Environmental Quality also have supplemented their ranks with so-called flex-fuel vehicles, which can run on gasoline or E85 (a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline).

In fact, Arizona law requires three-quarters of all new vehicles purchased by most state agencies since 2001 to be capable of running on an alternative fuel.

The law doesn't say the fleet vehicles have to burn the alternative fuel, though.

And because of the lack of filling stations stocking E85, the majority of government-owned flex-fuel vehicles in the Phoenix area (not to mention privately owned ones), are not burning the new fuel. They're using only gasoline.

Only a few gas stations that will have E85 pumps are under construction in the Valley. Now, there's one state-owned and one public E85 facility in the county, each in downtown Phoenix.

Phoenix has no current plans to install an E85 pump at any of its facilities. Nor does Glendale or Mesa.

The point to all this is that ethanol, like natural gas, may never be widely used in the Valley — and, even if it is, ethanol has its own baggage.

One problem, according to experts, is that increased use of ethanol could very well make the Valley's air pollution worse.

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It wasn't so long ago that optimists claimed heavy government use of natural-gas-powered vehicles would spark a revolution for the rest of us. New filling stations were supposed to sprout all over the Valley as consumers bought these vehicles, spurring automakers to build even more.

That vision has dimmed.

Propane-powered vehicles, also highly promoted 10 years ago, never caught on with the masses.

The biggest thing in alternative fuels right now is ethanol.

But experts admit, reluctantly, that gasoline-burning engines are likely to be with us for decades to come, barring any unexpected major leaps forward in electric or hydrogen technology.

Gasoline and diesel engines are bad for the air on both a local and global basis. In the Phoenix area, they produce some of the particulate matter, carbon monoxide and ground-level ozone in our air.

As most people now know, the uncounted millions of combustion engines on Earth are also unlocking carbon that's been stored in the ground for millions of years and chucking it into the atmosphere, where it pretty much stays. Most scientists believe the extra level of greenhouse gas is warming the Earth at an unnaturally rapid pace — which is the global warming theory in a nutshell.

Petroleum-burning vehicles are becoming more efficient, but global-warming alarmists claim far more radical changes in fuel use are needed to avert disaster.

The finite supply of oil also must be considered. It's only becoming more expensive as it is used up, and someday it will all be gone.

In principle, then, alternative fuels make perfect sense.

In reality, they've been something of a boondoggle.

Their ability to control air pollution isn't proven, and they've been very expensive.

Government handouts for producers and users of alternative fuels, also known as subsidies, have used up billions of public dollars even as the fuels' environmental value is debated.

In 2006, producing one gallon of ethanol took about $1.45 in subsidies. Last month, the New York Times called for an end to ethanol subsidies and laid the blame for high food prices worldwide and the specter of future mass starvation on "environmentally dubious bio-fuels."

Eight years ago, Arizona showed the rest of the country just how ludicrous alternative-fuel subsidies could get. The state promised to pay residents about half of the cost of a new vehicle (most were SUVs loaded with options) if the buyer converted the vehicle to run partly on natural gas or propane. The vehicle didn't actually have to use the fuel, mind you. Many buyers installed only a token four-gallon natural-gas tank to get the subsidy, with no intention (or any practical way) of actually using the fuel.

People even got some vehicles for free.

A flat subsidy of $30,000 was paid for heavier pickup trucks, like Ford F-450s, even though, without options, the trucks retailed for less than $30,000. One loophole allowed buyers to collect the subsidy and immediately sell the vehicles out of state for profit. Another failed to effectively limit how many people could get a subsidy.

Accountants had mistakenly informed state lawmakers that the program would cost the state $10 million at most. But by the time Arizona lawmakers killed the program in late 2000, qualified state residents had applied for about $800 million in subsidies.

On the advice of Janet Napolitano, then the state's attorney general, lawmakers canceled the subsidies for everyone except those who had already purchased a vehicle. Ultimately, the state spent about $140 million on the program and the phrase "alternative fuels" became synonymous with government waste. New Times covered the fiasco as it erupted ("Fuel's Gold," September 28, 2000, and "What a Gas," October 12, 2000).

Experts agree that all this money spent did nothing to clean the air.

The momentum that had sparked the nightmare subsidy program, however, continued by mandate in the government fleets. Years later, several Valley public and private fleets pump alternative fuels daily into their heavy vehicles like buses and garbage trucks.