It just so happened to be the day before Earth Day that stakeholders around the Port of Savannah gathered to hear details about a project that will encourage cleaner technologies for freight movement. Trucking company owners were among those who came to a Georgia conference center April 21 to learn about the Port Fuel Center, expected to open this year.
Out West, so-called "Clean Trucks" programs around the ports infamously have operated with a mix of mandates against older equipment and some incentivizing of equipment upgrades. Alongside such efforts, plain strong-arm politics, too, have been a side result, with such programs used cynically toward unionization goals, as Overdrive has covered.
At the Port of Savannah, investment in efforts around improving air quality are proceeding largely on a voluntary basis and moving into operator quality-of-life infrastructure, too. What was unveiled by reps from Marlin Gas/Marlin Compression (a "virtual pipeline" compressed natural gas and compression service), Chesapeake Utilities Corp, and other stakeholders are plans for what's basically a truck stop at heart.
The Port Fuel Center is the brainchild of the owner of the land on which it plans to open this fall. Sean Register, principal owner-operator of the center., is also the CEO of ocean-shipping concern Register International. He told the gathering that his conception of the Fuel Center, planned to feature 74 truck-parking spaces, high-flow diesel lanes, CNG-pumping stations, EV charging infrastructure and much more, dates to 2012.
"I was sitting at a red light, and saw a port truck go into the cheater lane," and stop, Register said. The driver got out of the idling rig and "he could have been an Olympic runner" he was moving so fast, on a beeline for a tiny service station's bathroom. "I went home and told my wife, 'We’re going to open a truck stop.' She looked at me like I’d lost my mind."
There are 18 acres on the whole site, and Register and company are
The site is on Grange Road, just four-tenths of a mile from the sizable Gate 8 to the Port, one way to the Garden City container terminal there.
