By Roland Beres, FOX 9,  Nampa, Idaho

The price of gas in Boise is still close to four dollars. But what would you do if you found a station where fuel is a dollar less per gallon?

That’s exactly the case at a new fuel station in nampa, where certain trucks are saving a bundle by using liquified natural gas.
The station is part of a nationwide effort to wean the country off petroleum, by starting with the millions of trucks that keep the country running.

It looks like a large white monolith off Franklin road in Nampa.

“The first question is what is that?”, says Jon Wadsworth, Regional Operations Manager for BLU, “and after that they say that’s cool.”

In this case, that’s literally the truth. Inside a huge tank at the Nampa Maverick station s liquid natural gas kept at 260 degrees below zero.

“It’s very cold and very pure. A lot better for the environment than diesel.” says Wadsworth.

It is also more than a dollar cheaper than diesel and gets slightly better mileage.
For trucks that travel thousands of miles a week, that’s a huge savings.
But most truckers are loyal to diesel.

“I was very skeptical.” says OffSpec Solutions truck driver, Ted Wemhoff, “I’ve driven diesel all my life. It drives like a regular truck and actually pulls better at the lower end and more torque. It’s very surprising. It blew my mind.”
Ted womhoff drives this brand new truck for caldwell based offspec solutions.
It looks just like any other truck.
But additions like super cooled gas tanks and conversion kits add about 30 thousand dollars.
It’s a lot, but could be offset in just a year or two by much cheaper fuel.
Something that’s hard for anyone to ignore.

“Every day drivers are noticing liquid natural gas because the price is a dollar less than they’re spending and the more people see it in the fleet vehicles, the more likely down the road it could be a viable fuel source for the rest of us. ”
Even if it remains a fuel for trucks only, it could mean a big savings in other ways.

“It’s gonna save us all money bcause the cost of frieght can go down and because the cost of fuel goes down.” says Wadsworth.
The huge triple walled tank holds 16-thousand gallons of natural gas above ground.
And even though liquid natural gas is far less flammable than diesel, it’s surrounded by a variety of protective barriers

Wadsworth says the barriers would have no problem stopping an out of control truck.
He says making Nampa part of the west coast fuel corridor will bring lots of business to the area.
Many businesses are converting their diesel trucks to take advantage of the lower fuel costs.
And as far as drivers are concerned, the kinks are all worked out.

“Yeah, they’ve nailed something here finally.” says Wemhoff.

He adds that the only drawback, until now, had been that liquid natural gas had a limited number of fueling stations.