Event to highlight alternative fuels, legislative issues

A symposium to highlight alternative fuel successes in Louisiana, talk about legislative issues and hear several announcements about the future of alternative fuel in the state will be held Thursday in Baton Rouge.

The symposium from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. is $25 if registered in advance and $35 on Thursday. An alternative fuel expo from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. is free and open to the public as a chance to look at various alternative fuel vehicles that are available and in use, said Lauren Stuart, executive director of Greater Baton Rouge Clean Cities.

Keynote speaker for the symposium will be state Department of Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain who will make an announcement involving alternative fuel and the department’s fleet of vehicles, Stuart said. “I’ll be talking about Clean Cities activities and plans to expand the nonprofit work statewide,” she said. Currently, the Clean Cities of Greater Baton Rouge only covers the local area, but work will begin to start including the rest of the state, except for New Orleans. The New Orleans area has its own Clean Cities Coalition, Stuart said.

In addition, the symposium will include speakers to talk about the political landscape in the state as it relates to alternative fuels as well as work done in Lafayette and St. Landry Parish to change vehicle fleets to compressed natural gas, she said. In St. Landry Parish, captured gases from the landfill are being used to run the Sheriff Office’s vehicles, Stuart said.

From 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., a number of alternative fuel vehicles will be on display in the parking lot near the Pentagon Barracks and near the Capitol Park Welcome Center located at, 702 N. River Road.

Vehicles that will be included are a Lafayette city bus, St. Landry Parish work truck, an all-electric Nissan Leaf and about a dozen more vehicles, Stuart said.

The event is one of many being held across the country as part of the National Alternative Fuel Vehicle Day Odyssey created by the National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium in 2002 and held every two years, according to a news release from Clean Cities of Greater Baton Rouge.

Clean Cities is a program started by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Program.

For more information, or to register for the symposium, go to http://www.gbrccc.org.