Everyone wants carbon-free transportation. Fleet operators, port authorities, logistics companies — the ambition is real and the regulatory pressure is building fast. But there's a question almost no one is asking:
Where does the electricity actually come from?
Because right now, in most of the United States and large parts of Europe, plugging an EV into the grid doesn't mean zero emissions. It means shifting those emissions upstream — to a power plant you never see.
The U.S. electrical grid carries a carbon intensity score of 130 gCO₂e/MJ — the highest carbon intensity score among all energy options, including conventional propane and natural gas, both of which score 80.
Let that sink in. The grid — the infrastructure we're betting the entire EV transition on — is dirtier than propane. Today. At scale.
Propane is already winning the carbon comparison
A life-cycle analysis on medium- and heavy-duty vehicles found that propane-powered MD-HD vehicles carry a lower carbon footprint than electric vehicles charged from the grid in 38 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. This isn't a fossil fuel lobby talking point. This is lifecycle science accounting for how power is actually generated, transmitted, and consumed.
And that's conventional propane. When you move to renewable propane (rPG), the picture becomes dramatically cleaner.
Conventional propane has a carbon intensity of approximately 79, but renewable propane can carry a CI as low as 7 to 20.5 depending on the feedstock available. At the point of combustion, renewable propane is carbon neutral.
The primary benefit is a carbon intensity that can be roughly four times lower than conventional propane and roughly six times lower than the U.S. electrical grid today.
Renewable propane is made from sustainable sources such as plant oils, animal fats, and used cooking oil — molecularly identical to conventional propane, which means it runs in existing infrastructure with no modifications required.
The bridge the industry is missing
The real bottleneck in decarbonizing transportation isn't the vehicle. It's the power that charges it.
Grid connections at fleet depots, ports, and logistics hubs face 6+ year utility lead times. Substations are overloaded. Demand is surging faster than infrastructure can follow. In this environment, the cleanest EV on the road is only as green as the generator — or grid circuit — feeding it.
This is exactly why we built the GX230.
The GX230 is a 200 kW continuous, plug-and-play distributed power platform engineered from day one to run on multiple fuels including LPG/propane, natural gas, HVO, and hydrogen blends. It deploys in 48 to 72 hours at any site where the grid can't go, or won't go fast enough. And it is managed by Power OS, our embedded AI Energy Management System that optimizes fuel selection, load dispatch, and cost-per-kWh in real time.
When the GX230 runs on renewable propane, the math becomes compelling:
- A CI of 7 to 20 gCO₂e/MJ at the generation source
- No grid infrastructure investment, no substation upgrade
- 200 kW continuous — enough to simultaneously charge multiple heavy-duty EVs
- Power OS tracking Scope 1 & 2 emissions per kWh, per session, per vehicle
That's not a bridge fuel. That's a clean power platform deployable today, before the grid catches up.
The bigger picture
As the United States aims for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, innovations in renewable fuels are essential. Renewable propane, with its lower carbon intensity, fits within existing energy infrastructure — which is precisely the point.
Decarbonization doesn't have to wait for a perfect grid. It doesn't require stranded infrastructure investments. It requires intelligent, dispatchable, low-carbon power at the point of use.
By 2050, renewable propane could fulfill half of the world's propane demand, according to the World Liquid Gas Association — and the supply ramp is already underway. A 2024 analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that daily production of renewable biogases, including rPG, would surge from 19,000 barrels in 2023 to 51,000 barrels per day in 2025.
The fuel supply is scaling. The vehicles are ready. What the industry needs is the intelligent generation layer between them.
That layer is the GX230.
Carbon-free transportation isn't a single technology. It's a system — and propane is a critical, underestimated part of it. At Immedia Power, we're building the infrastructure that makes the full system work, wherever the grid is years away from being ready.
If you're operating a fleet, managing a port, or building EV charging infrastructure — and you're serious about real decarbonization, not just compliance optics — I'd like to talk.
A version of this piece is also published as a LinkedIn article by Rony Baum, CEO & Co-Founder of Immedia Power.