We've got gas. Why not use it?

[John Ranalletta]

What's the rationale for ignoring LNG and other forms of natural gas, propane, etc. in the carbon effort

 

Gas is cheap, plentiful, has some distribution infrastructure in place, could replace diesel entirely, is not an experimental fuel; doesn't displace food stocks, burns more cleanly than gas/diesel fuel.

 

 

 

[Dave McReynolds]

They are certainly not ignoring it. I was in Pinedale, WY a few weeks ago, which has turned into something of a boom town in recent years because of all the gas drilling going on around there. I drove into town, casually expecting to get a cheap motel room to spend the night and clean up after a backpacking trip, only to find out that not only were all the motels booked up, but most of the rooms were permanently rented by the gas field workers. Other than the inconvenience of having to scramble around to find a room, and pay Best Western prices for a Motel 6 style room, it was nice to see some people doing well in this economy!

[Twisties]

Who says we're ignoring it? Here in UT a lot of the State and government fleet runs on it, and we have tax credits for conversions. T Boone Pickens is pushing it nationwide. I don't see it as ignored at all.

 

How much does it reduce carbon? Very little I think. However it may be a good thing for other air pollutants and for energy security.

 

My concern is that we adopt it, not that we ignore it. Ultimately we need to get entirely off of fossil fuels for mainstream uses.

[smiller]

Far from being ignored natural gas is the second most common energy source for electrical power generation in the US (behind coal), which also means it will soon be 'filling up' a lot of electric cars.

[Woodie]

It has a lower energy density than gas/diesel. (Less BTUs per gallon).

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

I had an email exchange with my dad and brother this spring regarding CNG vehicles. Here's what I wrote them.

 

=====================

 

Did a bit of digging on CNG cars. Found this page on the Consumer Reports website that summarizes things pretty nicely:

 

http://tinyurl.com/aur2pu

 

I also went digging on Honda's website. The Honda Civic CNG is currently the only production CNG vehicle available in the US. A comparison with the non-CNG version of the Civic is instructive:

 

========================

 

The CNG Civic sells for $25,190 ($4,000 federal tax credit leaves owner with final cost of $21,190)

 

24/36 MPG, city/highway

 

8 "gasoline-gallon-equivalent" tank capacity, for 290-mile highway range

 

========================

 

The Civic-LX (the trim package most similar to the CNG version) sells for $18,255

 

26/34 MPG, city/highway

 

13.2-gallon tank capacity, for 450-mile range

 

========================

 

For privately-owned vehicles filling up at retail gas stations, the price difference between gasoline and CNG historically hasn't been very large. Yahoo (http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center-article_114/) says that in 2006 the per-gallon price difference was only 24 cents. Gasoline went a little crazy last year of course, but given that gasoline is back down to 2006 prices, I'd bet we're back to a 24-cent-per-gallon delta again. You'd have to buy over 12,000 gallons of fuel (and drive 440,000 highway miles) to recover the $2900 difference in purchase price between the two vehicles.

 

You can can drastically reduce your CNG cost by buying a home CNG filling station (http://www.myphill.com/) that takes CNG from your house at a much lower cost than what you pay at a retail gas station. The two big disadvantages with this are the cost ($5,500 to buy/install the Phill system in your garage), and the fill time (the system has to pump CNG up to 3600 psi to stuff it into your car's tank, which literally requires overnight-filling). I don't know how much CNG costs from your house's line, but even if it were absolutely free, you'd have to drive almost 200,000 miles to recover the cost of the Phill system. That's on top of the 440,000 miles you already have to drive to recover the vehicle's price premium.

 

While there are environmental and foreign-policy advanages that come with CNG vehicles, clearly it currently does not make any economic sense at all for a private vehicle owner to buy a CNG vehicle. Other turnoffs:

 

- the average joe's fear of CNG (despite its actual safety advantages over gasoline);

 

-range anxiety (we can argue about its rationality, but rightly or wrongly, this anxiety does exist for many drivers);

 

-the CNG tank sits in the trunk, where it substantially reduces cargo capacity; and

 

-the only production CNG vehicle is the Honda Civic. If buying American cars is important, then CNG (in an out-the-door production vehicle) will not be an option.

 

-extremely limited availabiltiy of CNG at retail gas stations.

 

CNG vehicles are popular with fleet owners because the cost of their own private filling system gets distributed over their entire fleet. With cheap CNG available on site, fleet vehicle purchase-price discounts, and a fleet that quickly racks up miles, they can recover a CNG vehicle's purchase premium in a reasonable time frame.

 

Aftermarket CNG conversion kits are available for virtually any vehicle (see https://www.cngoutfitters.com/orders/new ), but they're not cheap either. a conversion kit, including installation, runs about $3000 for a 4 or 6-cylinder engine. Note that this is pretty much the price difference between the CNG and gasoline versions of the Honda Civic, so you're back to driving astronomical distances to recover that cost. The company at the above link does offer fleet conversion discounts, which again helps to explain the popularity of CNG in fleet vehicles.

 

In the end, you'll have to see a very large increase in gasoline prices (or a major shift in consumers' environmental/foreign-policy sensibilities) before CNG becomes popular with the masses.

 

[John Ranalletta]

My concern is that we adopt it, not that we ignore it. Ultimately we need to get entirely off of fossil fuels for mainstream uses.

That's a multi-century pipe dream unless we start building nukes and fast.

[John Ranalletta]

They are certainly not ignoring it.

Relatively speaking, we are as a nation. They are no efforts locally except for the local gas company vehicles.

 

In the early 80's, I want to remember riding in a natural gas powered GM car in Rotterdam.

[John Ranalletta]

You can can drastically reduce your CNG cost by buying a home CNG filling station (http://www.myphill.com/) that takes CNG from your house at a much lower cost than what you pay at a retail gas station. The two big disadvantages with this are the cost ($5,500 to buy/install the Phill system in your garage), and the fill time (the system has to pump CNG up to 3600 psi to stuff it into your car's tank, which literally requires overnight-filling). I don't know how much CNG costs from your house's line, but even if it were absolutely free, you'd have to drive almost 200,000 miles to recover the cost of the Phill system. That's on top of the 440,000 miles you already have to drive to recover the vehicle's price premium.

Why wouldn't existing petrol stations who're already connected to gas supply, pump and store for faster transfer?

 

I like the Blue Rhino approach. Pick up and leave a tank. With a replaceable tank setup, I think distribution and availability could match existing petrol systems in a heartbeat.

[John Ranalletta]

It has a lower energy density than gas/diesel. (Less BTUs per gallon).

If you buy into the carbon argument, that's a small price to pay.

[smiller]

But a 440,000+ mile payback isn't an insignificant issue even if you do buy into the carbon argument. Although it's not as efficient from an energy utilization standpoint it's much more practical to convert the gas to electricity for electric vehicles (recovering carbon at the generation source) than to try to use it as a motor fuel, especially when you take infrastructure development costs into account. It's true that an electric vehicle still has a price premium issue to overcome but at least you pay the premium once in order to use several different base energy sources instead of only one.

[David]

T Boone Pickens is pushing it nationwide. I don't see it as ignored at all.

 

Nope. He gave up on that roll-out, essentially, when crude prices when back down. It's not a market driven idea any time in the near future.

 

On another subject, some of our Arab neighbors are trying to convert it to petroleum, if I recall correctly.

[John Ranalletta]

440,000+ mile payback

Based upon what calculation? If we are in such a dire situation relative to peak oil and carbon death, petrol will be selling at $10-20/gal w/i the decade, right?

 

I'd offer at those prices and with the US sitting on huge reserves of natural gas, the economics will work out.

 

If OTOH we can predict gas prices to stay under $5 for the foreseeable future, what's the problem?

[Selden]

At root, it's a matter of cost and convenience (which is just another form of cost). CNG for transportation has significant subsidies already, and is used mostly for short range fleet vehicles, where the owning entity can provide its own fueling infrastructure at an acceptable cost.

 

I just did a quick search, and as far as I can see, carbon footprint arguments for CNG are all over the place. The "best" reports that I found are by a Swiss firm, Atlantic Consulting, but they were written for SHV Gas so I'm not sure how objective these reports are. "LPG’s Carbon Footprint Relative to Other Fuels" gives diesel about the same carbon footprint as LPG, while "LPG and Local Air Quality" gives a relatively large footprint to diesel (although improving "clean" diesel technology may be changing that). The reports are free, so read them and form your own conclusions.

 

As an intermediate step, diesel-electric would probably be the most effective transportation solution. Eventually battery technology is going to improve to the point where all electric vehicles are truly practical.

 

A VW TDI would probably be my first choice today -- IF VW could make a reliable car, which is debatable.

[E30TECH]

What's the rationale for ignoring LNG and other forms of natural gas, propane, etc. in the carbon effort

 

Gas is cheap, plentiful, has some distribution infrastructure in place, could replace diesel entirely, is not an experimental fuel; doesn't displace food stocks, burns more cleanly than gas/diesel fuel.

 

 

 

I thought you stole my idea....I'm working on a special pair of underpants that seals out atmosphere, has a hose built in with a check valve (to avoid suck-back), which goes to a storage 'bladder'. Once the bladder is full, you disconnect it and connect it to the special methane port in the dash.

 

So far, I have only come up with the pants. Interfacing the bladder system has proven difficult.

 

[Hermes]

E30TECH,

 

You are on the right track, keep working on it.

 

 

[Selden]

ROTFLMAO. I was on my first (and last) ocean cruise last winter, and I swear, if there was an on-board liposuction clinic, they would have been able to harvest enough fat to power the ship.

[John Ranalletta]

ROTFLMAO. I was on my first (and last) ocean cruise last winter, and I swear, if there was an on-board liposuction clinic, they would have been able to harvest enough fat to power the ship.

Seen any state fair crowds lately?