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US Wants Natural Gas As Major Auto Fuel Option
coondoggie writes "Natural gas has never been much of an option for U.S. car drivers, and it's going to take a lot of effort by the government and auto manufacturers to make it a viable alternative to gas. But that's just what a $10 million program from the Department of Energy's advanced project development group The Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy (ARPA-E) aims to start anyway. ARPA-E's Methane Opportunities for Vehicular Energy (MOVE) program wants to develop a system 'that could enable natural gas vehicles with on-board storage and at-home refueling with a five-year payback or upfront cost differential of $2,000, which excludes the balance of system and installation costs.'"
in before joke about farts.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Would a car be considered a propane accessory?
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
Given that a significant amount (enough to have a noticeable effect on prices) of our natural gas is coming from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) this will undoubtably affect the demand for NG produced by fracking. Given that so many questions are being raised about environmental and safety concerns about the process, is this a good idea?
This is a boring sig
...the dash should be able to show current city/highway milage readings ...info regarding tire pressure should be monitored ...links to Facebook and Twitter on the dash
the car propane conversion kit is as well as the tanks.
JOE JACK will help up.
a lot of things these days.. don't you think?
my sig pwns your sig
Why would we spend all the money and effort to convert any significant portion of our transportation fleet to something that's not even as efficient as existing hybrids for equivalent vehicles? See the analysis at http://www.grinzo.com/energy/2011/09/01/cng-vehicles-a-cheap-shiny-new-bridge-to-nowhere/ comparing gasoline, NG, and hybrid versions of the Honda Civic, for example.
A major shift to NG would tie the US to yet another fossil fuel and CO2 emissions far higher than we can tolerate, even if there is zero NG leakage and zero pollution from fracking, both of which would be ridiculous assumptions.
Toronto's transit system bought a bunch of natural gas-powered buses a decade or so ago, and they were great until the price of NG skyrocketed. Those are gone, and we now have hybrid electric ones, which seem to work just fine. NG is not a mass-market vehicle fuel.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
I would convert my current car or SUV to LNG/CNG if there is a way to convert and get the CNG/LNG gas at the pump station
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WBiTnBwSWc&feature=youtu.be&t=15m48s
I remember when I visited my family in Pakistan back in 1999. My uncle had a switch under the dashboard of his car which switched the fuel source from gasoline to CNG (compressed natural gas) while he was driving, with the CNG being stored in a tank in the trunk. He'd switch to gasoline when driving around the mountains of the capital for the extra power but otherwise keep it at CNG because natural gas was cheaper. This car hadn't come with CNG - the conversion had cost a few hundred dollars (US dollars, I don't remember the price in rupees) for his 1980's model sedan.
Honda sells (or sold) a natural gas Civic. Home refueling equipment already exists.
Am I missing something, or is the government just way behind again?
Free as in speech, free as in beer, or free as in lunch?
in the late 70's early 80s it was a bootleg fuel that was commonly used on many leases and ranches. as long as you didn't cross pavement it was legal.
if you hit a formation high, you had a gas well like it or not. at that time natural gas pipelines didn't extend as far as they do now so you were forced to complete it and then cap it. they would run it thru what i guess you'd call a still. it was a series of compressors and refrigerators until it was liquid. add a quart of 30 weight for ever 55 gallons to stabilize it and it ran like gas. worked until they introduced catalytic converters.
- The after market conversion leaves the existing gasoline system intact and adds the natural gas package to the vehicle. The installation of a natural gas system includes a cylinder that is mounted underneath, in the back of the truck or in the trunk of a car. One 70-litre cylinder equals 18 litres of gasoline and weighs approximately 160 pounds.
Cost Based on a typical ½ ton truck
$9000 - Conversion w/ 2 - 70 litre cylinders
$1.0090 - Gasoline Pump Price per litre
$0.4790 - Natural Gas Pump Price per Litre Equivalent of Gasoline
$0.5300 - Savings per Litre Displaced
$2.409 - Savings per Gallon Displaced
15 mpg gasoline mileage
$160.63- Savings per Thousand Miles
56,031 miles - Miles on Natural Gas Required to Recover Cost of Conversion
I used to work for the local gas company. For decades they've had a compressed natural gas conversion for cars and a small compressor setup for the home at reasonable startup cost ($2,500 at the time). The range wasn't great, (for range you need LNG) but it was better than today's all electric cars and you could fuel up at home in a much shorter time than with electric. The fleet all ran on natural gas, filling up at their own company-maintained filling stations, and besides being cheaper and having lower emissions, as a collateral benefit they were getting exceptional life from the engines of their fleet vehicles.
As I was interested in this conversion myself and only learned about it by accident, I struck up a conversation with the head of marketing asking why they weren't promoting it, since it was an existing solution that people could buy for their own vehicles if they only knew about it.
And most importantly, in most areas the distribution network is already in place, something that Electric is currently struggling with.
He said that the company was under pressure not to promote a consumer compressed natural gas solution for automobiles. He was unwilling to say where the pressure was coming from. I always wondered about that.
So, in short, the solution already exists, exactly as described, and has since at least the nineties. As far as I can see, there's nothing to develop here, just remove the roadblocks to existing solutions.
Mind you, it works best for dedicated commuter and in-town cars, because to keep the cost and complexity down, the car *only* runs on compressed natural gas, and CNG does not have the energy per volume as either LNG or gasoline. But in my opinion CNG is more practical than electric in several respects, not the least of which there are no batteries to replace/recycle.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I was in Pakistan a few weeks ago, and saw this everywhere. Nearly every car and Rickshaw was running on CNG.
Must. Not. Tear. Hair. Out. Over. Painful. Forced. Acronym.
Here's a few reasons why:
1) 20-70% lower emissions than gasoline
2) Renewable resource*
3) Literally anyone would be able to grow and distill their own fuel, virtually eliminating (as opposed to "reducing") our dependence on foreign and cartel oil
4) Myriad of other uses: cooking fuel, rocket fuel, antiseptic properties, etc.
5) converting current auto fleet from gasoline to ethanol is an amazingly simple process; some new gaskets, rejetting the injectors, and adjusting the timing. Most modern CC, FI vehicles probably wouldn't require anything more than a quick reprogramming.
*To head off the absolute morons who will inevitably piss and moan about the use of foodstock for fuel - you're morons; Shut up.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Natural gas cars tend to have half the mileage of a gasoline car. Better than electricity, but it is still less efficient energy storage than gasoline.
Of course, it is still a fossil fuel. That means there is a limit on how much exists and also that it pollutes, though not as much as gasoline does.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I would rather have (minor) damage to the environment than to continue to pay Hundreds of Billions of dollars a year to people who hate our guts and will kill after we (inadvertently) burn some of their holy books (despite our president's gracious apology).
From what I've read, the environmental damage is "minor; some low level seismic activity and perhaps some pollution of water supplies. So charge a little more for the natural gas coming out of these rural (low population density) communities and pay for piped in water or buy them out.
When you compare the TREMENDOUS costs our reliance on oil from the middle-east costs us (two wars, huge standing forces in bases all throughout that region, alliance with ethically dubious regimes) IN ADDITION TO the outrageous price we are paying for the oil, these minor concerns are nothing. (Remember all those jobs, money, infrastructure and technology developed will go right here in the old US of A). Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Also, natural gas is (much?) more carbon "lite" than Crude Oil.
CNG or Compressed Natural Gas vehicles are quite common in India. It started out a decade ago when the big cities in India started converting buses to run on CNG instead of diesel to curb pollution. Then, taxis got converted. Now, you can get your private vehicle fitted with a CNG conversion kit or you can directly buy a CNG version of your car from the manufacturer. I haven't driven one myself, but have spoken to lots of cab drivers. Even if you ignore the environmental benefits, the running cost of CNG is less than half of diesel or gasoline.
The other take on this is to have more power generation plants use CNG instead of coal. I find it highly inefficient to transport energy chemically instead of electrically. If you were developing software, this is how you would abstract your layers. Human beings suck at change. The only time we refactor anything in our lives is if we are forced to do it - like a war or an economic crisis or something similar.
As you may have heard, thanks to the advances in fracking, natural gas is now abundant and will remain so for some time. Probably decades. Yes, fracking sometimes contaminates groundwater, but it isn't the end of the world when that happens. Filters, pipelines, it's just a matter of recognizing the problem and solving it.
Economically, natural gas is the way to roll at the present time. We can run our cars on it and power our houses. We can also run 18-wheelers and trains off it. The only thing that natural gas isn't appropriate for are airplanes, because it has slightly less fuel density and because airplanes are incredibly expensive.
Furthermore, at some future data, renewable solar energy may become cheap as the sand the solar cells are made from. We might be able to cover whole deserts for very little money. At that point, one easy way to store and use the power is to use it to synthesize natural gas (by electrolyzing water to hydrogen and combining it with CO2). Could get the CO2 from existing natural gas burning power plants and coal burning plants.
The CO2 from burning natural gas may contribute to global warming, but it does NOT harm the ozone layer and it does NOT give people lung cancer. Those are rather significant advantages over burning coal.
Nuclear Power generated Cryo H(2) and O(2) by water electrolysis is best, it has a higher SI. It gives a nice white flame when you put your foot down. Car crashes are a bit like a hypobaric fuel/air bomb though! :0)
The purpose of existence is to make money.
Just rezone residential tract suburbs. Put a small commercial zoning glob in the middle, compensate adjacent owners for the depreciation that comes from being adjacent to commercial zoning. The new zoning is inclusive of a list of services beneificial to the community (e.g., groceries, dentists, offices, restaurants, etc.) so that businesses will understand from the get-go what they can and cannot do there.
Then let the somewhat freer market take care of this. We will see automotive passenger-miles reduced DRAMATICLY.
The best solution is a combination of wise government action and the free market. That's why we will never come anywhere clost. It doesn't fit the ideological molds of either extreme.
Let's invest in fossil fuels instead of public transit, better urban planning, and pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. Our grandchildren will thank us.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
What happens to my heating bill when everyone suddenly decides to use CNG for transportation? Do we have anything near the kind of production to maintain the current low cost of CNG, or would we suddenly see CNG going for comparable prices to gasoline?
If you want to know the future of energy, listen to this Chris Martenson lecture, I believe scary times are ahead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WBiTnBwSWc
As for natural gas.... right now proven world reserves stands at stands at 191T m^3. The US has about 7T m^3, and a huge chunk of the rest is in Russia and Iran, which are not exactly friendly to us nor have we exactly been cultivating decent relationship with them. Since China is scouring the globe for energy sources, I assume they have or will get long term contracts from one or both of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_proven_reserves
Our world usage last year was 168T ft^3 according to this:
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/nat_gas.cfm
Google tells me that is equal to 3.2T m^3.
So at current rates, assuming 100% extraction, we have 60 years of Natural Gas. The best case at current usage for proven reserves, much of which are in hostile countries.
The IEA predicts a 2.2% increase in demand annually. Using the rule of 70, that's a doubling time of ~32 years. That cuts down the best case scenario for Natural Gas down to 39 years, at current uses, meaning we don't start leaning on it heavily for transportation and the like.
Now, the scientist in my top link talks about how if everyone switched over to electric cars, they would have to go from 300 generating plants to 3,000. One order of magnitude, 10x. Without doing specific calculations, perhaps we can assume that could carry over to natural gas if used extensive for personal transportation. How many years then?
Yes, NG can be used in conjunction with oil and other energy sources and carry us for a while longer until we find a real solution.
Interesting that we see many optimistic posts on /. about alternative energy sources regularly, electric cars, etc. but the post about using Natural Gas as fuel begins with this pessimism "...Natural gas has never been much of an option for U.S. car drivers, and it's going to take a lot of effort by the government and auto manufacturers to make it a viable alternative to gas..."
-Styopa
He said that the company was under pressure not to promote a consumer compressed natural gas solution for automobiles. He was unwilling to say where the pressure was coming from. I always wondered about that.
He was most probably talking out of his ass.
It doesn't matter if someone is an industry peon. They know shit.
Period.
Anymore than us IT guys who worked in the mortgage industry knew that shit would have hit the fan.
We're and they're peons.
The folks that really know won't say.
Those that do know, won't say and they'll take their money.
This is not about what the US wants. This is about what one part of the US government wants -- specifically, the part of the US government that gains power from natural gas as an auto fuel.
Actual US citizens just want cheap transportation options. We will switch to natural gas or any other fuel when the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
This fracking is not the gas reserves you are looking for.
That would be gas hydrates. Magnitudes greater resource base.
same thing in Lebanon... but the government needs to revise a careful standard, and safety laws for this. in lebanon, it was all done chaotically, in private specialist shops, in ways that adhere to no safety standards at all, resulting in a lot of nasty accidents. same thing for converting cards from normal fuel to red or green gasoline. if not done appropriately, you could total the engine.
my sig pwns your sig
This need shouldn't be a surprise. We've known for one reason or another that we needed less foreign energy dependence since 1973. Pile onto that the needs for cleaner air, less carbon, etc because we've known about that too.
Sadly, the President who could've really capitalized on this was Jimmy Carter. He was the first President elected after the 1973 embargo when it was still somewhat fresh in the public's mind. If he had started us down the road of CNG then, this would be a done deal. Sadly he either didn't want to do it or was too incompetent to do it (based on everything else he screwed up, I'd guess the latter.)
No President since Carter has had any interest in doing that (especially those that were Texas oilmen,)
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
As energy subsidies go, this is so small as to be not worth discussing.
Over the last century, oil and gas subsidies have averaged ~$4 billion a year. So this is nothing.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Subsidies-For-Oil-Gas-Nuclear-vs.-Renewables/
Obooboo wants this as a re-election gimmick
Perhaps the best "alternative fuel" is an alternative to fuel... not using one at all. (or lessening how much is used).
If the government wants to look out for our long-term energy requirements perhaps there should be an incentive to get coorporations to have a larger % of their workforce work remotely from home.
This could be done with tax-reductions for non-on site workers. If we spend less on commuting- that is less money exported overseas to buy fuel (or more fuel that we can save/export). It would mean less money spent on road construction/repairs. Less money spent on policing. Less money spent on traffic problems. Less pollution.
Overall it makes a lot of sense.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
It's exactly the same thing in Argentina.
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
You want to change how we use Fuel, increase the price of gas to $10 a gallon. That will cause people to make changes, I guarantee it!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Here in Italy, we do have cars that have both a gas tank and a natural gas "bottle" as a standard, factory - equipped car. Fiat, which now has a controlling stake in Chrysler, builds a number of compact cars equipped with both tanks, so transfering the manufacturing technology to the US would be straghtforward.
the big issue here, in my view, is that natural gas is too good a energy source to waste it in combined cycle gas fired plants, which have become a staple generating plant here in Italy. Since other available energy sources (i.e. coal) are less easily used for trasportation purposes, I think the purpose is to encourage use in order to diminish dependency on oil.
One small aside: I live in Turin, and we've had natural gas distribution for transport here for three reasons: we've had one of the first cogeneration plants here in Italy just outside the city, publice buses here have also been converted to natural gas, and another similar plant has been built recently on the other side of the city since over 50% of the homes draw heat from the waste water of those plants. Apart from that, Fiat has its headquarters here, and I think it had a subsidy to put into production a hybrid gasoline/natural gas range of cars.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
Anybody who doesn't own their own home cannot use at home fueling. This is one of the reasons why Electric vehicles are less popular than they should be (the other being the inability to take road trips). For any new fuel to reach the American public, fueling must be available from convenient commercial or government stations.
He effected a bored affect.
The biggest problem, in my view, is that when cars start demanding lots and lots of natural gas to run, the prices will skyrocket - which in turn will make using Natural Gas for any other thing extremely hard.
Demand for natural gas is not really a major problem. Oil is at peak production and demand is predicted to skyrocket as China, India and various other countries continue to grow their middle class. So the next best (as in what we could use with *existing* technology) alternative has the same problem.
The advantage of natural gas is really that it is a domestic source that can last for quite a while. It could be the bridge that we need to get us through the decades of research and development that solar, wind, tidal, etc still needs. It keeps the money spent on fuel in the US. That is not just jobs but national security as well.
The conservatives have been going ape shit about light bulbs. Their reaction to this is giving me a preemptive headache.
Exactly the same thing in Mexico, too.
Isn't this the same old plan T Boon proposed. http://www.cnbc.com/id/46403675/T_Boone_Pickens_Natural_Gas_a_Game_Changer
It all starts at 0
I am a petroleum engineer. I love the ignorant comments about the IT man that watched Gas Land and is now an expert on fluid dynamics and hydraulic fracturing stimulation treatment. If you do about 5 seconds of research, it should be common sense that natural gas and oil are both surface phenomena (La Brea tarpits anyone?). Not surprising that there is a segment of the population that has natural gas in their tap water and they have the moment that their water well was drilled that put into pressure communication the aquifer and natural gas bearing sands.
Next time I need an engineering analysis about the risks of fracture stimulation, I am certain that the people with no engineering know-how (99% of people on this website) can provide me a detailed report!
Gas tanks can blow up during an accident even if punctured. In reality it is very (TV fantasy excloded) rare due to low air mixing ratios required to prevent ignition.
When CNG tanks under >3k PSI explode they leave craters in the ground where the vechicle once was. Even a compromised tank of ordinary air at that pressure is extremely dangerous.
Check out youtube there are several videos of what happens when CNG tanks explode.. Some occurances have been when the vechicle is left parked unattended.
I'm sure you can engineer the problem away but would the result be cost effective? How many craters would be needed to scare the rest of the market away?
We just need batteries that don't suck then you can use natural gas or whatever fuel is avaliable to fill up your vechicles.
Seriously, the NAT GAS act will spend 5B over 5 years for NEW commercial vehicles to switch to natural gas. Why? Because it builds up the manufacturing infrastructure. Many of the semi's get 5-8 miles to the gallon. If they get new vehicles to switch to Natural gas, then it will make a massive impact on imports as well as re-fueling stations. In particular, we will see truck stops pick up natural gas refueling to supply those vehicles. That will lead to more natural gas cars.
But all of this gets better. Multiple technology is being developed that converts coal to methane. These will allow for coal to compete directly against drilled natural gas. With the various technologies (electric cars, bio-fuels like Joules Unlimited, and now natural gas), America might no longer be importing oil within a decade. It is possible for us to no longer import oil except from out top 3 producers within 5 years, or less.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You can buy a natural gas powered car now, and have been able to for quite some time.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
They will get NO traction anywhere until high petroleum prices start to hit the wallets of fat cat businesses and politicians. The fact we we peons are down here sucking for air, trying to stay alive, means nothing to those people who control the money and power in the US. Oh, and I'm not talking class warfare, I'm talking simple economics -- supply and demand. You never give consumers a choice unless it is in your best interests (that is, profitability) to do so. So, go ahead, spit in one hand, and wish for alternative fuels in the other, and see which one fills up faster.
Yeah, except we CAN live without oil, we CAN'T live without clean water. Who cares, though, right? Just pollute all the rural water supplies permanently so you can feel better about the car you drive! Crop irrigation and potable water don't matter to you!
Shouldn't we be trying to get away from using fossil fuels for transportation? If they are trying to do this to get away from using gasoline because it is so high, what do you think is going to happen when we start using natural gas? Prices will skyrocket then as well. Probably sooner and higher prices then gas is now. It is all about supply and demand. I bet the day they make cars run on water, water will skyrocket as well. It is not about finding cheaper, more enviro friendly fuels, it about how much money can be made. Until the day cars run on air and man does something to benefit his fellow man not for some type of compesation, there will be no such thing as cheaper fuel. FYI the electric car has actually been around for almost 70 years.
The real problem is really more political.
We will get more efficient lower cost alternatives to gasoline when the fuel company monopolists are tired of raking in big fat bonuses on top of already bloated salaries.
Until then big gas can keep the bribes/super-pac donations coming to an extent that they can have any legislation quashed or de-fanged long before it comes close to doing harm.
They really need to be treated like the utility that they are but that would of course involve legislative changes so don't look for that around the corner.
A couple of years ago here in Massachusetts, all the service stations had to retrofit to duel hulled gas tanks. MA provided all kinds of zero or low interest loans. Apparently in the bill there was a line item that would have required any service station that had street access to NG to make one NG pump slot available. However, there weren't many NG vehicles on the road at the time and the gas station owners go together and lobbied to get it stripped from the bill with the argument that it would effectively deprive them of income. As someone who heats / cooks with NG, I'd be very happy to buy a NG equipped car. I could fill it up at my house!
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Gas gets carbon kudos for power generation because it emits half the CO2 of coal plants (per kWh), but gasoline has less carbon, so NG is only 25% less CO2 than a gasoline engine.
BUT - NG itself, basically methane, is acknowledged to be 20X as heat-retaining a GHG as CO2 is - so if even 1% leaks out, on the entire trip from wellhead to burning in the engine, it's about a wash. The gas industry claims it doesn't have anywhere near 1% leakage - but then, they would. Distribution to cars, and use in cars, can only add to the odds that leakage is 2% or more...and you're doing more environmental damage than with gasoline.
For those that scorn the global warming theory, though, it'll be a cheaper fuel for a few decades to come, courtesy of fracking.
How much longer can we burn carbon for fuel and do only "minor" damage to the environment? If we're going to switch away from gasoline, it makes sense to use the opportunity to switch away from carbon entirely.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Oh, I don't think ExxonMobil, Shell, BP et al. hate your guts as such. I think they're just happy to take your money, and don't want to pay for the physical and economic costs they've managed to externalise over the past 100 years or so.
And I don't think that you could really call Theory of Political Economy a holy book...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
I daresay that a war is a hell of a lot worse on the environment than fracking.
My only complaint is that CNG has so low energy content per volume. Now, if we can get LNG as a standard, just like we have with propane, that would be nice.
There is so much unconventional methane available that we can just about forget about any other source of energy for centuries to come. We're seeing the leading edge of this as new technology makes shale gas economically feasible.
http://www.naturalgas.org/overview/unconvent_ng_resource.asp
Obama wasn't fibbing when he said America is: "The Saudi Arabia of Natural Gas". http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/26/nation/la-na-obama-energy-20120127
I would imagine differences in safety requirements. A lot of other places in the world don't have the annual emission testing we do, which in large part is based on the type of fuel you're running and is ridiculously anal about anything that could alter you from their baselines, even if it won't show up in the testing.
However much like anything else if you're got a ton of money to piss on a set of equipment that's paid the 'bribe' for qualification, you can run whatever you want.
That's an overly cynical representation of the reasons, but the short answer is: 'barrier to entry combined with cost effectiveness'.
There's a high barrier to entry which keeps mostly the encumbents doing it, combined with the inability to reach a demand level that makes the kits available at a cost effective price. For a few hundred dollars you can get either a turbo kit or a water/methanol/alcohol injection kit, but in either case it's unlikely that kit will pass smog in smog controlled states (due to lack of certification), go look for a kit with the exact same components, but certified and you're looking at 3-15 thousand dollars USD.
The reason most innovative stuff doesn't make it's way to the US is because US 'free market capitalism' doesn't like competition.
Natural Gas (Methane) is likely the worst[0][1] possible choice for replacing gasoline. I don't understand how they arrived at this conclusion, other than by lobbyist funding from Big Oil/Big Energy to remain relevant with existing infrastructures.
[0] - http://www.epa.gov/methane/
[1] - http://www.google.com/search?q=methane+worse+for+climate+change&btnG=Search
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NG is more chemically reactive than CO2 and disappears from the atmosphere much faster. Half-live is a couple decades while CO2 may stay for centuries. Thats why its important to get a handle on CO2 quickly. Many natural chemical processes degrade methane such as UV and oxidation.
From what I've read, the environmental damage is "minor; some low level seismic activity and perhaps some pollution of water supplies. So charge a little more for the natural gas coming out of these rural (low population density) communities and pay for piped in water or buy them out.
Clean water is far more precious than cheap fuel.
The latest water number I could find is from 2005: Americans use 410 billion gallons of water per day (~9,762 million barrels)
The latest oil number I could find is from 2010: Americans use ~19.2 million barrels of oil per day
Based on usage, we can tolerate higher oil prices far easier than we can tolerate even slightly higher water prices.
Screw with our fresh water supply at your own peril
IN ADDITION TO the outrageous price we are paying for the oil,
Arguably, most of that price is the direct result of speculation and has nothing to do with actual supply/demand issues.
I recall reading somewhere that, in the past, the oil futures market was 70% actual demand and 30% speculation.
Now it's 70% speculation and 30% actual demand. If you want cheaper oil, force the speculators out of the market.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I think it's funny that they want CNG for cars, when CNG and Propane cars are completely gutless.
Basically CNG and Propane are on the "completely gutless" end of the scale, and is only really viable for flatland (pretty much everything east of the Rocky mountains.) Gasoline is in the middle, only being somewhat less gutless than diesel. The least gutless is electric. However when it comes to fuel storage, you get no range out of CNG/Propane or Electric.
Some years ago out local transit company bought a fleet of CNG buses... they were used for a few months and then mothballed. They are completely useless if your town is built on hills (eg San Francisco CA, Vancouver BC) because they have no ability to accelerate up a hill.
Not that I think it's a bad idea, but unless you only drive tiny cars (eg Honda Civic) and have no issues with them, you'd be fine with CNG. I've tried to drive sub 2.5L gasoline engines on the mountains here and they are so gutless that you're slowing down with your foot to the floor. I'd rather see CNG combined with a Hybrid to solve this problem.
Great. Just what my commute needs. A soccer mom in an 7000lb Suburban with a 20 gallon CNG tank strapped to it smashing into me. That ought to light up the night.
I'm sure they make the CNG tanks rugged but the first thing I do when I get into an accident is get out of the car and go for a smoke. Could you picture that? Sounds like a Pink Panther scene.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You can buy NG futures instead. They are almost giving the stuff away at the moment.
Also. Home filling systems already exist for CNG vehicles which already exist in the auto market.
This is from 2005...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgcNJWaO_Fw
So... not sure what the research is all about. You can buy conversion kits for most modern vehicles as well.
Deleted
you might want to figure out where a lot of your oil comes from. Trust me, those of us in Canada don't hate you that much....
I'm in Canada and own a propane vehicle. When I drive it in the US, I do it on gasoline, because propane is very expensive in the US--it's just a smidgen under the price of gasoline. Considering propane contains 15% less energy per litre than gas already, and that an engine not originally designed to work with propane (almost all of the propane vehicles out there are conversions) is going to get less than perfect power out of it, if propane isn't at least 25% less than gas, it's a bust.
I've paid 64.9 cents per litre at many propane stations in Ontario throughout the winter. That's $2.46 a gallon. Gas is $1.30 a litre here, or $4.92 a gallon. Clearly, even after losing 30% efficiency, the propane is the winning fuel. The pricing difference can't all be taxes, either. The difference in tax on the two is 10 cents a litre (in favour of Propane).
In the US last week I paid $3.64 a gallon for gasoline. The U-Haul (odd that they are almost the only place to fill a car with propane in the US, but I guess that's how you do things there--I only fill my propane car at gas stations in Ontario) was $3.41 a gallon for propane. Gasoline had the clear advantage even if you had an engine purpose built for propane--it's only 7% more expensive, for 15% more energy.
Natural Gas gives you even less bang for the litre. If the US can't sort out their propane prices, I expect Natural Gas will be overly expensive as well.
We've had the option for Natural Gas and Propane as vehicular fuel for quite some time now. Most taxi cabs in these parts (the Niagara Peninsula) run on propane already. Dual fuel, mind you. (Propane switchable to gas.)
This produces a few things: smelly cabs (namely the exhaust fumes), the increased prices for propane and Natural Gas (supposedly, due to increased demand), and limited options for refueling such vehicles.
The Good News: Natural Gas seems to be much more efficient and slightly less polluting than gasoline. Propane, not so much, but easier to get ahold of.
My guess is this: the US 'passes gas' and starts mass producing conversion kits and gets them all rolled out. Next step, watch the prices for said alternate fuels SOAR, as the Greed Factor(tm) kick into high gear, rendering the advantages null, while driving up the cost of heating and cooking in more remote rural areas off the charts. Some houses, farms and businesses have propane tanks as supply for their non-electrical heating needs, after all.
So, what exactly is this move supposed to accomplish? Diversification of the fuel choices? OK, I guess. More profit for the Greedy? Most likely.
What's next? All Electric cars that have been promised for a while now. Next to skyrocket? Electricity, as the demand for Vehicles causes that to jump as well.
How come there aren't vehicles and buildings covered with solar cells to recharge storage batteries, and a wind-generator in every back-yard yet?
Not that it'll make one lick of difference to actual cost-of-living, since the increased prices will just about make all of those things mandatory in the not-so-distant future...
Sorry. Just a wee bit cynical today ;)
Does he kill it by DISEMBOWELMENT?
They automatically switch from CNG to gas when the CNG runs out. You can also already get home filling compressors which will fill the vehicle at home from the domestic supply.
Thing is, you should probably look up "petrodollar" and "dollar hegemony" to understand how America's world dominance is tied to oil.
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Have to be seen to have been doing something.
It's so that when the other side say but what did you do about Natural Gas, they can say, we invented the Internet, we invented Natural Gas. etc. Plus they get to show how wonderful they are to be investing in R&D... Even if that R&D means going out and buying a Honda & blowing the rest of the tax money on beer, coke and hookers.
Re civic: just checked it's still on the market.
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It cost about 1/2 to fill up your vehicle for the nearly the same range. There were propane filling stations everywhere. Joe Gearhead had a couple of propane carbs sitting in his garage, because he had upgraded 3 or 4 times already and was now running a really good carb.
If you ran out of propane on the side of the, no worries, one of your buddies had the rig to fill up it up again.
I rode in a supercharged Chevy 1/2 ton with a motor built from the ground up for natural gas. Wow. Lots of fun.
I saw one guy in the middle of a big block build up for his seventies muscle car, the motor was being built for propane right from the beginning. Lots and Lots of horsepower. Solid. Cheap to run.
It was pretty much to the point that all the gear heads were just as comfortable with propane engines as gasoline engines. This was twenty years ago.
Then kaboom, the Alberta Government got greedy and taxed the crap out of propane until it was just as expensive as gasoline. Within 60 days, all the propane filling stations disappeared.
I don't know what that was all about. Low pollution, cheap operation for fleets, longer motor life, a developed and mature infrastructure. Cabbies, Couriers and Truck Drivers could make a buck. Ya. Kill it all.
Right now in Alberta, natural gas is pretty much considered a waste by product.
Prices are low. They cannot ship it overseas easily.
I would rather have (minor) damage to the environment than to continue to pay Hundreds of Billions of dollars a year to people who hate our guts and will kill after we (inadvertently) burn some of their holy books (despite our president's gracious apology)..
I didn't realize Canadians hated us so much. It would be helpful if you actually knew where our oil comes from, the largest exporter of oil to the US is Canada, followed by Mexico. If we spent all the money we do on our "oil wars" on renewable technology we wouldn't be so worried about oil exports. It's not about oil, it's about making men rich, oil is just a means to an end.
"not really a problem" based on what?
This has happened in countries that tried to adopt other things as fuel. Brasil had a law passed that demanded alcohol be used and they had to cut it precisely because of this situation (for them it was the sugar prices, I believe).
It doesn't matter how much natural gas you have, supply and demand will fixate the prices. It won't take a year, or even two, but in 10 you'll be feeling it...
There is no real solution to this problem, but I strongly believe natural gas is not the way.
Another car (not CNG) that is fuel efficient will not be sold in the USA in 7-passenger version (Ford C-Max).
So for 7-passenger vehicles I am left with minivans that use tons of gas.
I do not care if car is better 30MPG because of "MPG illusion": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chart_MPG_to_L-100km_v2009-10-08.svg
From http://www.cars101.com/fuel_economy.html If your car gets an average of 70 MPG you used 214 US gallons driving 15,000 miles and it cost this much per year (divide by 12 for what it costs monthly): 48 mpg (uses 312 US gallons to go 15,000 miles) 45 mpg (uses 333 US gallons) 41 mpg (uses 366 US gallons) 38 mpg (uses 395 US gallons) 35 mpg (uses 429 gals) 33 mpg (uses 455 gals) 31 mpg (uses 484 gals) 29 mpg (uses 518 gals) 27 mpg (uses 556 gals) 25 mpg (uses 600 gals) 23 mpg (uses 653 gals) 21 mpg (uses 715 gals) 18 mpg (uses 834 gals) 15 mpg (uses 1000 gals) 12 mpg (uses 1250 gals) 8 mpg (uses 1875 gals)
continue to pay Hundreds of Billions of dollars a year to people who hate our guts and will kill after we (inadvertently) burn some of their holy books (despite our president's gracious apology).
Are you F**CKING kidding me? They don't hate our guts for burning a holy book. They hate our guts for killing their civilians by automated drones. As far as I know, our president has not yet to apologized for any of the civilians killed by the unmanned drones.
I mean by that, you put some shit in a barrel, keep it warm and the gas bubbles out as micro organisms digest the organic material in the fluid. You take the water, CO2 and hydrogen sulphide out of the gas and you can burn it in an engine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogas
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Europe has it too
Any gas car can be converted cheaply to run at half the cost, and you can fill up at the gas punp and run on both gpl and petrol
Energetically, 6000 sq. ft of natural gas = 1 barrel of oil, and anything that makes the transportation sector as a whole less dependent on liquid hydrocarbons (i.e. oil based petroleum), is desirable if you want to keep something resembling modern civilization going beyond the next 50 years or thereabouts.
I'm not saying we should keep modern civilization going, mind you, just that we need to diversify transportation fuel types to do it.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I'd really rather not have natural gas then be subject to the whims of the "market," with prices flying crazily up and down on speculation like gasoline. I worry that if it were to go that mainstream the Wall Street idiots would get their hands in there, and those of us heating our homes with gas would all be screwed while they take home record profits like the oil companies.
Every time a cheaper fuel alternative comes around everyone jumps on it and it doesn't stay cheap for long. I remember when diesel used to be half what regular used to be. Then everyone started buying diesel cars and pickup trucks. Now diesel costs more than regular. Then when the EPA cracked down on coal power plants and buses started burning natural gas and propane the cost to heat your home in the winter nearly doubled. The reason one thing is cheaper than another is basic economics. The supply is greater than the demand. As soon as the government artificially inflates the demand for one thing through taxes and regulations the price goes up. In a few years we'll probably be driving in electric / LNG vehicles while burning coal or oil in our homes to stay warm. Nonsense!
A little perspective, the Key Stone pipeline represents a $2bn tax subsidy for refineries based tax loop hole (which lord knows Congress isn't about to fix). Key stone represents taking oil sands, one of the most expensive sources of oil on the planet, and ships it to gulf coast refineries. Let there be no mistake, very little of that gasoline will sold in the US. Yes, the US imports 9bn barrels of Crude a day, but we're on track to export more than that amount in refined Gas, Diesel and Jet Fuel.
So I would suggest instead putting a mear $10m into a DoE project we put $2+bn into NG and LNG for comercial vehicles. And while we're at it, since Hydrogen is one of the major byproducts of NG and LNG production, why not work on putting that infrastructure in too at the same time for consumer vehicles?
Based on the fact that its competitor, oil, will also experience greater demand and increasing prices. So increased fuel prices occur regardless of whether we continue with oil or switch to natural gas. It doesn't seem to be much of a negative in this light. However natural gas remains domestic, in great supply, has cleaner emission when burned, etc.
And if you want to look out 10+ years there is a greater threat with oil prices than natural gas prices. You have referred to demand, but with oil being past peak production oil will also experience decreased supply. Keeping the transportation system on oil is far more risky than moving it to natural gas.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to just extract the natural gas from the debates in congress?
Daily read for tech news: Freezenet.ca
I didn't realize Canadians hated us so much. It would be helpful if you actually knew where our oil comes from, the largest exporter of oil to the US is Canada, followed by Mexico. If we spent all the money we do on our "oil wars" on renewable technology we wouldn't be so worried about oil exports. It's not about oil, it's about making men rich, oil is just a means to an end.
It doesn't matter where our oil comes from. Oil is traded on a global market, so problems in the Middle East raise our oil prices, because if they stop producing and we don't pay more, Canada will ship that oil to China or Europe. I suspect you know this and are replying to hyperbole with more hyperbole, but it's not helping.
http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-natural-gas/
I rode in something like that here in America. It was a fleet vehicle, a station wagon. It seemed pretty dumb to me to be carrying the weight of two fuel tanks and losing most of your storage to save a little on fuel prices. The CNG tank was usually empty, because there was only on station to fill it and that was at the main office, not where the vehicle was parked and used. That was more than 13 years ago.
CNG / gasoline dual fuel vehicles became popular in New Zealand in the late 1970's, when government subsidies were available for conversions. These days LPG is more popular due to the longer range (and the fact that LPG can be transported in tankers, so is available everywhere, not just where the natural gas pipelines go).
Yeah, but can you blame 'em for hating us? We keep making fun of the way they pronounce "about", winning the Stanley Cup, and calling them "America's Hat".
(Less than a quarter of the oil we import comes from the Middle East.)
Yeah, for $10M I can drive to the Honda dealer, and pick up one (a lot of?) of these CNG cars today with the at-home refueling station included.
Duh!!
http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-natural-gas/
The Honda plant is in Marysville, OH, about 25 miles from the Columbus Ohio land fill, which has a methane-from-trash refueling station at $0.25 a gallon equivalent.
http://www.jgpress.com/archives/_free/001740.html
The thing that is needed is a more comprehensive distribution infrastructure. For instance, right now, there is one major CNG refueling station - set up for cars/trucks - in Tucson, and a lot of RV type mom-and-pops.
AND Honda has a fuel cell vehicle that you can lease today.
And it's not like if we don't frack our oil and gas will magically show up at our door. ALL oil and gas exploration has an impact. It's actually, you could make the case that domestic production is a more responsible alternative, rather than passing it off as just a problem for the brown people half a world away that we buy it from...
250 miles on one tank is more than good enough for me..
and you can even design an engine to be dual fuel. That way you can do your day in day out workaday commuting on nat gas, and then if you ever have the need for extreme range you can go over to gas
Right, and all those canadian oil sands just magically turn themselves into gasoline, no environmental impact there, no none at all
I would rather have (minor) damage to the environment than to continue to pay Hundreds of Billions of dollars a year to people who hate our guts and will kill after we (inadvertently) burn some of their holy books (despite our president's gracious apology).
Those aren't the choices. The choices are: a, huge subsidies and wars to support the oil industry; or b, huge subsidies and wars to support the oil industry plus polluted groundwater and other environmental damage from fracking.
Oil emits far more pollutants than natural gas per equivalent barrel of oil, so if using natural gas reduces oil usage, it actually reduces damage to the environment.
ford contour. with a full tank of gasoline and a full tank (3500psi, i might add) of natural gas, i could go about 420 miles without stopping to refuel.
The tank was *HUGE* and getting service for this thing was impossibly complicated.
Took car to old school mechanic who'd never seen such a thing....his wife told me later than when he opened the hood and saw additional fuel lines and went and opened trunk where tank was "he about shit a brick...i never seen him move something out of his garage so fast as he did with your car".
Needless to say, without a mechanic that would repair/work on this car, the usefulness was somewhat diminished.
How much longer can we burn carbon for fuel and do only "minor" damage to the environment?
Sounds like several centuries at the least.
If we're going to switch away from gasoline, it makes sense to use the opportunity to switch away from carbon entirely.
We should have good reasons for doing so first. Coal is a fairly plentiful fuel while petroleum has somewhat greater supply issues.
Clean water is far more precious than cheap fuel.
Not in the least. For starters, clean water is a lot cheaper per gallon by about a couple orders of magnitude which is a very good indicator of its actual value.
Based on usage, we can tolerate higher oil prices far easier than we can tolerate even slightly higher water prices.
"Usage"? Like watering lawns, flushing toilets, and just letting water leak? I can't prove it, but I bet demand for oil is more inelastic than demand for water is.
Arguably, most of that price is the direct result of speculation and has nothing to do with actual supply/demand issues.
Speculation often is an expectation of actual future supply/demand issues. It often guesses wrong, but there's no reason to treat it as something completely disengaged from the normal functions of a market.
I recall reading somewhere that, in the past, the oil futures market was 70% actual demand and 30% speculation. Now it's 70% speculation and 30% actual demand.
These are numbers pulled out of someone's ass. Nobody knows trader motives to the extent they can make claims like that.
If you want cheaper oil, force the speculators out of the market.
Doesn't work that way. Think about it. What's the incentive to explore oil sources that aren't subject to the uncertainty that speculators are trading on? Answer is that it's the current high price of oil.
If you drive out the people who are thinking about the future rather than the now, then you will end up with a market that doesn't respond well to potential future problems.
1000 cubic feet of natural gas in the US (an MCF) contains the same energy as 6.8 gallons of diesel. That much diesel will cost you, what, $25-30 ? An MCF of gas currently costs just under $2.50.
Obviously you have no idea on the performance of LPG (propane) cars. My car preforms almost exactly the same on petrol and LPG. Even towing heavy loads up hills is just not an issue.
The reason people hate the US is more complex than burning a few korans. Support for Israels theft of Palestine, bombing 19 coun tires since WW2 war based on lies in Iraq, hopeless muddling in Afghanistan are some of the reasons. You could try not interfering in other countries affairs for bloody once.
We already have the technology to make hydrogen on demand and we can burn it in normal engines. If they're gonna waste years, maybe they should research gasifiers. :/
I have a car, a V6, that by the flick of switch (factory installed) changes from LPG to petroleum and back again. There is zero detectable performance difference. I stomp the pedal it throws you back in the seat. It goes up mountains just fine. Fuel injection, oxygen sensors and timing chips are the great advantages in modern engines. The only noticeable difference is that LPG is half the price and if you keep the car in idle for a couple of minutes it automatically switches fuel until you get moving again.
CNG has the energy density of an old man farting into the intake manifold, whereas LPG (outside the US at least) half the price of gasoline & 3/4th as dense as gasoline. Still, why would you want this shit when biodiesel is right fucking there...
I am truly terrified.
Sorry, the notion that the Civic is a "tiny" car is ridiculous. The Fit, the Mazda 2, the Fiat 500 - those are tiny cars. The Civic is a reasonable size for anyone who doesn't have a family of more than 4.
My good friend bought a CNG Civic. She lives in a hilly part of northern California, and hasn't had any problems. She's also saved a boat-load of money and only needs an oil change once every some ridiculously high number of miles (because burning CNG produces virtually no particulates).
We don't have the tech to switch away from carbon NOW.
What we need to do NOW is to do the cheapest thing we can, so we have the money left over to develop the right thing.
The right thing is electric cars, and the right source for electricity is probably solar and/or geo. If we erect windchargers for as far as we can see no matter where we stand in the USA, it might be enough, but probably not. We can probably use solar-thermal in the SW deserts to do electric cars 100% if we just keep building. That might best be effected by charging electric car batteries right at the solar farm site, and shipping the charged batteries by rail (extremely energy effficient) to where they need to be to be changed out from the electric car that has spent batteries, and shipping those spent batteries back to the solar farm for charging. Eliminates the need for building power wire distribution systems, with their IR losses as well.
i seem to recall this discussion coming up now and again. it always boils down to how safe the vehicle is if it were to be in a collision.
Here in New York State, we've had discussions about the effect on other vehicles if your vehicle is equipped with a front crash bar or plow-frame. They were all set to get these things banned just because it would supposedly cause more damage than the standard bumper in a front-on collision.
Now they want to start incorporating CNG or LNG tanks into these vehicles people never seem to properly care for?
Wow....the hole in the pavement after an accident is going to be legendary!
....Be aware of the downsides of using compressed natural gas as motor fuel:
1. You need bigger fuel tanks to get decent range, which will impede on interior space of a motor vehicle.
2. The fuel tank has to be made strong, either by using heavier metal or quite expensive composite structures.
3. People need to be aware that natural gas is EXTREMELY explosive (a natural gas explosion is much more destructive than a gasoline explosion) and will need far stricter safety procedures for refueling CNG tanks.
CNG works best for public transit such as buses, minibuses and taxis, where very long range is not so much an issue.
Think pig and dairy farms. Also consider feed lots and municipal waste treatment plants. There is a nearly endless supply of methane there that just needs the proper processing techniques to harvest it. I remember reading 15+ years ago about pilot projects at Texas A&M on developing these techniques. Plus harvesting and burning it keeps the methane from escaping to the atmosphere where it has a higher effect than CO2 on the greenhouse effect.
Renewable and non fossil.
It does not make sense to power my Jeep Wrangler with natural gas. lower horsepower, lower mpg, and just think about the Kaboom factor as I'm 3 wheeling down some trail in the Rhode Island desert this summer (yes there is a desert in RI, that's what happens when a mine poisons the environment, nothing grows) A diesel engine that will run on any form of oil makes sense to me. heating oil, kerosene, veggie oil, bio-diesel
Do the people of the United State of America want this? Do control freaks of other's lives want this?
We already have the technology to make hydrogen on demand and we can burn it in normal engines.
You mean making hydrogen with electricity, with many electrical generation plants being coal fired and the electric grid already having delivery issues and increasing demand? Hydrogen won't really be practical on a large scale until solar and wind make some advancements. So it is not really an immediate short term solution.
Same here in Italy..I own a Opel Zafira 1.6 CNG that came directly transformed from factory with CNG. Here in Italy there are a lot of pump station for refuleing methane see http://www.metanoauto.com/modules.php?name=Distributori&p=1 ....
My car is absolutely ok with methane
Bye
Oil is fungible, to the point where Mexico is sending crude to US refineries to be cracked using natural gas and then the finished petroleum products are being shipped back to Mexico.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
"Free" public transportation will reduce 50% demand on imported crude oil.
Casteism
A recently published review article suggests Australia would benefit from a proposed move to NG for light commercial and passenger vehicles, so why not? http://www.qscience.com/doi/full/10.5339/stsp.2012.1#fulltextTab%23
Intelligent post. There has to be a compromise between environmental safety and national security policy. Continuing to dirty our mitts and int'l reputation with a foreign policy skewed by acquiring oil is epic silly.