Converting to natural gas instead of oil based gas for cars?
we no longer would be dependent on OPEC and we could tell them to kiss off next time they wanted to raise the cost of oil to 100 dollars a barrel. We could have the automobiles run on both natural gas or unleaded fuels and our country has more natural gas than the Arabs have oil
My vehicles run on natural gas right now. I have a 1999 Ford Crown Vic and a 1998 Ford F-150 pickup truck. Both were made originally to run on natural gas and have done quite well for years. The Vic has 147,000 miles on it and is doing great. Natural gas is easier on engines than gasoline and much cleaner for the environment, too. Also a lot cheaper, in Utah at least, – 88 cents a gallon as of March 1, 2009. It’s a great feeling to drive around in American cars and never use a drop of foreign oil. It can be done; we just need a better infrastructure for fueling the cars. Not a big deal. Actually, if you have natural gas coming into your home for heating/cooking, you can buy a filling device that refuels your car overnight at home so you’d never have to go to a filling station again. I saw an old government document online that said there are trillions of cubic yards of natural gas hydrates just off the west coast and in Alaska, so once that source is tapped, we truly could tell OPEC to "kiss off". There are a lot of possibilities!
Yes, it’s quite possible once the infrastructure is in place. it’s less polluting also.
Here in Australia a lot of the buses run on natural gas so there’s no problem doing it.
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It is possible.. but most cars cannot run on natural gas at this time..
It will take modifying cars to run on it (I think it takes a new fuel system) and a fuel storage system.. for compressing it and carrying it around. It will also take an infrastructure of natural gas refueling stations.. right now there is a very limited number of places you can refuel..
However, your assumption is a probably wrong that cars will be able to run on both natural gas and unleaded fuels at the same time. (btw unleaded fuels are petroleum based so). I do not think the fuel system will allow cars to run on both.. so it is mutually exclusive.
Finally, car based natural gas storage systems may be more dangerous in an accident than gasoline based cars.. Natural gas will explode more easily so there are safety considerations also.
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Prepare for all possibilities.
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Take a look at all the OPEC nations, all high amounts of NGVs. India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, tons of NGVs, to busy sending us their oil.
Heres a great website you might want to check out. http://www.aftermarketcng.com
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Look how well that worked for Europe lately (the gas wars remind you of anything).
Countries like Russia and Iran happen to be the ones that have the most natural gas, if you switch from oil to natural gas all you’ll end up doing is switching from relying on OPEC to relying on OPEC and Gazprom (who are worse) and the US is getting to the point of needing to import some natural gas so you are going to need to import.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_proven_reserves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazprom
During the 80’s, there were many CNG and propane conversion kits which would allow the vehicle to run as a dual fuel car able to switch between gasoline and CNG. These conversions were popular with taxi companies and other corporate car fleets. However, when the EPA got around to testing them, it was discovered that the converted cars tended to pollute more than the original versions of the cars hence many of the kits were outlawed. There are still a few EPA certified kits as there is a commercial fleet demand for such a product but the EPA has generally made it very difficult for any form of conversion to be certified.
CNG has a relatively low energy density by volume, about a third that of gasoline though when liquefied, it’s about 2/3 that of gasoline. In automotive applications, the volume required for CNG storage compared to the volume required by gasoline is 4.45 times that of the gasoline solution. This results in about a four to five times increase in refill frequency or less cargo space, effectively a daily refill requirement for commuter use, multiple daily for fleet use.
Most CNG is currently flared off due to the cost of bringing it to market as it would require compression/pumping stations, separate pipelines, and cyrogenics to liquefy. The current relatively low cost of CNG is due to the relatively low demand for the product. Any additional widescale commercial use such as automotives would cause a steep increase in the market price until the ROI on building the infrastructure to bring stranded natural gas to market attracts investment. There would be a period of time when not only the price of operating automobiles would be much higher than the alternatives, but electricity and heating costs would skyrocket.
Interestingly, one of the plans for bringing stranded natural gas to market is to have portable gasifiers and Fischer Tropsch reactors that would convert the natural gas to diesel and heavy oils/waxes which could then be brought to market in the same piping infrastructure as the crude oil. This means that there is no need to convert the automobiles themselves to natural gas.
It’s expected that FT synthetic fuels would be viable if the price of oil remains above the $50 to $70 per barrel range. Note that the oil sands and oil shale projects that were started while the price of oil was above $80 per barrel, involved gasifiers and Fischer Tropsch synthesis to shift the hydrocarbons to something more desirable.
Hopefully, it would be a shift to coal to liquid and biomass to liquid Fischer Synthesis as well as gas to liquid synthesis that would be implemented especially since biomass to liquid will actually reduce the carbon in the atmospheres by sequestering some in the ash. However for us to be on this road to OPEC independence would either require that the public put up with artificially inflated fuel prices or that the world oil market be consistently above $70 per barrel for the foreseeable future. As long as people get upset by $4 a gallon gasoline, upset by $0.20 per KWh electricity and foreign countries are still willing to open up the taps on occasion to bring down world oil prices periodically, OPEC independence will not happen. So next time, you want to laugh about the heavy taxation of fuel prices in other countries which brings their costs for gasoline as high as $12 per gallon, remember that it isn’t the price and tax you should be laughing at but how they’ve allowed their governments to pump that tax revenue into the general funds rather than invest it in CTL, GTL, and BTL infrastructures.
References :
http://www.mota.com/Blog/2008/10/compressed-natural-gas-cars-it-aint.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=pQ88BS5K2ikC&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=energy+density+of+compressed+natural+gas&source=bl&ots=zMMzL9LWbo&sig=n4nZFcl9lL9_MtUSSI-Cj4ZL2Iw&hl=en&ei=P72qSYj9E-HAtgeG9rn0Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PPA12,M1
http://www.allbusiness.com/utilities/electric-power-generation-transmission/934887-1.html
http://www.ultracleanfuels.com/articles/cgazette_091805.htm
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/aeo_2006analysispapers/nlf.html
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/12/diversified-ene.html
http://www2.lut.fi/kete/teke/teke/kklemola/20060417-eng-Fischer-Tropsch.htm
http://www.velocys.com/docs/Microchannel_FT_White_Paper_Sep08.pdf
the US imports 20% of it’s natural gas. By using NG in cars we will import more. We import from Indonesia in huge amounts already. so tell them to kiss off on oil, and they will shut off the natural gas pipe too.
YOU are absolutely wrong on your NG figures, I suggest a trip to the net and look up the EIA and other sources and find out you are wrong on natural gas.
To make matters worse, your government has stopped the drilling for natural gas.
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yeah they can do this I’ve seen a truck that was done to work off propane or natural gas but it was gutless so not very practical but it is done now just requires modifying the car.
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My vehicles run on natural gas right now. I have a 1999 Ford Crown Vic and a 1998 Ford F-150 pickup truck. Both were made originally to run on natural gas and have done quite well for years. The Vic has 147,000 miles on it and is doing great. Natural gas is easier on engines than gasoline and much cleaner for the environment, too. Also a lot cheaper, in Utah at least, – 88 cents a gallon as of March 1, 2009. It’s a great feeling to drive around in American cars and never use a drop of foreign oil. It can be done; we just need a better infrastructure for fueling the cars. Not a big deal. Actually, if you have natural gas coming into your home for heating/cooking, you can buy a filling device that refuels your car overnight at home so you’d never have to go to a filling station again. I saw an old government document online that said there are trillions of cubic yards of natural gas hydrates just off the west coast and in Alaska, so once that source is tapped, we truly could tell OPEC to "kiss off". There are a lot of possibilities!
References :
http://www.cngchat.com
http://www.NGVamerica.org