Posted on 03/19/2009 8:15:34 PM PDT by nickcarraway
When people talk about alternative fuels, propane isn't usually the first topic that comes up. This is because they’ve probably never driven in a propane-powered vehicle, and for the past few decades have been bombarded with all kinds of talk about ethanol (E85), hydrogen and flux capacitors being the saviors of the human race.
So you may be surprised to hear that propane is actually the third most commonly used motor vehicle fuel, ahead of all of those, compressed natural gas (CNG), and eye of newt. According to the U.S. Department of Energy there are even more places to buy propane than E85. Maybe the reason it doesn't come up too often, then, is because it's not really all that alternative.
A quick primer. Propane is a byproduct of both petroleum refining and the processing of natural gas, so it's a fossil fuel and a non-renewable resource. However, more than 85 percent of the propane sold in the United States comes from U.S. soil, literally, and pretty much all of the rest of it is imported from Canada and Mexico, which makes it appealing to energy security types. Although it is widely used as a heating fuel, much of what is recovered is burned off as waste during oil refining, as anyone who has driven down the New Jersey Turnpike at night can attest to.
A gas in its natural form, propane is easily compressed into a liquid, making it less cumbersome to transport and store than CNG or Hydrogen. It’s also very pure and clean-burning, with the added benefit of being non toxic to the environment, which is why you can install a tank of it just about anywhere and use it to barbecue brisket. The combustion process also produces less carbon dioxide than gasoline or diesel.
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In my experience, which is limited to a pair of Kohler engines for a back-up power supply, propane engines can be difficult to start in cold weather.
I bought one from Hank Hill at Strickland Propane and Propane Accessories.
I bought one from Hank Hill at Strickland Propane and Propane Accessories.
Burn-wise, propane is similar to methane (natural gas) but I believe it yields more energy (BTUs) since more (3x more) chemical bonds are being broken when it combusts.
Propane can be a tad dicey because it is heavier than air (methane is not) so, propane is bad to use on boats, for example, where the vapor can sink into nooks and crannies in the hull & form an explosive misture....over long periods of time.
Otherwise, it burns clean and hot.
Methane is horribly corrosive. You don’t wan’t it in your engine.
And propane is dangerous...compared to other fuels.
Natural gas seems the logical choice.
“Methane is horribly corrosive”
Do you have a source for that statement?
Personal experience.
It leaves green crappy crusty fuzz on all metalic surfaces it comes in contact with...or I should say the combustion products given off by the burning of methane do so. I don’t know what that green junk is, but it eats holes in non stainless steels real fast.
Technically, the gas I am referring to isn’t pure methane, but a gas that is referred to as “bio-gas”. It is supposedly a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide and it reclaimed at sewage treatment plants and landfills, for the most part. They burn the gas for heat and for generating process steam.
It’s very nasty stuff. The excessive maintenance expenses eat up the fuel savings and then some.
Nope, by far natural gas is more dangerous as a vehicle fuel in that the tanks are required to hold approx. 3,000 PSI. Propane is somewhere around 180 PSI.
The numbers are approximate but I do not want to be driving around with a couple of tanks in my trunk with 3,000 pounds pressure.
That idiot T Boone Pickens is pushing this idea really hard, including having 18 wheelers running around on our interstates powered with this stuff. We all know what an 18 wheeler wreck looks like with very stable diesel fuel. Now imagine that same wreck with 1,000 gallons of LNG pressurized to 3,000 psi will look like.
That is why back in the day we used butane which vaporizes better in colder weather. Hard to come by nowdays.
As a side note, mountain climbers, when going high and extremely cold will use butane fuel for their cook stoves. Propane will pour like water and not vaporize when it gets much below 0 degrees F.
When I was a yoot and trying to climb a mountain, I found that my fuel did not work in my stove at altitude. I was at about 11K ft. I ate cold granola bars that night.
I'm not so sure. I lived in Montana for 5 years and fried turkeys outdoors when it was below zero plenty of times.
Aha, yes, if you’re talking about raw “swamp gas” collected au naturel and not commecially purified, no question about it, you’ll have some sulfur gases in there. Those will stink up the joint and make sulfuric/sulfurous acid which will corrode the hell out of many metal parts. Could get some nitrogen oxides in there too, probably less, but still makes nitric/nitrous acids on combustion. Yeah. The gas itself would run an engine OK, but the pollutants would eat the insides.
Normally, commercial nat gas would be purified, probably by liquifying it, and those pollutants would be separated pretty easily. So you’d have pretty clean methane with a little ethane & propane as “pollutants”.
I don't know about Little Tommy Daschle, but I'm deeply saddened.
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