Posted on 06/29/2008 10:08:13 PM PDT by doug from upland
Having their S.U.V.'s and converting them, too
by Fara Warner New York Times, 4/11/04
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KEVIN RICHARDSON, who at 32 is the oldest member of the Backstreet Boys, took delivery last week of his 2004 GMC Yukon sport utility vehicle. He raves about its "F.B.I. look" - all black and chromeless, with lacquered wheel rims - and the 5.3-liter V-8 engine that puts close to 300 horsepower under the hood.
And he dreams of ordering a customized license plate for this, his perfect Hollywood ride. It would read "CLEAN."
That may sound as contradictory as Mr. Richardson himself - an avowed environmentalist with an ungreen hankering for big, powerful cars - but, in fact, he is spending more than $10,000 to convert the Yukon to run on compressed natural gas, a domestically produced fuel that is less polluting than gasoline. The conversion will include the installation in his garage of a refueling system, which will let him fill up the Yukon by using the same gas line that supplies his house.
(Excerpt) Read more at cslproductions.com ...
http://automobiles.honda.com/shop/?modelname=civic+gx&ef_id=1097:3:s_79d8775320eda3c0ed0954d629b134a0_789496740:NIdcfkGvMaAAAFNrgv0AAAAB:20080630050516
What would this do to the natural gas cost if it becomes popular?
Here is a discussion - http://digg.com/environment/Cost_Benefits_Could_Bring_Natural_Gas_Vehicles_To_Forefront
Home rates are cheap for now.
The thing is, natural gas is found the same place oil is, in the ground and usually close to oil. Enviros don’t like it any better than oil because it still allows us to use our cars. Get this people, greenies, communist, marxist, democrat leaders, progressives, liberals and socialist(just to rattle off a few names for them)are all the same and want to destroy our country, they don’t want us to drive that is why they stop drilling. It has nothing to do with clean and green or any other environmental cause, it has everything to do with control and money. Control of us and our money into their pockets, period.
That worries me. There are limits to how far you can turn the heat down if the price gets too high.
Looks like we’ll be going back to the 70s, when this was first tried.
An awful lot of people had their houses explode.
Jay Leno and the Honda GX - http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/video_player.shtml?vid=195846
Is there a federal highway tax on this?
I don’t know, but if not, there soon would be.
Even at higher rates of usage, we have hundreds of years of natural gas here in the USA, so we will never have to import it.
The Honda GX is great. Saw a live demo. Just pull in your garage and fill up over night. Filling takes about 12 hours. You can safely drive about 200 miles before running out of gas. As a regular commuter, great option.
But, you can also convert your towncar or F150 - conversions readily available. Best way to go. You can still get the PHIL station for your house. In SoCal, AQMD will pay for it. But shhhh....Don’t tell anyone.
What if you make your own fuel, like veggie oil. Anyhow, I just got a bicycle. Just got through getting it just the way I like and will taking it to work in the morning.
Third world lifestyle, here I come!
Cost relative to gasoline, numbers I saw anyhow, is about the equivelent of $1.60 per gallon on a mile for mile basis. Actually, the better conversion is probably cost per mile. That’s what everyone stuck on the 91 through Riverside must be thinking everyday. Wow, can you imagine being stuck in that traffic at $4.70 a gallon. My gosh.
LOL
I'm in Northern California, send me a PHIL station would you?
I don't know why it takes 12 hours to fill it, it must have to go through the regulator to take that long.
We've been importing natural gas from Canada for decades. Here's a pic I shot while working on a natural gas pipeline from Canada, circa early 1980's (pic quality sucks - I scanned it from a slide). It enters the USA in northern Idaho, travels down through eastern Washington, Oregon and finally arrives for delivery somewhere in California.
This 42" pipeline is buried alongside an existing 36" line.
The contractor was M-K Rivers, owner was Pacific Gas Transmission, a sub of PG&E.
Ping to this thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2038440/posts
For myself, I just can't help but feel like a CNG car would be a rolling bomb. I would like to know more facts like PSI of the storage tank, any safety devices that I may not know about, etc. A tank at 200 PSI wouldn't go very far, but one that had 3000 PSI might get you to the next state if the right spark was applied. LOL
If you want a hint about that, look at the price of foodstuffs made with corn, etc. from which, I believe, Ethanol is produced. In general, it doesn’t make much sense in converting a major consumer staple’s source from one commodity to another commodity that is heavily used in home heating, for instance. It just shifts the demand, and if the ‘shiftee’ is already stressed, it just makes it worse.
I have heard of city buses using Natural Gas...
There is considerable Natural Gas in Alaska that is awaiting a pipeline to be built to the lower 48 states...
Yes, Absolutely. Diesels won’t run on gasoline, but will run on vegetable oil, natural gas, propane. The Petroleum products normally used as fuel for diesel engines are distillates composed of heavy hydrocarbons, with at least 12 to 16 carbon atoms per molecule. These heavier distillates are taken from crude oil after the more volatile portions used in gasoline are removed. The boiling points of these heavier distillates range from (351 to 649 °F).
Forklift refillable natural gas bottles!
Who knew they could save the world??
There are several companies doing conversions:
Guide to Available Natural Gas Vehicles and Engines
http://www.ngvamerica.org/pdfs/marketplace/MP.Analyses.NGVs-a.pdf
At the existing Natural Gas Consumption rates, we already use more than we produce and require imports to meet our needs.
Switching to Natural Gas vehicles changes an oil import for a Natural Gas Import. Most of our expected growth in Natural Gas imports is expected to come from LNG from places like Russia and Qatar.
Natural Gas Consumption by End Use
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_cons_sum_dcu_nus_a.htm
U.S. Natural Gas Marketed Production
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9050us2a.htm
U.S. Natural Gas Imports by Country
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_move_impc_s1_a.htm
Although 2008 is looking to be a very good year for increased domestic natural gas production, long term growth still looks to more imports.
We have more natural gas reserves than oil reserves. So drill drill drill!
He is correct. See figure 1, page 5 for supporting data.
Annual Energy Outlook 2008
Analytical Overview: Energy Trends to 2030
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/pdf/overview.pdf
The aversion to the peons driving is not really related to pollution or greenhouse gases. It is resentment of the mobility of the peons. The Greenies, like other types of leftists, are medievalist.They envision the properly ordered world as themselves in “manors” and the bulk of the population slaving to support them so that they can wisely govern the world.
This will get buried because its too hard to regulate, if any person with access to natural gas has the ability to fuel anytime and not pay taxes then the states will find means to discredit or make it cost prohibitive to install a home system.
Its time for revolution, wake up America.
Which government entity do write a check to when you fill up at home?
www.cngchat.com
I wonder if he is going to refuel in an attached garage?
A good way at 3000 PSI to get you, your garage and house to the next state.
And people thought the “Flaming Ford Truck In The Attached Garage” was a problem... they don’t remember the giant explosions that incompetent CNG/LNG home refuellers caused in the 70s...
I haven't figured out why this technology hasn't been more used since; methane and propane should both burn more cleanly than gasoline, but I think people are afraid of the fuel tanks.
It is not easy to convert a diesel to run on natural gas. The injectors are designed to inject a liquid of fixed volume into the cylinder. They don’t work well with a gas, and a special injector is needed, as well as injector pump. Diesel engines using compressed natural gas have a surprising problem: soot. The gas doesn’t disperse as well as a liquid, and doesn’t fully burn, making soot.
Why does it take so long to refill? When I was in Brazil a lot of people use natural gas powered vehicles and it only takes a few minutes to refill at a commercial facility (gas station).
For many years NG was very cheap. Then there was the shortage in 2000-2001 that lead to the energy crisis in California and the fall of Enron.
Eventually, the price fell back until Katrina and Rita hit and it spiked again. While it did fall back partially from that, it has recently begun rising significantly. Several electricity retailers in Texas have gone under because of the rising price.
The underlying problem is that the US depends mainly on the domestic supply. A world market is being built but the plans to bring in large amounts from Qatar have been delayed.
In 1973 I was talking to a man who had a 55 gallon barrel of gasoline in his attached garage.
His quote: "No matter how hard it is to get gasoline that barrel is my fishing gas".
I ask him where his gas furnace was located.
It was 12 feet from that 55 gallons of gasoline!
There are so many times The Good Lord looks after fools and idiots.
When I was a kid growing up in Western Kansas (late 50’s, 60’s & 70’s), some area wheat and cattle farmers had their gasoline engine pickups converted to run on propane. There would be a large propane tank right in the bed of the truck, right behind the cab, that ran the full width of the bed. Not all had the conversions, but a significant number — it was common to see.
This was in the era of what we now realize was very cheap gasoline. And yet, obviously, some of these farmers were spending the money to convert their pickups to propane, because it would have been saving money. They wouldn’t have done it for any other reason —there wasn’t any “green movement” in those days.
I don’t recall, or may not have ever known if they paid the state something because they were using the roads but weren’t paying state road taxes. I was at the age that I was more interested in chasing skirts and drinking beer than such details, you see.
I haven’t lived in the Midwest for many many years, so I do not know if farmers in Kansas or other Midwest states are still converting their trucks to propane, or if the tax people have put a cabash on that. Maybe someone else knows the status of that.
Propane Vehicles
http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/vehicles/propane.html
Some idiots claim that we can solve our problems with Natural Gas.
But if any significant number of cars start using NG, the price of NG will skyrocket, because we don’t have enough of it either.
The only advantage is that we do happen to pump more NG for our own use.
But I don’t want my winter heating bills to double because some idiot decided we should switch to NG, but still opposes all drilling.
They may not catch you for a while, but they will catch you.
And estimate the tax you owe to their advantage.
The entities will be the State of California and the Federal Government.
And anyone using one of the PHIL station devices will have a venue built in to pay the taxes.
I asked that too. Ping me if you get an answer, would you?
Thanks
Why would you spend ten large for CNG when LP is much cheaper to convert, safer, and much easier to tank. Also, you can fill in about ten minutes. Every bit as clean, and you can combine with gasoline and run either/or. Total conversion for ANY vehicle is now about $400. Dollars per mile probably not much difference, but you can run an LP engine FOREVER.
Bad idea. We have enough troubles with NG distribution as it is.
Not much difference to what?
Not sure the answer on that but we know for sure you can not convert a GM gasoline engine to diesel.
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