UPS delivers a boost to propane as vehicle fuel

Fuel Fix ^ | March 14, 2014 | Ryan Holeywell

[thackney]

What I have read Haynessville is the exception to most current gas plays.

The dry gas is the reason their drilling fell so sharply with the nat gas prics while drilling in the Marcellus and Eagle Ford (gas areas) continued to climb.

[sheana]

In our town in California the UPS trucks are almost all electric now. You can’t hear them coming anymore. ;(

[norwaypinesavage]

Even as a "peak trimmer", the supply of propane would be severely limited. Propane has a huge advantage over natural gas: Propane liquefies at modest pressures. This means that the container of propane will weigh less than the propane it contains. Natural gas will only liquefy at extremely high pressure, or at cryogenic temperatures.

In either form, natural gas is expensive to contain and distribute in containers. Note that oversea shipping of natural gas involves cryogenic containment on the ships. Since the quantity of available propane as a percentage of available natural gas is very small, it's not realistic to consider propane as anything but a very small percentage of transportation energy. Anything else would make propane quite expensive for home heating and barbeque grills.

[thackney]

Natural gas will only liquefy at extremely high pressure, or at cryogenic temperatures.

Natural Gas critical temp is -82.6 °C. It won't liquefy at any pressure above that temperature.

http://encyclopedia.airliquide.com/Encyclopedia.asp?GasID=41

[Dedbone]

I'm paying $2.70 a gallon(propane) for heating my home.

Lucky you. I just paid $7/gal in central Fla. (Suburban)

[raybbr]

Lucky you. I just paid $7/gal in central Fla. (Suburban)

I use over a thousand gallons a year. How about you?

[wild74]

Fayetteville Shale is similar and heard that Marcellus has areas that are dry. We bought a 200 million per day system down in Leon County that is also dry from Encana, but you are right most of the other plays are wet thus all the drilling.

[garryowenartillery]

Yes, big difference. Gas/Dri-Gas flex engines allow use of both fuel types and performance will suffer on both fuels. A well designed dedicated dri-gas engine (low compression with turbos) will price and power out favorably against petrol at least to my experience. My cousin runs a Kintner Racing-built 302 Mustang bracket car on Dri-Gas, I hate Fords, but Lordy!, it's got 2 of the biggest ImpCo vaporizers I've ever seen and a great big turbo. Makes huge horsepower for weekend fun with little maintenance.

My wife's late cousin's daily-driver was a Silverado short bed with a Dri-Gas only 454, twin ImpCo vaporizers and twin turbos, he claimed 900+hp...it was never dyno'd but the combination made it possible I guess, what a ride it was!

I've also experienced a Ford Louisville L9000 Road Tractor total conversion to Dri-Gas, it also ran really well, only problems were melting the custom turbo exhaust systems off it!

[weezel]

That 401 v6, was that the one that had the plugs at the top side of the heads, as opposed to under the heads? I’ve only seen one of those and it was quite amazing. Huge engine but still a 6 cylinder.The guys around here who were racing 6 cylinder cars were all after this guy to sell them that engine. I believe it was about a ‘64 GMC that it was in.