What Are We Going to Do With All This Gas? {Natural Gas}

Fuel Fix ^ | March 19, 2012 | Karen Boman|

[Wingy]

This is a great advertisement for CNG and LNG for our cars and trucks. However, there are a few questions that it didn't address.

What would be the cost per mile verses gasoline?

How big a tank would I need to go 350 miles in my Honda Accord?

Will the horsepower be affected?

What about safety in a collision?

How long will a fillup take?

There are probably more, but that's just off the top of my head.

[thackney]

They do not need tax payer incentives. The market is moving forward already. There are about 112,000 NGVs on U.S. roads today.

http://www.ngvc.org

But some incentives do exist already.

http://www.ngvc.org/incentives/index.html

[thackney]

Honda has made the Natural Gas Civic for many years and is now expanding the locations where it is being sold.

The range is 216 to 305 miles city to highway driving.

More info at:

http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-natural-gas/specifications.aspx

[Wonder Warthog]

"LPG is propane used for the BBQ."

But the increased overall supply of NG should also drop the price of LPG, as the source of that is also NG, should it not? And in point of fact, might not LPG function as a "bridge fuel" to CNG?? Conversion of a gasoline powered vehicle is much easier than for LPG than for CNG. Given the ubiquity of the use of LPG in motor homes (not as engine fuel, but for heating, refrigeration, and generator fuel), there are probably already many more "fueling stations" in existence than for CNG.

Heck, even the little "convenience store/gas station" near my home has an LPG "fueling station", and this is WAY "out in the sticks".

[Wonder Warthog]

"Diesel-electric locomotives could very easily run on NG, because diesel engines can use it directly so long as you don’t make the fuel-air mixture rich enough to auto ignite. You just use a pilot charge of diesel oil to trigger ignition. A thermodynamically very efficient use of fuel, especially desirable when gas is so relatively cheap."

Hmmmm.....interesting info. I wasn't aware that could be done. Gotta read up on that....thanks!

Makes the potential speed and breadth of application MUCH wider. I'm just about the read Newt Gingrich's book "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less". I'll be interested to see what "he" has to say.

[thackney]

But the increased overall supply of NG should also drop the price of LPG, as the source of that is also NG, should it not?

Actually, I see the opposite happening. There is so much new exploration and production going after the more valuable Natural Gas liquids (ethane, propane, etc) that the Natural Gas supply is out growing the demand. The Natural Gas has nearly become a byproduct in some areas. The demand for additional Natural Gas Processing Plants is still very high while the drilling into "dry" Natural Gas fields continues to fall.

And in point of fact, might not LPG function as a "bridge fuel" to CNG??

I don't see that.

Conversion of a gasoline powered vehicle is much easier than for LPG than for CNG.

Which is the much of my answer above. The LPG has more energy per volume, is handled as a relatively low pressure liquid compared to the high pressure gas of NG.

Given the ubiquity of the use of LPG in motor homes (not as engine fuel, but for heating, refrigeration, and generator fuel), there are probably already many more "fueling stations" in existence than for CNG.

Certainly. That much higher demand equals higher prices. Plus part of that higher demand is industry that uses Natural Gas Liquids as feedstock to make plastics and the like.

[Marko413]

They keep saying that drilling for oil will not lower gas prices. We drilled for natural gas and it is now half the price it was a year ago on the commodities market. I’m sure there are some other things at play, but still. If drilling could even drop it 20%, please for the love of God, drill!

[thackney]

Rail LNG Train example:
http://www.users.qwest.net/~kryopak/mk1200G.htm

Shell has been in the works for a while for LNG as Marine Fuel.

http://www.wartsila.com/en/press-releases/wartsila-and-shell-sign-co-operative-agreement-to-promote-use-of-lng-as-a-marine-fuel

[shove_it]

The Natural Gas Act failed passsage in the Senate last week by just a few votes short of 60, as I recall. The Heritage Foundation opposed it ...

http://heritageaction.com/2012/03/senate-rejects-nat-gas-act/

[thackney]

Thanks for posting that.

The government does not need to take tax payer dollar to promote or compete with different technologies.

End all the subsidies. Tax them all equally like other industries.

[fella]

At about the same time there was another company out of Tulsa that was claiming that they could make money even with oil as low as $20 a barrel. I'm betting that patent lawyers have locked these technologies away.

[thackney]

I’m betting it was misleading talk to run up the stock prices.

I don’t believe anyone is willing to lock up technologies that would allow them to make Bill Gates their pool boy.

[Wonder Warthog]

"There is so much new exploration and production going after the more valuable Natural Gas liquids (ethane, propane, etc) that the Natural Gas supply is out growing the demand. The Natural Gas has nearly become a byproduct in some areas. The demand for additional Natural Gas Processing Plants is still very high while the drilling into "dry" Natural Gas fields continues to fall."

OK, I see your point. But isn't that a temporary condition?? I suspect that what is driving demand for those liquids is for chemical feedstocks (ethylene/propylene). There are only so many plastics/etc. that can be made, so I would expect that demand to become saturated at some point, and more LPG becoming available. As you say, right now, C1 is almost a waste product, so available disproportionately cheaply.

That is why the notion of using C1 directly in diesel engines is so intriguing. I was (as I now see incorrectly) thinking that uses currently powered by diesel would have to switch to spark ignition to use CNG. If it can be used directly, that changes THAT "ballgame" a LOT.

[thackney]

I agree it will be temporary. But I am guessing it will be driven more by increased demand in C1 rather than a saturation of Natural Gas Liquids. NGLs are not as expensive to transport and the world begs for cheap plastic. Consumption is easy to climb with developing countries. Also we can keep the NGLs and build more facilities to export polymers.

C1 for transportation is going to increase. There is too great a difference in $/BTU.

[Sawdring]

Of course, you can’t tax water... yet.

Yes you can. The city I live in is using the sewer/water bill to pay for city services. My last months bill was $143.44 for sewer and water.

[Wonder Warthog]

"C1 for transportation is going to increase. There is too great a difference in $/BTU."

We are in absolute agreement on THAT point. The only questions at this point are by what path, and how fast. I tend to think mostly of road transport ($4.50 gas (which is what I paid yesterday) tend to encourage me to focus that way), but the train and ship connections are likely to come sooner, especially with the C1/diesel "hybrid" technology mentioned upthread.

[thackney]

Have you seen T Boone Pickens plan for 150 highway LNG stations?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2861330/posts?page=25

[Wonder Warthog]

"Have you seen T Boone Pickens plan for 150 highway LNG stations?"

Had missed that. Thanx for pointing it up.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Diesel-electric locomotives could very easily run on NG, because diesel engines can use it directly so long as you don’t make the fuel-air mixture rich enough to auto ignite. You just use a pilot charge of diesel oil to trigger ignition. A thermodynamically very efficient use of fuel, especially desirable when gas is so relatively cheap.

Hmmmm.....interesting info. I wasn't aware that could be done. Gotta read up on that....thanks!

Makes the potential speed and breadth of application MUCH wider.

My source is recollection from my textbook from college half a century ago. Running a diesel engine on natural gas as described above was done in Alaska because NG was much cheaper locally than diesel oil - back before that book, titled IIRC “Internal Combustion Engines,” was written. The text described the result as follows: “ . . . may be the most efficient prime mover in existence.” The text also said that the combustion of the lean NG-air mixture in a diesel engine was smoother than the notorious “diesel knock” of the same engine running on oil.

The textbook indicated that the fuel-air ratio could be modulated to control the power output, but my suspicion was that load control was needed to make it really practical. That is, IMHO you really need to control the power output by controlling the RPM of the engine (power output for a diesel being roughly proportional to RPM). That’s pretty much impossible with a conventional mechanical transmission with a finite, and small, number of gear ratios. You would need either a continuously variable transmission (which in general has not been available as a practical matter) or to use a generator to convert the power from mechanical to electrical, and electric motors to accomplish the CVT function. And I think that is precisely what the diesel-electric locomotive actually is (it’s certainly what a “hybrid” automobile is - with the added feature of battery energy storage, which makes the problem of engine power control even less of an issue. Since the hybrid auto places fuel economy above initial-cost considerations, and since engine RPM is independent of vehicle speed in any hybrid, I’m a a loss as to why they don’t go whole hog and power hybrid cars with diesel engines to get even better fuel efficiency).

[shove_it]

I've been trading CLNE and WPRT from the long and short sides for years and have been a booster of the Nat Gas Act until I looked into the fine print of the bill about a year ago. Talk about corporate welfare, man that bill was loaded with it. These two companies have yet to show a profit but their business models make sense. So I'm wishing them well but will watch from a distance for now.