US wants natural gas as major auto fuel option

[Wretched]

Natural gas has never been much of an option for US car drivers and its going to take a lot of effort by the government and auto manufactures to make it a viable alternative to gas.

But that's just what a $10 million program from the Department of Energy's advanced project development group The Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) aims to start anyway. ARPA-E's Methane Opportunities for Vehicular Energy (MOVE) program wants to develop system "that could enable natural gas vehicles with on-board storage and at-home refueling with a five-year payback or upfront cost differential of $2,000, which excludes the balance of system and installation costs."

From ARPA-E: "Specific aims include technological advancements in the area of (1) new sorbent materials for low-pressure storage of natural gas and (2) new high-strength, low-cost materials and manufacturing processes for conformable tanks capable of high-pressure (250 bar) natural gas storage. Low-pressure approaches inherently reduce the cost on home refueling; however for high-pressure approaches this program also seeks (3) innovative low-cost, high-performance compressor technology."

According to the agency, there are over 13 million natural gas vehicles on the road worldwide but only 120,000 in the United States. But with what the agency termed as massive increases in the US natural gas reserves over the past decade, there is now an "unprecedented opportunity for advancing the economic, national, and environmental security of the nation. Spurred by technological advances in shale gas production, increased natural gas reserves have led to a decoupling of domestic natural gas with global petroleum prices, and historically low natural gas prices relative to petroleum."

"Natural gas vehicles have the highest deployment in regions of the world where governments have artificially altered market conditions to favor natural gas. For example, in most of Europe, compressed natural gas is about $4.00/GGE (gasoline gallon equivalent) less expensive than gasoline due to high gasoline taxes. By contrast, natural gas vehicles in the U.S. must compete with gasoline and diesel vehicles based on commodity market prices. As a consequence, the US currently has limited deployment of natural gas vehicles and in only small, specific market sectors. These include buses and fleet vehicles, in addition to some heavy-duty trucking applications, such as refuse trucks that benefit from both high fuel use and predictable daily routes," ARPA-E says.

In terms of refueling infrastructure, the US has five times fewer natural gas refueling stations per natural gas vehicle than nations with wide-spread adoption of natural gas vehicles. However, a change appears to be on the horizon for heavy-duty, long-haul natural gas trucks as the private sector is beginning to finance CNG (compressed natural gas)and LNG (liquefied natural gas) refueling stations along major highways without the use of public funds, ARPA-E says. By contrast, light-duty natural gas vehicles will still have to compete with a well-established gasoline refueling infrastructure that includes over 118,000 stations nationwide. Furthermore, the current cost of a natural gas refueling station is about $1.6M, compared to about $100k for gasoline. At these costs, a natural gas infrastructure that is equivalent to gasoline could cost over $100 billion and take decades to complete, according to the agency.

With 65 million US homes using natural gas service, the natural gas light-duty vehicle infrastructure problem could be overcome with at-home natural gas refueling. That requires a new home storage system that would also be developed as part of the MOVE plan.

So, would you be willing to jump through the hoops required to employ natural gas as your auto fuel?

http://www.networkworld.com/communit...to-fuel-option

[Moby Vic]

Ford offered compressed natural gas-powered Crown Victorias to US fleets (including police) for years. They were slow cars and never popular.

[Chilliman]

Natural gas as a transtport fuel is best for large vehicles like Buses and Trucks - where fuel storage doesn't have to be as compact as it does in a passenger vehicle.

[z80]

The frackting industry needs an outlet for it's products.

[saam]

When i was overseas in milan about 5 years ago my mates friend was driving some kind of 4 wheel drive, like a people mover on natural gas

I thought he was kidding when i asked was it LPG, he said NO, natural gas

Up until then i havent seen another car here in oz on the road that runs on N.G

My guess would be that the governments would tax everything in relation to natural gas and in about 5-10 years time natural gas would be the same price as diesel is today.

[jcxr]

A lot of buses are running on natural gas. CNG I think is the designation.

[Polyal]

Originally Posted by z80

The frackting industry needs an outlet for it's products.

LOL saw that doco last night

[Yellow_Festiva]

CNG is very popular in many countries. I think I was in India (or Pakistan?) and the little taxi that took me to the airport (Hyundau Atos / Suzuki Maruti 1litre thinggo?) ran on CNG (as did a lot of cars, much the same as LPG here).

As did the Honda Civic? (memory is a little shady) that a friend of a friend drove me around in.

Got pics floating around of the hardware they used in the car.

[Mr Hardware]

http://www.autoweb.com.au/cms/newsar...cle=for9708011

apparently ford produced some Natural Gas falcons in 97?