Disadvantages of natural gas cars as pointed out by article. 1. Limited range. 1/2 distance of a gas cars. 2. Not enough filling stations. Advantages 1. $0.87 per gallon. 2. much less emission. I live in NYC. I would probably go diesel before I went natural gas.
There's plenty of natural gas, some in stable countries -including the US-. Unlike oil, which most its at politically unstable countries.
I live in CA and I was seriously considering going with a NGV. I looked up other that had it and they would say how they traveled around and it cost 5 bucks to fill the tank up and all that and how they can fill their tank up at home and all that and it sounded good. Then I looked around for filling stations but like 90% of them will only let government vehicles fill up there. The ones that you do get to fill up at have this registration process that takes about 1 hour before you can start filling up your car and then they give you a special card, but its only good at that station. If you fill up at another station, you have to go thru that process again. The only bad thing about it was that the filling stations usually only open from 7 or 8 am to 5pm. If you fill up at home it takes about 6 hours to fill your tank, unless you buy a special tank that is connected to your natural gas at home and then you can just pump it into your car quickly, but that costs like 2000 dollars for that thing. All in all with the extra money you have to pay for a NGV, plus the at home filling station vs the same model gasoline engine, you really dont save anything... except maybe the environment. Oh and you get bragging rights that you pay 79 cents per gallon.
Watching the tonight show with leno,,he has a 1907 electric car that runs 70mph,,,geez, they say americans cant live without power windows n power steering but they could make em cheap if americans could.
Nat Gas is just part of the equation...... Let's say you have country A..... Country A is shipping out $700 Billion of its wealth every year for the next 10 years..... Country A is a developed country whereby it protects individual property rights, and thus credit is relatively low cost and available to just about anybody that has a job.....Thus $700 Billion really represents much more than that, because for every $1 that is put in a bank, the bank makes available $10 in currency to borrowers at the bank, which is spent on goods and services....Thus $700 Billion is in effect $7 Trillion in prospective available currency....this is just for ONE YEAR.... Country A has a choice.....it can either keep shipping out $700 Billion per year or it can choose to stop shipping out the $700 Billion per year.... Also combined with the stopping of shipping out $700 Billion.... jobs are created that cannot be outsourced.....and country A becomes energy independent....no longer depending on enemies for its energy needs...... Gee....I wonder what Country A will do......
What will happen when nat gas goes back to 6-8:1 price ratio to oil? It won't be so cost practical. Additionally, we don't have enough supply to fuel our entire auto infrastructure. Wells decline way too fast and there are doubts about the viability of the recent shale plays past 2009. Furthermore, i believe marginal breakeven cost is around $7-8/mcf (these prices), thus future drilling efforts will not be justified unless prices ramp up significantly. I agree nat gas could be a good partial way to stop the mass export of $$$, but some mass renewable or nuclear effort is the only fundamental way to fix our energy dilemma. That, and of course, a hybrid nat gas / plugin vehicle to extend range to 350miles+.
I like his idea. Like he said, it buys us some time to break free of all fossil fuels. Thats a good thing.
I do not mean to confuse the issue.....but let's put this a different way...... This particularly relates to third world countries..... And one way to look at a country's valuation is to consider what the local productivity contributes....and to also consider how the country can retain what wealth it produces .....so that maybe one day, people could actually start saving money in local banks....thus enabling the local multiplier of money to assist in faster growth..... ............................................................................................ The country does not have much industry and imports 100% of its energy needs..... Since there is not much credit given out to date because of the third world type climate, the country just somehow stumbles along.... ........................................................................................ Brazil visits the country, and agrees to show it how to produce ethanol from sugar cane, and also agrees to start initially with ethanol fuel blends .....and also agrees to start producing cars that run on 100% ethanol within the country thereby creating much wanted jobs..... The government agrees not to tax these cars in any way....and not to tax the fuel in anyway....until the fleet of the country is 100% ethanol...... ............................................................................................. The country changes over a 10 year period to being energy independent, which also stabilizes the country in that it used to spend 25% of its GDP on energy imports whereby the money simply left the country...... .......................................................................................... Because of the country's decision to retain its wealth with respect to energy costs, the country was lifted from being third world, and began to move forward economically...... Had this country not had this opportunity, it would still be in third world status.... .................................................................................................... If developed countries like the US can simply retain and not export its wealth....the multiplier effect of the retained currency could have a profound impact, because it already has a sophisticated banking system which levers its currency from 10 to 30 times..... Thus when $700 billion is retained......several $Trillion is made available.... Thus the importance of money and its role in the stabilization of a sophisticated levered system is paramount......
I'd like to go diesel + natural gas cofiring for my next vehicle. Or diesel + propane. They are synergistic fuels; natural gas or propane injected into a diesel-burning engine causes the diesel to burn more completely and cleaner. And such engines can run solely on diesel which is much more available, while making use of propane/natural gas to reduce diesel consumption. Of course, no auto manufacturer has an appropriately engineered solution available. Aftermarket kits are available, but they have a number of issues and are not integrated with the engine's control systems at all.