And that would spur the construction of “combined cycle” power plants. Right now, most NG power plants have the same 30-35 percent energy efficiency as coal. A combined cycle plant (which has to be built from scratch, not converted from coal as most NG plants are now) can double that to 60 percent. (The NG powers a gas turbine producing electricity plus a lot of heat which heats a boiler powering a steam turbine, which produces still more electricity.)
Another group to vociferously object will be Washington politicians who can’t or won’t understand dynamic cost-scoring. The tax credits required for the Natural Gas Solution would be around $200 billion — far less than the recently-passed (and scandalously pork-laden) $240 billion Transportation Bill.
If 100 million cars have NG conversion kits installed at $1000 each, that’s 100 billion the IRS doesn’t get. The same with 50 million residences to install a compressor hooked up to the home’s existing NG line. That’s another $50 billion not for the IRS. The last $50 billion would be in credits for service stations to install commercial compressors so apartment dwellers, street parkers, and anyone else can fill up their CNG tank in 60 seconds.
This conversion tax-credit cost will be spread over a few years, not in one hit. Once the conversions are done, that’s the end of the cost — but not the end of the offshore NG royalties, which will be in the multi-billions for decades. So the cost is easily paid for. Further, just think of how much the US economy will benefit by $1 a gallon cost-equivalent, and both the trade deficit and dependence on foreign oil drastically reduced. Our GDP would rocket - and with it federal revenues. (Not that the federales should get more money - better to use the economic benefit to reduce taxes.)
See how comprehensive this is getting to be? Here’s another benefit. All city buses barfing carbon particulates with their diesel exhaust can easily be converted to NG, as can city delivery trucks. Long-distance trucks will still need diesel on highways where there are no gas stations hooked up to an NG pipeline, but they can be converted to dual-use NG for driving in cities.
Both will very substantially reduce what smog there is left in cities with most cars running NG. (There will always be some smog produced by very photochemically-reactive turpenoids emitted by grasses, bushes, and trees, especially pine trees.)
So let’s review the Natural Gas Solution.
1. The US has massive reserves of natural gas easily and safely accessible on our offshore continental shelf and federal lands — enough for centuries. Energy companies must be allowed to extract it.
2. Directly paying residents of NG-producing states one-third of federal royalties will render those residents enthusiastic proponents of NG extraction. The check they will get in the mail, which will be hundreds if not thousands of dollars per year per resident, is passive income and not subject to Social Security/FICA taxes.
3. NG can only be economically transported by pipeline, not ocean tanker. US-produced NG will be consumed domestically, not bid against like crude oil by China and others. The more NG the US produces, the less dependent the US is on foreign oil.
4. Any modern car’s or truck’s internal combustion engine using either gasoline or diesel can easily be converted to additionally using NG. Such conversion to dual-fuel use requires no engine modification. The conversion is a plug-in: an injector and control valve is attached to the intake manifold. Not even a wire is cut. The NG system uses the same throttle and oxygen sensors regulated by the car's computer. The NG-powered engine is a mature proven technology in use for a half-century. Nothing has to be invented. Unlike hydrogen or fuel-cell futurism, this is here and now, ready to go.
5. An NG conversion kit now costs around $2,000 to install as there is little demand. The main cost is the tank to hold the CNG (compressed natural gas). Demand will bring this cost to less than $1,000, for which there should be a substantial tax credit. Demand will also spur car manufacturers to produce dual-fuel vehicles.
6. The key to the Natural Gas Solution is a compressor installed in your home’s garage connected to the natural gas line. The same gas that heats your home and cooks your food now fills up your CNG tank. One such home compressor is called Phill made by FuelMaker Corp. One CNG tankfull gives your car a range of 150-300 miles.
7. A typical automobile engine running on NG will last 250-500,000 miles as there is so little wear and tear on the engine. NG is as friendly to the environment as it is on engines, greatly reducing both CO2 and photochemical emissions.
8. Greatly increasing NG production will soon drop the price to at least mid-90s levels of $2-3 per tcf. It’s now (5/5/06) $6.70. Even at this price, drivers of the all-NG Honda Civic GX report they get 200 miles with $10 of NG. That’s 5 cents a mile. With the Natural Gas Solution in place, driving your car could cost a penny a mile.
9. Dual-fuel cars running both NG and gasoline/diesel, using the latter only for long out-of-city drives, filling up their CNG tank overnight at home, will achieve energy independence for the US and eliminate our dependence on foreign oil.
10. The obstacle to the Natural Gas Solution is neither technical nor practical. It is political. The government prevents NG extraction from 90 percent of our coastline and hundreds of millions of acres of federal land. Remove these restrictions, and implement tax credits for NG dual-fuel technology, and say hello to cheap gas and energy independence.
The problem, as so many problems are, is with the politicians. They are in the way, as they so very often are. I suppose that’s their job, not to solve problems but to create problems, to get in the way, so we have to plead and beg them to get out of the way.
*www.tothepointnews.com
I like it.
Your department Joe.
The real answer is use nuclear energy for everything except cars and trucks. Then drill in ANWR and off the coast. Problem solved.
If France can get 80% of their energy needs filled using nuclear energy, why can't we?!
We got plenty of natural gas, and yeah, even corn, and we certainly have the tech to drop conversion kits into just about any internal combustion engine in the US of A. Not to mention, think of the industry! Overnight we'd create tens of thousands of jobs in a nascent NG conversion industry. Truly, we could turn the economy around in a decade; simultaneously reducing our crack-addict dependence on Middle East oil while creating some fresh Not-Made-In-China industry jobs.
Not to sound too Michael Moorish, but I do think the oil industry is more interested in maintaining friendly ties with our tormentors than they are in us. I say we stiff 'em and develop our own alternatives.
Another point: no car accident victims at the local emergency rooms. Fried on the scene.
We've already seen huge price increases in NG due to shortages. To say we are going to unleash this huge demand for NG, and production will quickly rise to not only meet the demand but drive the price down, just doesn't make sense to me.
I don't know how much untapped NG we have, but I'm in favor of using other's first and keeping ours in the ground until there really is a shortage. But it's a balancing act. Don't want to fund the Islamies more than we have too.
Now for the refinement — of the argument, not NG, which unlike crude oil requires no refining.
Wrong. NG (Methane) is stripped out of a complex soup of other gasses, including propane, butane, and others. It is done at gas plants. listed.
The SEC makes it a federal felony for an energy company to claim gas reserves as assets if they’re not determined by obsolete technology, i.e., you have to drill a hole. Modern 3D seismic methods get a far better picture of an NG reservoir — but since you don't have to drill a hole, whatever reserves are found by 3DS, the SEC won’t allow it.
Until you drill a hole, you do not know what is there, or if quirks of the reservoir or fluids therein will stymie production efforts. While one (producing) well might prove out potential reserves on a given structure or in a reservoir, no holes=a prospect, not reserves.
On what little land they can explore, with 3DS they are discovering huge amounts in “low-permeability reservoirs” — some 460 tcf (trillion cubic feet), tripling alone current US gas reserves.
Not without a well you don't. You just triple low permeability gas prospects, not reserves.
That’s because NG is 80 percent hydrogen. There are 4 atoms of hydrogen for every one atom of carbon in NG. There are only 2 atoms of hydrogen for every one atom of carbon in regular gas. Thus NG emits much less carbon in the atmosphere.
Most percentage reckoning is done by weight. Four hydrogen atoms @ 1, one carbon atom at 12, and I get 25% Hydrogen for a Methane molecule by weight, not 80%.
I'll leave adressing his comments about selling Alaskan oil to Japan to the Alsaka hands, but IIRC, that does not happen any more, and has not for years.
I can see where whole neighborhoods will have to re-light their pilot lights as they all try to top off the car at once, dropping the line pressure in their area.
Further, no one has addressed the risk of explosion or fire from having so many active fueling stations in a neighbor hood.
One more thing. I worked for a company in the early '80 which ran its fleet on gasoline/propane dual fuel engines. While I can say that it does burn cleaner, is easier on engines, and gives greater range, that does not always come without complications. In extremely cold weather (-20 and colder), the vehicles had to be started on gasoline and warmed up before running them on propane.
Despite training, minor frostbite injuries were pretty common when people filled the vehicles up with liquid propane.
Wow, this article is an eye-opener. I'm sold. I didn't realize we had a huge supply of NG.
I used to drive a Propane powered Jeep Wagoneer.
It drove OK, but was noticeably down on power compared to a gas engine.
If you ran out gas you had to call a tow-truck, you cannot get a ride to the station and fill a bucket or can with Propane, then pour it into the tank.
For purposes of this discussion I see Propane and Natural Gas as being essentially identical.
I can support the premise of the post, but only with the caveat that NG will work best for Gov. and large companies needs.
It's BEST use is electricity generation, which could transform our economy if it got cheap enough.
It really does have some drawbacks for individual use.
good post. well i for one see the answer in not giving way to any one solution. we should have everything, natural gas, nuclear, bio diesel, bio fuels, gasoline, wind, hydrogen..by a mix an match approach we get the best approach. i dont necessarily believe the oil companies, car companies are bad, we need their skills in changing. integration is the key IMHO.
this is all doable now, we just need someone to speartip it into the right direction. i also think it is a huge tool on the WOT. we keep our prices low and use the oil money we do buy as a tool for change. if we were only importing small percentages of oil (still huge money per annum) and indeed get other democracies to do the same, we could start to dicate to them what we need in place to buy oil, namely democracy. so instead of the islamic , dictator strangelholds, we could enforce change with the best tool of all...money.
i dont think it would take decades either. once we have a direction, it would be easier for the car companies to commit to this direction without shafting themselves. they win, we win..incentives by the government and more importantly some direction (which has started but i think it need more drive and purpose) will help no end also.
100% of Alaskan North Slope oil is kept in America. This has been the case for all but 4 years of the nearly 3 decades of Alaskan oil production. Between 1996-1999 5.5% of North Slope oil was exported to Asian countries. These exports were overwhelmingly supported by the US Congress and by the Clinton Administration to offset an oil glut in California at the time. In June 2000 Alaskan North Slope oil again ceased to be exported, and 100% of Alaskan North Slope production has stayed in America. (Thanks Thackney)
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
This shows up in one out of two mentions of the hydrogen economy, and it just IS NOT TRUE. "Embrittlement" by hydrogen diffusion only happens at a high enough rate to be a problem at high temperatures. At room temperature (or less, since pipelines are typically underground), the reaction is so slow as to take centuries to cause a problem.
There is a mild steel pipeline in the Ruhr Valley that has been transporting hydrogen for a century now without problems. The ONLY change that will need to be made to NG pipelines to transport hydrogen is to put in bigger pumps.
NG companies are going nutty lately with new construction and line improvements. (I have a friend who works in the industry. This is his say-so, but he assures me that the industry rags will back him up on it.)
Let's do it.
bttt
I knew a guy once who had his pick-up truck running on Propane. He had the tank in the back and it semmed to run just fine.