Have any of these morons every figured out how the "energy industry" (for lack of a better term), is going to get the infrastructure in place over night?
Next time I'll get a Chevy Volt and a 40 mile extension cord."
Posted on 09/12/2008 7:59:30 AM PDT by ZGuy
"Get this one," says billionaire T. Boone Pickens in his latest TV ad, "Iran is changing its cars to natural gas and we're not doing a thing here. They're doing this to use less oil and sell it for $120 a barrel. We can switch our cars to natural gas and stop sending our dollars to foreign countries."
Readers of this column know better than to take at face value the marketing of the so-called "Pickens Plan."
So what's the full story behind Iran's move, and what would be the impact of switching our cars to natural gas?
Although Iran is a major oil and gas producer, it lacks oil-refining capacity and must import about 50 percent of its gasoline. To be less vulnerable to international pressure concerning its nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decided to reduce Iran's reliance on imported gasoline.
He started with rationing in May 2007. But that quickly led to violent social unrest.
Ahmadinejad then decided to convert Iran's new car fleet to natural gas. So 60 percent of Iran's car production this year -- about 429,000 vehicles -- will be dual-fuel-ready, capable of running on both gasoline and natural gas.
But contrary to Pickens assertion, Iran isn't trying to use less oil:; It's trying to use less imported gasoline -- and only to thwart a possible international gasoline embargo.
Though hardly a role model for energy policy, should we nevertheless follow Iran's lead with respect to natural-gas cars? Just what would that mean to you and to our economy?
While the natural gas sold for auto fuel is as much as 50 percent less expensive than gasoline -- at least for now -- the cover charge to get into a natural-gas vehicle can easily erase any savings.
A new natural-gas-powered car, such as the Honda Civic GX, for example, is almost 40 percent more expensive than a conventional Civic ($24,590 versus $17,700).
While tax credits can reduce the cost by thousands, somebody -- either you and/or taxpayers -- will be paying the difference.
If natural gas fuel saved you, say, $2 per gallon, then you'd have to drive 124,020 highway miles or 82,680 city miles to break even on fuel costs against the $6,890 purchase price premium.
You can convert an existing car from gasoline to natural gas, but the costs are daunting.
Converting a car to dual-use (as in Iran) costs between $6,000 to $10,000. Converting a car to run on natural gas only is about half as expensive.
Even so, the conversion has to be done correctly or, in the worst case, you risk leaks that could turn your car into an improvised explosive device. And if your car is altered without proof of EPA certification, you might not get any of the all-important conversion tax credits.
Then there's the inconvenience. Though their fuel tanks are larger -- which, incidentally, reduces trunk space -- natural gas cars have less range.
While a new Honda Civic can go as far as 500 miles on a tank of gasoline, the GX's range is less than half of that -- and, currently, there are only about 1,600 natural-gas refueling stations across the country, compared with 200,000 gasoline stations.
If your home uses natural gas, you could buy a home filling station at a cost of about $2,000 plus installation. While home filling stations can further reduce fuel costs to substantially below $2 per gallon, the devices take about 4 hours to replenish the fuel consumed by only 50 miles of driving. So much for gas-and-go.
Moving past the personal expense and inconvenience, the broader implications of natural-gas cars are worrisome.
The U.S. currently uses about 23 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year. Like all commodities, the price of natural gas is supply-and-demand dependent.
Switching just 10 percent of the U.S. car fleet to natural gas would dramatically increase our consumption of natural gas by about 8 percent (1.9 trillion cubic feet) -- an amount that is slightly less than one-half of all current residential natural gas usage and one-quarter of all industrial usage.
The price ramifications of such a demand spike would likely be significant. The current cost advantage of natural gas over gasoline could easily be reversed. Our move toward energy independence could also be compromised.
Domestic production of natural gas has not kept pace with rapidly increasing demand. Consequently, about 15 percent of our natural gas must now be imported.
Without more domestic gas drilling, additional demand will need to be met with natural gas imported by pipeline and in liquefied form from the very same foreign sources that T. Boone Pickens rails about in the context of oil.
In its most recent annual outlook, the U.S. Department of Energy projects that the U.S. natural-gas market will become more integrated with natural-gas markets worldwide as the U.S. becomes more dependent on imported liquefied natural gas -- causing greater uncertainty in future U.S. natural-gas prices.
The natural-gas supply problem will be additionally magnified if significant greenhouse-gas regulation is enacted.
Here's how: Currently, when natural gas gets too expensive, electric utilities often substitute coal or cheaper fuels for power generation.
Under a greenhouse-gas regulation scheme, however, inexpensive coal might no longer be an alternative because of the significantly greater greenhouse-gas emissions involved with its combustion.
Utilities, and ultimately consumers, could easily find themselves at the mercy of natural-gas barons -- like T. Boone Pickens himself, a large investor in natural gas.
Is that the real "Pickens Plan?"
It would cost everybody big time. State and federal governments would have to subsidize heating so people wouldn’t freeze to death.
Have any of these morons every figured out how the "energy industry" (for lack of a better term), is going to get the infrastructure in place over night?
Next time I'll get a Chevy Volt and a 40 mile extension cord."
You know the state and fed are going tax NG, so how will they be able to tell what is used for house or car in one of these home systems?
I’m just starting to check into the whole CNG vehicle thing but I’ve noticed a few things:
1: CNG fueling pressures vary. A good fill is 3,000 to 3,400 psi. Many of the current CNG pumps don’t deliver a consistent psi fill rate.
2. CNG fuel has a higher octane than regular gas but you get 12% to 15% less mileage from an equivalent amount of fuel. (However, I’ve seen E85 mileage rates as being 30% to 35% less than gas = Advantage CNG)
3. CNG is only attractive if the price spread between gas and CNG makes it a “good” deal. It will only take the states so long until they tax CNG at gasoline levels thus eliminating the spread. Then we are back at square one again.
Maybe they can put red dye in the heating use only NG, lol.
All great points.
Propane is a better alternative.
I like the way Popular Mechanics shows it.
http://media.popularmechanics.com/documents/Fuel_of_the_Future-e852.pdf
"If natural gas fuel saved you, say, $2 per gallon, then you'd have to drive 124,020 highway miles or 82,680 city miles to break even on fuel costs against the $6,890 purchase price premium."
But
"You can convert an existing car from gasoline to natural gas, but the costs are daunting........."Converting a car to dual-use (as in Iran) costs between $6,000 to $10,000. Converting a car to run on natural gas only is about half as expensive.
So, the actual conversion costs for most drivers (currently owned cars) could be as low as $3,000, or only as much as $5,000 (for conversion to nat gas only). At $2 a gallon, conversion would "pay off" at between 40,000 and 80,000 some miles. Not great, but 1/2 the scariest figures quoted. And, if the industry applied itself both OEM-nat-gas-car-costs and conversion kit costs could come way down.
Good question, but what's to stop the CNG providers from price jacking once they then become the main provider (~monopoly) of transp. fuels, away from diesel/gasoline?
“Can any of our FReeper experts tell us if conversion to a dual fuel for gasoline and natural gas is significantly different than a propane conversion ?”
I spent about six years of my engineering career designing control systems for natural gas engines for both power generation and vehicle use. These were “lean burn” natural gas engines, and generated extremely low emissions. They are very cost effective in certain applications.
Many people mistakenly call propane “natural gas”. But they are two different things. Propane is propane. Natural gas is mostly methane with other combustible gases comprising the balance. CNG is much safer to handle than propane. Being mostly methane, which is lighter than air, a spill just “floats” away. Propane sinks to the ground and hangs around ready to be ignited.
Doing a gasoline to propane (or gasoline to CNG) conversion basically means throwing away your existing fuel system (injectors or carburetor, fuel pump, fuel tank, etc., and replacing it with another fuel system specifically designed to run on propane or CNG versus gasoline. There are commercially available kits to do just this for many V8 engines.
It would be complex and costly to implement a dual fuel strategy for propane or CNG and gasoline, because you essentially need two different fuel systems; one for handling a liquid fuel, and another for handling a gaseous fuel.
Natural gas, as it comes from the well, is abundant here in the US and Canada. But it is also highly variable from a qualitative perspective. The quantity of methane in natural gas can vary widely. This means that the energy density of natural gas can vary tremendously.
The “methane index” is used to denote the actual percentage of methane in the gas, and is standardized in commercial natural gas heating fuel, so that you know how much energy you’re buying per cubic foot of gas.
The other problem with natural gas is that it contains impurities such as sulfur which can make it unusable for low emissions vehicular use without refining. Even with a standardized, commercial blend of CNG, you’d never meet EPA or CARB emissions requirements unless you remove all the impurities.
If we didn’t have all the emissions requirements that we do, we could easily produce vehicle engines that would run very well on the same stuff that comes out of your stove, and we’ve got lot’s of that. There are many places in the western part of the country that have irrigation pumps and other devices running on converted V8’s burning natural gas coming directly out of the ground from a well.
I worked for a city that used natural gas powered pickups. There were two ways to refuel the trucks; slow fill or fast fill. The fast fill took about 10 minutes but would only load enough gas to last about 1 day. The slow fill took about 10-12 hours and would transfer enough natural gas to run the truck for about 3 days. I think the difference has to do with the speed, and resulting friction, of the natural gas flowing into the tank. Most of the CNG equipped trucks were in use 24 hours per day by shift workers. Eventually the city got rid of all the CNG trucks because there was no savings. Also had a problem with the nozzles of the gas lines blowing off the fuel refilling point when they were charged. More than one person was hit in the head by one of the hoses that would come flying off the truck.
My local welding supply has several photos of what an exploding oxygen tank can do to a car. They are typically at 2,000psi. The entire rear of the car was gone and oxygen is not explosive. A tank strong enough to be safe and big enough to be practical would weigh 500lbs.
The setup at the Ford dealership adds about 500 lbs to the truck. Its EPA certified but the safety of the tanks is a concern anytime your putting its contents under high pressure. Safety note taken and I appreciate it.
I’m only researching it at this point. Not sold on it as of yet due to not trusting the state and our friends in the gubmint to keep the price low. I’ve seen Utah in the $1.60 to $1.80 gge range and Texas has been at $2.84 per gge so the spread is all over the place. It may work in some areas; not in others.
“He said they run lousy, never seemed to work right, and always needed repair. “
Jeff, what he is speaking of are “lean burn”, ultra low emissions (ULEV) engines designed for fleet use, and yes, they can be finicky and difficult to maintain. Performance is also highly dependent on fuel quality which is nowhere near as standardized as gasoline from an energy density and impurities standpoint
I worked doing control system design for about six years on this type of engine. Many of the early ULEV natural gas engines were sold way too early in the design and testing process.
Engine manufacturers and fleet owners were too eager to be PC and “go green”. Then there was that little problem of our government subsidizing them with tax breaks which kept them from being properly developed from a commercial viewpoint.
I would guess the same forces that work on the oil companies
I guess what I don’t understand is how natural gas, which is (relatively) cheap now, is supposed to stay cheap once we convert a bunch of cars to this and double our demand (or more)? If demand doubles, won’t price double or more as well? Where does that leave us in cost? Will gasoline go down a proportionate amount as demand reduces? Will it cost some sucker 100$ more per month to heat his house just so he can save 50$ a month on his gas costs for his vehicle?
“What does anyone know about clean coal technology? Or converting coal to fuel. I need to know if I should load up on coal stock(s).”
I am a big fan of coal stocks, and, conveniently, they have just been crushed by about 30%. It is NOT because of coal-to-gas, it is because of met coal, the type of coal used to make steel.
My favorite coal stocks are the ones located in Appalachia, which have among 1: The highest BTU content, 2: The highest proportion of met coal vs. steam coal of all US producers 3: have known, working infrastructure to deliver the coal. We are talking about millions of tons, rail lines are an absolute requirement. The Appal coal cos (generally called CAPP = Central Appalachia) that meet these requirements are:
ANR
PCX
WLT
MEE
Any of these are great investments. PM me for more math than the board needs to know about.
less good: CNX
even less good: JRCC
Just as a point of reference as to how the market views BTU, sulfur, and ash content and proximity to port facilities, consider that steam (not met) coal from CAPP sells for about $100-120/ton, not including special buddy-buddy deals to the local utilities; while PRB (Powder River Basin) Coal, typ from Wy & Colo & Ut sells for....wait for it.....$14 - $18 a ton.
“1: CNG fueling pressures vary. A good fill is 3,000 to 3,400 psi. Many of the current CNG pumps don’t deliver a consistent psi fill rate.”
Are you sure about that? That doesn’t sound right. I was under the impression that methane/propane, the primary components of NG would liquefy at MUCH lower pressures than that, talking low hundreds of pounds. Once a liquid, no further compression is possible. You buy a new propane cylinder for a hand-held torch, you can hear liquid propane sloshing around. That type of stamped sheet-metal cylinder is no kind of 3000 lb affair, that’s for certain. Maybe methane has a higher vapor pressure but I doubt either of them (methane/propane) are in the thousands of lbs. I will check.
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