Posted on 01/20/2011 7:34:00 AM PST by Brookhaven
[The following is an excerpt]
Atlanta Gas Light intends to ‘seed’ the new CNG market to better enable potential market participants to make the long term capital commitments required to purchase vehicles or provide fueling infrastructure to benefit from access to the Atlanta Gas Light baseline facilities. Atlanta Gas Light intends to provide the installation and maintenance of fueling equipment and supporting infrastructure at locations throughout metropolitan Atlanta and eventually in other major cities and along major transportation corridors throughout the state. These locations would be on new or existing commercial sites, convenient to the location of commercial fleets and open to the general public.
Following approval of this plan, Atlanta Gas Light intends to implement a facilities construction program to install CNG fueling facilities under agreements with fleet operators and service station owners, and facilitate the sale of CNG by marketers or other CNG retailers. Atlanta Gas Light estimates the funds available to support the new CNG infrastructure program through the 2011 USF Facilities Expansion Plan will be approximately $10 million. Atlanta Gas Light's initial analysis indicates that fueling infrastructure costs will range from approximately $1 million to $1.6 million at each location, depending on the size of the station installed. Accordingly, Atlanta Gas Light intends to construct between 5 and 8 CNG fueling stations with the proposed USF funds. However, to ensure these initial funds are properly deployed for maximum effect, Atlanta Gas Light would not construct any individual station until one or more fleet customers within a defined geographic region contractually agree to utilize at least 20% of the capacity of the station. Once this minimum commitment is obtained, Atlanta Gas Light would work with traditional fueling station owners, the fleet customers, and others to identify locations that will support access to the CNG facilities and then construct and maintain the facilities. ...
This is NOT a government funded program. AGL (a private company, although it is regulated by the state which is why it must get permisson from the state to do this) is planning on doing this with its own money. The USF fund is money collected from customers for special projects. It does not come from the government.
They are trying to establish enough CNG filling stations in the Atlanta area that it will jumpstart the use of CNG cars in the area. The are also creating a rental program for CNG filling devices that can be used at home (it takes overnight to fill the tank though).
A Honda CNG vehicle gets 36 miles per "gallon" and the current cost of CNG is $1.25 a gallon.
I'm not sure if this will work, but its nice to see some private energy solutions emerge.
BTW, GA has choice in natural gas providers.
Not a bad idea.
There’s a LOT of NG in our country.
(and I believe the earth is generating more all the time)
I’m just happy to see someone taking a practical approach that might work instead of the pie-in-the-sky govt. greenie approach.
I think this is great.
There’s plenty of NG and every week brings news of a new discovery.
Didn’t Amoco try to get this started in Atlanta about 20 years ago ?
Why does it take overnight, that has to be a mistake.
Agreed. Most people have no clue that in the past 5 years America has become #1 in nat gas production and #1 in reserves. This is all due to horizontal drilling and Texan George Mitchell’s efforts. He sold his company to Devon Energy for $8 billion.
This is also helping Poland, Germany and other allies. The states need to use the tenth amendment to take back all the land the Feds have stolen because there is tons and tons of nat gas there.
Nat Gas could free us from Arab oil in a decade if we went in whole hog. We have over 100 year supply and each year that number grows. If Barry and Bush before him had brains they would be putting up infrastructure all over the country for nat gas filling.
You could easily transition fleet vehicles like buses onto nat gas, then semis, then finally cars.
Up north it would be even easier as we in the midwest have nat gas heat. Already you can buy a device to fuel your car at home.
Anyone know the cost of converting a car to CNG?
I’m not sure about 20 years ago.
There was some passing mention about working with UPS (which is headquarted in Atlanta).
The proposal does mention that AGL would be allowed to build the stations on a fleet customer’s property, as long as the station would be available to the public (you or I could drive in and fill up without a problem). With the amount of trucks UPS runs in the area (and CNG trucks being less expensive to run), I could see them working closely with AGL on this.
I’m sure commercial fleet vehicles are their first target anyway, but you have to start somewhere.
O has no interest in improving anything. I see posts here by people saying he is stupid, incompetent and other dumb things. His job is to destroy and enslave America and he has all of TV behind him. He is a puppet for the elites, the Saudis and China. They are all for the Islamification of America. The Saudis and China know we have this energy and the elites want to lock it up and keep the slaves down with TV and ball games.
These people view you and others posting here as fertilizer.
I considered going to a CNG car, but there are no public refueling stations in my area, and a home refueling station is cost prohibitive.
Anyone know the cost of converting a car to CNG?
(1) He said he was a former Ford engineer and said he had seen to many problems with conversions. He strongly recommended getting stuff made by the factory for CNG.
(2) The cost at $10,000 doesn’t give you enought of a return on your investment (wow, someone pushing a green alternative that takes basic economics into account—one of the reasons I took him seriously).
Why does it take overnight, that has to be a mistake.
That’s what he said. I don’t know why.
He said the monthly rental cost for the unit would be $75.
The United States Four Quadrilioon Trilion tons of Natural Gas, More than all other nations combined.
We should absolutely exploit this resource for it’s more economical burning qualities and sheer volume.
It would take us hundreds of years to burn our proven reserves and give us a huge, No, Gigantic advantage in the cost of production and transport of goods and services.
I considered going to a CNG car, but there are no public refueling stations in my area...
That seems to be the point of this plan. Create enough fueling stations in the area to make if possible for the avg. Joe to consider a CNG vehicle.
They did say part of the program would be a rental program for the home fueling units. $75 a month. Still kind of steep, but if you drive enough miles per month it could pay for itself via the fuel cost savings.
$10,000? no way! I was looking at kits from $500-$1500.
That’s what he said, but it was clear he had a strong bias against conversions, so he may have picked the most expensive method he could think of.
A buddy who worked for Amoco (now BP) was involved in this when I worked for another refining company.
No, it’s not a mistake. Depending on temperature and air density, it takes a HOME fueling unit 8-12 hours to fill a 12 gallon equivalent tank. This is due to safety concerns mandating a smaller line size and results in lower pressures being used in residential areas.
**IF** you clean sheet designed a vehicle for CNG, AND the infrastructure to fuel them, it *might* make sense to consider interchangeable fuel modules.
In other words, when you are low on fuel, you go to the station and a robotic system removes your low fuel tank, gives you credit for what’s in your tank based on a tare weight, and then replaces your old tank/module with a new one. Then the one you just dropped off is tested and refueled for the next vehicle.
Advantages are safety, emissions and time spent refueling the vehicle.
*IF* these modules were standardized (like four standard sizes) then logistics work well.
Remember this is a clean sheet idea.
I think the same idea applies to hybrid batteries or 100% electric car batteries as well. Instead of waiting 5 hours to recharge your batteries, you pull into the filling station and swap out your power module.
First implementation would be for fleets with routes.
Second would be high-density commute routes.
Third would be any location where the same people tend to pass day after day.
Gotta get outside the box.
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