Natural Gas for Cars (The key to ending OPEC’s control over the U.S. transportation industry)

National Review ^ | 08/26/2012 | T. Boone Pickens & R. James Woolsey

[thackney]

There is a bigger swing in prices than I was first aware of by location.

The NYSE doesn't trade propane futures but does trade the spot (immediate delivery) price.

http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3023-cashprices.html?mod=topnav_2_3028

Today it is $0.818 Propane that is delivered to Mont Belvieu, Texas. A year ago it was $1.5369.

Mid March, to compare to the other prices I listed before, it was $1.2375

http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3023-cashprices-20120315.html?mod=mdc_pastcalendar

We have a lot of supply here in the Gulf Coast, but we have a lot of demand as well. Propane is also used for feedstock to some of the chemical industry.

You definitely live in an area of cheaper propane.

[Beagle8U]

“You definitely live in an area of cheaper propane.”

No, not really. Last winter every other supplier in my area was charging $2.86 - $3.10 a gal retail.

Yet I paid a high of $1.70 and it dropped to $1.60 this spring.

My dealer said the other companies are ripping everyone off and he knows they are buying it for the same price he does, about .70 cents a gal.

Most dealers wont even tell you what they charge over the phone if they think you are a customer of theirs. They want to rent you a tank and sign you up at a locked in price.

Take this test in your area...

Call one company and ask how much they charge to rent a tank and lock your price for a year.

Then call another company in your area and tell them you own your own 1000 gal tank, and you want to know what they charge to fill it. You will be shocked at the difference the slimey bastards charge.

If you own your tank they all charge a wayyy lower price.

You can save over $1 a gal.

A good used tank only costs about $500. You more than pay for it with one fill up!

[Eye of Unk]

My next truck will be a multi fuel, gas or diesel with a natural gas option. Probably diesel because then I can blend in filtered oils from home or brew my my own biofuel, and diesels love to run on natural gas.

They say it would cost $5k for a home refilling station, well in Alaska we don’t have tax or insurance restrictions and our natural gas is cheap, not saying it can or cannot be done but I would look into the possibility of making my own compressor station, cannot be too far different than a scuba tank station.

I have tons of compressors at work and being a fabricator I can only research what is involved in getting the much higher pressures needed and compressing a volatile gas.

Of course millions will whine its too expensive, too slow, restricts their distance.

But that doesn’t worry me one bit, let them cry, I for one posses a pioneer spirit and will surge ahead while they whine themselves to death.

[bert]

I have seen him several times and heard his advocacy for big trucks, but I never heard him say a word about subsidies.

[thackney]

I have seen him several times and heard his advocacy for big trucks, but I never heard him say a word about subsidies.

All of his promotion is around granting tax credits/rebates/incentives to promote the Natural Gas Fueling of Vehicles. He is an owner and founder of the largest Natural Gas Vehicle Fueling company in the US, Clean Energy.

http://investors.cleanenergyfuels.com/directors.cfm

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

natural gas is only this cheap because demand for it is relatively low. Throw the vehicle population of the US in there and watch prices skyrocket.

when oil and natural-gas prices tracked one another, if natural gas’s price (in mmcf) was at $8, oil would have been at about $48 — a ratio of 6 (barrels of oil) to 1 (mmcf of gas). But because of horizontal drilling, fracking, and OPEC’s thirst for U.S. dollars, natural gas at one point this year was under $2 per mmcf, while oil was well over $100 per barrel — a ratio of more than 50 to 1.

IOW, a BTU from natural gas has recently been less than one eighth the price of a BTU of oil. That leaves room for a tremendous runup in natural gas price before you even get to the point where oil is only twice as expensive as NG. By the time NG prices run up that much, it will be even more lucrative to exploit more of the huge known, accessible reserves of NG with more horizontal drilling and fracking.

Remember, the natural gas vehicles would then be competing with powerplants for the natural gas that’s out there. Then you can have expensive vehicle fuel and ridiculous electric bills at the same time.

There is enough NG out there, easily accessible, to fuel transportation and power plants - and fuel steel mills instead of coal, to boot. You are thinking small.

[hinckley buzzard]

You sound for all the world like someone who has a big stake in the oal bidness.