Increase in CNG interest

[franz]

There has been a sharp increase in the interest in CNG vehicles here in the US. Close to 90% of the calls I get regarding alternative fuels are about CNG, and the calls are all over the board. Where to get kits, where to get vehicles converted, how much does a conversion cost, how much and where it fuel available, and so on.

For example, all of 2007, I had four CNG phone calls! ! !

From August to last week, I had over 200!

People I speak to from all over the US relay the same experiences

Franz

[DODGEN1]

i hope the interest continues. just because the price of gas came down. i hope we still have interest in alternitive energys.

[Steptoe]

The big issue is the outlets...because of the very short range one gets out of a tank.
I posted about this and CNG in an older post
I have had 2 cars on CNG, a 6 Cylinder GM holden 186 CI engine in a Monaro and the Camaro.

[DODGEN1]

in the city i would think this would be best. whats your travel milage like? in LA you could run 50 miles but thats all right there. the US doesent have the infrastructure to do any thing besides gasoline. sure theres a lot of propane but no real push publicly to use it. you would have to be PG&E or or one of the big natrual gas supplyers to even have a large scale compresor.

[Techie]

CNG has gotten more interest because of the same reason everything else is getting interest. Advertising. Companies like clean energy have cash for it.

CNG is great fuel, Clean Energy has done a good job by keeping prices reasonable and allowing self-serve pumps. They do not charge 18c/gal road tax like they do on propane. (I see something wrong with that. Road tax is the same for gasoline and propane, yet fuel mileage on propane is lower because it has less BTU's). They also sell CNG in Gas Gallon Equivalents, so amount of energy is the same as gasoline. Propane is generally only available from 8am to 5pm and there are no self service pumps. Propane costs more than gasoline if you add extra taxes and loss of fuel economy. From fuel supply point of view, CNG is cheaper than propane. The down part is that conversion is very costly due to very expensive tanks. Tanks are also extremely hard to come by and require regular inspection - extra cost.

Love LPG, but it seems that there are more incentives to use CNG. Clean Energy has made limited but very user friendly refueling infrastructure. CNG is also always cheaper than LPG.

[IWANTCHEAPGAS!]

Pickins is getting his message to President Obama. The lame belief that electric hybrid technology is replacing the modern combustible engine seems to be what this administration is in love with. They're so wrong. That is why LPG is getting little or no consideration because it still relies on the petroleum industry one way or another. Pickins angle is to weed us from petroleum based energy and focus in on our resources here in the USA. He is having a lot of success with his argument and Washington is lending an ear since its easily do-able. Plus there is always the money factor, he is a multi-billioner with lots of influence and one hell of a marketing campaign, (I am part of his make believe army). I'd rather the LPG alternative get the recognition but whos knows? Maybe LPG can ride on the coat-tails of the CNG industry's massive campaign.

[Steptoe]

Some some yrs now I have had a question on the back of my mind..
How much energy does it take to produce a hybrid, and how much does it take to dispose/recycle it.....compared to a std compact like the wifes 1st car....a 1988 basic suburu omega ...consistant even to this day 46 mpg
And her curent car toyota corolla 38 mpg+
And add to that the life of the car...
Yeah we have all heard at it takes more engery to make than a hummer, but from what I can gather this has been credited now.
And if they where real serious they would be looking at making a basic car...no electic windows etc that use heaps of energy to make...along the lines an old 2 cylinder jowett bradford but engineered to run on modern fuels.

I just have this guy feeling that in 15 or 20 yrs from now the current hybrid lobby will be looked upon in the same way as leaded fuel monopoly/rort eventually proved to be now.

[truckeez]

ok --my second stupid question, LNG, are the same outlets selling cng also offering LNG-liquified?
Is there port injected LNG EFI?
is there less hp avalable with natural gas, I guess you went over that last one on my first stupid question--ill go back and read. This is a AU or NZ site I guess --yall wont read it til 12 hr from now.

[Frank]

Welcome to the forum and, like Steps said, there are no stupid questions. It would nice if more people used the search function but your question hasn't been asked here before. LNG is a cryogenic fluid so it is only available in LNG stations, which seem to be concentrated in the Greater Los Angeles area at this time. It is very possible that a LNG station would offer CNG but mostly CNG stations are few and far between. Many cities are lucky if they have one CNG station.

The only LNG engine I'm aware of is the Westport HD ISX-G but they convert the liquefied gas to a high pressure gas before it is injected into the engine.

The main reason that there is loss in hp with a natural gas engine is that natural gas displaces a relatively high proportion of air from the intake charge reaching the combustion chamber. This reduces the engine's volumetric efficiency and its maximum horsepower capability. However, I think the lower volumetric efficiency also tends to reduce pumping losses (throttle valve has to open a bit wider to produce the same power) so natural gas' fuel efficiency is gets a slight gain.

As for location, we have members from all around the world but this site is based in Canada. The members from AU and NZ just happen to be very active here.

[Steptoe]

Further to the above...CNG has a very high octane..higher octane the more dynamic compression one needs.
EG LPG runs well on petrol engines, as does Av gas....but start runing a petrol engine on methanaol and runs inefficient burns. bump up the DCR and the potentual is huge.
Same goes for CNG....ordinary compression engine, runs nice cheap, very little range from the tank and huge power loss...get that DCR up milages, power increases dramtically.....but still still comes back to it has more energy per kg, but far less per volume.....and we buy our fuels by the volume, and volume determines the avalible tank size.

in the 80s, we had CNG at damn near every 2nd petrol station, Now I could not tell u where there is one...in the whole of NZ.