Natural gas instead of gasoline?

What is involved in a change over?

Think if a person set up a fueling station it would be a profitable business?

Our town of about 9,000 is 25 miles away from a major center of employment. I would say half of the working people commute that 25 miles daily.
3 colleges and 3 major hospitals that close.

If there was a natural gas fueling station at home, and you could get enough folks to convert, might be a money maker. You would have to stress the environmental (Green) aspect and also the hatred for the Arabs.

I know there were a lot of old tractors that ran on propane.

Just setting here thinking (dangerous)

Gene

Compared to propane, natural gas is a "whole 'nother deal." The difference- propane liquifies at a reasonable pressure, natural gas doesn't. So the storage vessel has to be super-strong (and heavy), but the stuff still isn't liquid, and you just can't compress gas enough to compete with fuel stored as a liquid. So cruising range is very short, and as someone said about hydrogen, which has the same problem, "all the cars are little miniature Hindenburgs".

You'd be working with pressures of 3000#/sq inch (IIRC), and you can think about your average gas station jockey working with that. "What could possibly go wrong?" LOL.

Let's not even talk about "self-serve". . .

It could be done but if I remember right it takes a lot more pressure to turn natural gas to a liquid so it is more stable same thing holds true with Methane gas and that is why methane gas is not used much

You said there"s a lot of people going to the same place? I think you"d be much further ahead setting up a bussing system and simply using less fuel than trying to do the Natural Gas thing.

Natural gas is methane.

Battery vehicles would win this application.
People talk the talk but it's when comes time to open the wallet.They purchase an SUV if the bank will approve the loan. Or some front wheel drive minivan.
GM still makes a few fleet vehicles with factory natural gas fuel systems. Nothing sporty for cruising main street on Saturday night.
http://www.gmfleet.com/compressed-natural-gas-vans/index.jsp

10 years ago they were trying to push home 3000psi compressor stations by Sulzer and others.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2004/09/natural_gas_fue.html

Gene, When you get a chance Google "The Pickens Plan" His plan for Natural gas makes sense to me.He can fill his car at home. The Honda Civic is the only automobile set up to burn natural gas. They are running city bus lines on natural gas in California. Yes there are negatives, but so is $4 gas.

Was real intresting and I may not know enough to coment well but when we were in Bejing China the city busses ran within the power grid on electricity but when they got to the end of the electric line they ran on a large engine in the rear juswt like a cummings 400 but the fuel was compresed natrual gas. We went on up in the mountains about 4 hours so cruise range,,? I don,t know. The tanks looked large hatwater tanks on top of the bus. We were told they did this to clean up the atmospher there in the city.
Doubt that you could ever make it go on a local basis.

In the 90' GM, Honda and Toyota sold CNG cars and trucks. Some were Hybrid and some were NG only. Go online and research the short falls of CNG. The cyliners needed for CNG would only hold an equilivant of 3 gallons of gasoline. GM trucks had 3 cylinders, 9 gallons of gas and were lucky to get 100 miles. Recharging stations at your home were around $25,000. I think it also added $10K to the price of a the car.

That was then, things may have changed. Very expensive, perhaps that is why they call it GREEN TECH GREEN is the color of money.

I don't remember if they had cold temp starting problems. It wouldn't surprise me.

There was a big concern about where to locate the CNG cylinders, especially in the event of an accident. The cars lost trunk space and trucks may have put cylinders in the frame or bed.

Are there any auto makers revisiting the past?

George

Damn! Thanks for the replys, looks like we are headed for bicycles or horse and buggy then!

Gene

Whenever I see anything with the name "Pickens" in it, I'm very leery about the whole plan.
Remember how he talked about investing in wind and solar energy? He pulled out when he found out he couldn't get huge subsidies from Uncle Sam.
Maybe he plan has some merit, but he'll invest only when he gets a huge subsidy.

About 15 years ago I converted the gasoline Honda generator on my boat to run off the propane system I used for cooking on the boat. Worked great for many years and ran for ever on a standard cylinder of propane. Gave me both propane cooking and electric supplies from the one energy source. Difficulty was in getting the propane pressure in the bottle down to a suitable pressure to feed in to the carb, the standard reducer for the normal system ran at far too high a pressure. A reducer needed to give the required result was rather delicate but do-able. The principle is fine, the engineering needs thought.

As a motor fuel, it would have to be highly compressed and stored in heavy duty pressure vessels on vehicles. Costly to set up distribution network, and refill stations.

Electrical vehicles will need charging stations in most every place they go too, a costly addition to the infrastructure.

Better think some more how are you going to set up refueling places all over this big country.

I looked that up the other day and the pump to refuel at home is like 3500 dollars and the fuel tanks are 1/2 inch thick and hold only 8 gallons.You need a setup like is used for Propane on a vehicle with a carburetor.Then if you run out of natural gas you can still run on gasoline.From what I saw there is no place in Missouri that offers propane at a gas station,but there are some in Oklahoma.
I'll bet that if you try to do this it wont be long and the crooks will have natural gas higher priced than gasoline.
Diesel engines don't need a lot of modification,if any,to run on Propane.They like it!If Natural gas works the same way,it should not be too much modification to make that work.

You're right about that, if demand rises the price will surely follow.

Gene just think most of our grand parents never traveled much and if they did most of the time it was by rail or a one way trip. Back in the 20s and 30s few people went more then 100-500 miles in there life time unless they where in the military if the price of gas keeps it up the same may hold true soon plus you may have to teach your kids how to plow with a horse LOL

Good concept but as always there are potential problems. Before spending a lot of time or money I'd go talk to my attorney.
First, vehicles have to be modified to operate on natural gas. What if there is an accident with a tank damaged and leaking?
If the vehicle is in warranty when converted is the warranty voided?
Do refilling stations for resale of natural gas have to be government certified? Cost per refilling station?
Do automobiles/trucks operating on natural gas conversions have to be recertified by the EPA?

Good thoughts on your end, just wanted to give you some food for thought.

A thought just occurred to me.I bet that the reason the price of gas is so high,and nothing seems to be getting done about it is that these politicians are going to try and push through high speed rail.I bet the idea is to make it so miserable to drive a car that everybody will go for high speed rail or something.You know if they wanted to they could make electric cars,but they took all of them back and crushed them once already!!!!?
I f they want to do something,they sure are going at it backwards.
Maybe the people ought to have a real long talk with these politicians about the speculation and other things and maybe even have some recalls.If they dont want to fix these problems they need to go.High speed rail is kind of far fetched as corrupt as the government politicians are.It would probably take them 100 years to build it and maybe never get it running.
I actually think that all any of these politicians are going to do is lie about everything and thenset there and do nothing while they jack the price of oil up to where BP can make a profit off of that oil sand crap they have been selling us from Canada.I think we need to run BP out of the USA and quit buying their oil sand crap.Besides that,before we do that,we need to stop these banks from hiring these speculators to run up the stock market.
I did have this all up her in Videos about that.It was poofed.You can find out about it by looking up Micheal W Masters report to congress in 2008.Stock traders don't want you to know about it,but its the truth.
Im also getting tired of these politicians ruining the economy and playing dumb about it.All of them have known about this stuff all along.
Now if they were serious about fixing the economy they would fix it instead of putting this huge tax on us by letting the oil company's run up the price.From what I can tell by reading about it,BP is a bunch of crooks and they have been doing crooked things all along.They bought Standard oil and Mobil oil and others and since then they have got worse.
I don't know whether you could run natural gas and spend a lot to pump it and set up your car and all,and then save money.It would take a while.It might be easier to hold these politicians feet to the fire so they fix whats wrong with the oil industry in the USA.Otherwise things are probably going to continue to get worse.All of us cant get rich trading stocks.As long as the crooked traders get away with doing what they are doing,they wont stop until the government steps in and stops them.

Guys, CNG is 1 major headache...
1st, it has to be compressed to the point to a supper high pressure to get it to a liquid
2nd,It takes a lot of Money and time and equipment to make it happen.
3rd,Tanks.... very similar to an O2 bottle that you get oxygen out of for you cuttin rig! Not a LP type tank!
4th a standard set of twins,, tanks (ie 5.5 ft O2 bottles will only power a standard 1/2 to pick up for about 25 miles
In the Mid 80s Hitch Enterprises, Henry C Hitch Feed Yard At Guymon, Okla. Thought it would be the greatest thing since Sliced Bread. They invested a train load of Money to convert there entire fleet of trucks to CNG,,, first problem was the mileage they got from the twin tank set up as I described above just not enough duration away from the refill station.
The refill procedure was not an easy deal either for they changed out the tanks, not just refill in the truck. If my memory serves me.
The maintenance on the big compressor was a kings ransom each time it crapped out, which was pretty often. Like ever month! The down time was a factor for the fleet didn't have the fuel capacity to run while the Big compressor was down!
Things may have improved since then but after about 2 yrs Hitch feeders scrapped the entire deal to the best of my knowledge they haven't gone back to CNG.
Hope this helps.
Later,
John A.

the phone company in my area, tried natural gas for their vans working at the airport,[air pollution]driver had to fill everyday on the way out of garage, if they got stuck in traffic jam, guess what,[empty] had to call tow truck, costed more in tows and overtime for the short trips. and that was buying pre-set up vans. they got lousy mileage.

The state of Missouri already has thought of this, the sticker for LP, that goes in the windshield was 60.00, 30years ago, plus the cost of inspection and tags.

"You would have to stress the environmental (Green) aspect and also the hatred for the Arabs."

I hope this doesn"t burst your bubble, but natural gas is the same KIND of energy (carbon and hydrogen) as gasoline and diesel fuel, and almost all of the NG that we use, comes from the same SOURCE (oil/gas wells) as gasoline and diesel fuel. (An infinitesimal amount comes from landfills, etc.)

The same is true of Propane, except IT is actually REFINED from crude oil, in the oil refineries.

Best way to use natural gas. Is to combine it with cheap nuclear sourced steam in the presence of a catalyst. And produce methanol alcohol.
Fuel that is liquid at room temp and pressure doesn't require infrastructure changes. Vehicle range and power is maintained or even improved.

> They invested a train load of Money to convert
> there entire fleet of trucks to CNG,,, first
> problem was the mileage they got from the twin
> tank set up as I described above just not enough
> duration away from the refill station.

Schwan's did it with their delivery trucks as well, I think it worked out OK for them because of their short routes. I see some of their retired CNG-powered GMC Topkicks on craigslist from time to time, most are converted to run on gasoline though.