Fuels rush in (3)
Unless you can somehow manage to bum a UPS truck, the most painless way of getting your hands on a vehicle powered by compressed natural gas is to get on the waiting list for the Honda Civic GX.
Craig Dickson has one, with about 23,000 miles on it, and he’s done some of the math:
$7,000 more for the GX over the equivalent gasoline LX.
-50% or $3,500 from Oklahoma state income tax CREDIT, not deduction.
$3,500 out of your pocket.
The Feds, at the moment, don’t have any tax bennies of this sort for CNG. Now for the fuel savings:
$3.50 gasoline vs $1.40 CNG – $2.10 savings per gallon.
35 mpg for both LX and GX.
$3,500 / $2.10 = 1,666 gallons x 35 mpg = 59,000 miles.
So five years, maybe, for payback. And it’s probably less than that now, since gas has spun up to more like $3.65 a gallon since he wrote that, and the nearest CNG station to me (49th and Western) hasn’t budged from $1.39. (I paid $3.94 today, but that was for premium. Do they even have premium CNG?)
Charles Pergiel »
30 April 2011 · 11:18 pm
Seven THOUSAND dollars!?!?!
CGHill »
30 April 2011 · 11:31 pm
When it was advertised as a limited-availability item, they could do that. Now that it’s more or less going national (changing from GX to CNG, to make it more obvious), that premium will eventually come down a bit. I think.
Tam »
1 May 2011 · 7:56 am
FWIW, I just paid $4.39/gal for midgrade…
Ric Locke »
1 May 2011 · 8:54 am
Specific answer: No, there’s no such thing as premium LNG.
“Premium”, in gasoline, means the octane rating is higher. The equivalent octane rating of LNG is well over a hundred, meaning that engines using it can have high compression and thus high efficiency.
In effect, there’s no “premium” LNG because it’s all “premium”.
The only realistic disadvantages of LNG vis-a-vis gasoline are:
1) its volumetric energy density is a little lower, so you don’t get as many miles per gallon. The difference is fairly small, and might be less than the increased efficiency of an engine purpose-built to use it:
2) it has to be kept cold, so the tank has to be insulated (which takes up space) and storing it for a long time is a little problematic;
3) there isn’t a widespread infrastructure of vendors, either of LNG itself or of the equipment needed to vend it at retail.
Against that –
1) it’s produced right here (there’s probably a good bit of the stuff under your feet, Charles)
2) it isn’t expensive because there’s lots of it
3) it produces the least pollution possible for a liquid fuel, because it’s mostly hydrogen. No catalytic reactor needed, and the minimum possible CO2. Hydrogen is virtually impossible to store; the carbon atom in methane serves as a ball and chain to keep it confined.
4) as above, engines designed to use it can have high compression and thus high efficiency.
The fact that the EPA isn’t clamoring for its use and offering subsidies to build up the infrastructure for it is conclusive evidence that they don’t know what they’re doing and/or have some agenda other than pollution and efficiency.
Regards,
Ric
Ric Locke »
1 May 2011 · 9:13 am
BTW:
That thing under the floorboards below your feet is a strong vessel in which a chemical reaction occurs and is promoted by a catalyst. It is therefore a catalytic reactor, by definition.
“Catalytic converter” is a weasel-worded mumble designed to keep the ignorant and the Greenies from going off on “hawt d*n that there thang must be nookulur! Git it away from me!”
Confuse people. Use the right name.
Regards,
Ric
CGHill »
1 May 2011 · 10:21 am
To meet early emissions requirements, Porsche 911s of the 1970s were fitted with something called a “thermal reactor,” which sounded scary enough, especially when you had to fork out $1000 for a replacement.
LNG « Ric's Rulez »
1 May 2011 · 12:03 pm
[...] LNG, and nowadays costs about as much as beer or gasoline. It’s time to look more closely at LNG as a vehicle fuel. The fact that the EPA isn’t clamoring for its use and offering subsidies to build up the [...]
Ric Locke »
1 May 2011 · 12:17 pm
And in Europe, especially Germany, the current description is “catalytic reactor”. Be more Yur’pee-an! More sophisticated! Use the correct terminology!
Dan B »
1 May 2011 · 1:18 pm
For Ric Locke:
1 additional advantage: Automobile accidents with CNG cars cannot result in the accumulation of leaked liquid fuel under the hot engine, thus death by automobile fire or explosion is greatly reduced. CNG vaporizes so quickly and so endothermically (adiabatic expansion lowers temperatures in the immediate area, verify for yourself with any spray can) the explosion hazard is almost completely eliminated.
1 additional disadvantage: Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is a greenhouse gas about 25 times more efficient than carbon dioxide. Sloppy fill-ups with CNG are worse than with gasoline, and the aforementioned leaks associated with automobile accidents are more damaging globally versus locally for gasoline.
Net result: since CNG produces less carbon dioxide than gasoline, the greenhouse effects are probably about even, and if proper caution and attention is used during fill-up, might even be a net positive.
And my money on the EPA problem is agenda. Mere ignorance doesn’t allow for an administrator to favor a dirtier fuel primarily under foreign control over a cleaner fuel found locally, even if the foreign control was friendly to us, which it isn’t.
Our alleged US Representative Lankford spoke in the rebuttal to Obama’s weekly radio/internet speech, was all praises for continuing the corporate welfare entitlement for Big Oil, ignoring the fact that Natural Gas pays more and better salaries in our district.
Clay Bennett, Aubrey McClendon, and the other NG barons might not be the best humans around, but at least they aren’t giving millions to known terrorists for entertainment like several of the oil sheiks are. Maybe Chesapeake needs to buy us a real representative instead.