IT'S A NATURAL: Federally funded researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory are trying to improve the efficiency of natural gas-powered engines, spurred by anticipated consumer demand for fuel that is cheaper and greener than gasoline, and without the hassles of other alternative fuels. Pictured: a natural gas-powered Honda Civic at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show.
Image: LA Wad, courtesy Flickr
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
Dear EarthTalk: I recently saw an article extolling the virtues of natural gas as an abundant, inexpensive and domestically produced automotive fuel. Is this going to be the automotive fuel of the future and how green is it?—Jason Kincaide, New Bedford, Mass.
It is difficult to say which of the growing number of fuel options will power the cars of the future. But natural gas, given its domestic abundance, low price and lesser carbon footprint, is certainly a contender, at least as far as researchers at the federally funded Argonne National Laboratory are concerned. Some of the same engineers there who developed the batteries now used in electric cars have been tasked with improving natural gas powered engine technologies, thanks to anticipated consumer demand for vehicles powered by something cheaper and greener than gasoline but without the hassles of other alternative fuels.
“Our conclusion is that natural gas as a transportation fuel has both adequate abundance and cost advantages that make a strong case to focus interest in the technology as a real game changer in U.S. energy security,” Mike Duoba, an engineer at Argonne’s Transportation Technology Research and Development Center outside of Chicago, told the Talking Points Memo news blog. “In terms of consumer ownership and use costs, the case to make a switch from current fuels to compressed natural gas (CNG) is much more compelling than for other alternative fuels like ethanol and electricity.”
Given this promise—in addition to a February 2012 Department of Energy announcement of a $30 million competition aimed at finding ways “to harness our abundant supplies of domestic natural gas for vehicles”—Duoba and his colleague have been ramping up vehicle systems analysis and engine research and testing around CNG as a way to wean ourselves off of foreign fuel sources.
Their goal is to improve the efficiency of the CNG combustion process so that it can fit into a new line of engines that can run on gasoline or CNG equally as well, giving consumers the flexibility of choice without any trade-offs. Duoba thinks such a vehicle would have significant consumer appeal, especially in light of sluggish sales of the latest round of electric vehicles from the major automakers.
“At least for some time, compared to plug-in vehicle batteries, CNG storage offers lower weight, higher energy storage and lower costs—as well as faster refueling/recharging.” And while CNG vehicles would generate emissions from their tailpipes, the Argonne team believes that their overall emissions footprint would be smaller than that of an electric vehicle drawing power from the fossil-fuel-based electric grid.
But to Duoba the appeal of CNG is more about reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil sources than on saving the planet. “Various technologies have been successful at reducing the environmental impact (criteria pollution) over the decades,” Duoba wrote. “To the extent that consumption of foreign petroleum has not been reduced to acceptable levels, this could be viewed as the principal motivation.”
But CNG faces the same major hurdle to becoming widely accepted as any other challenger to gasoline as king of the road: a lack of refueling stations. Whatever does finally unseat gasoline will no doubt have to have a system for refueling that rivals the convenience we’ve come to expect from our corner gas stations.
CONTACTS: Argonne Center, www.transportation.anl.gov.
EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine ( www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.
See what we're tweeting about
43 Comments
Add CommentThis article dodges the real problem. It says that CNG has higher energy density than plug-in EV's, but neglects to say that it is much lower than liquid fuels such as gasoline or diesel. So there is an added weight and volume problem for passenger cars, especially in small economy cars, which is where you would most like to use it for its lower cost. So the most likely place to be using it is where we are already seeing it: in large vehicles like buses where the added weight and volume does not matter as much as the lower cost and reduced emissions, especially compared to diesel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe already know how to convert natural gas into methanol and how to convert methanol into high octane gasoline using the Mobil Oil MTG process. New Zealand use to do this! So there is no logical reason to use natural gas powered engines when current automobiles already have the ability to use natural gas if its simply converted into gasoline.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMarcel F. Williams
Agreed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo make this work we need home fill stations or widely available CHG pumps at gas stations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour $1 a gal equiv home Phil CNG station is really just a cheap scuba compressor with an explosive safe electric motor worth less than $500. The units now sell for $4500.
Why is the mass funding now available for batteries not around for a simple modified scuba compressor.
Why isn't the DOE forcing gas utilities nationwide as Utah and many other countries around the world do, to spend pennies a gallon eq to offer CNG at a selection of gas stations in cities/towns/and villages, to sell NG at home delivery cost.
Answer> Campaign donations to our most corrupt in the world politicians, from T Boone Pickens who makes a fortune selling CNG at his Clean Energy franchises at $3/gal eq, and of course Big Oil who really doesn't want to interrupt the lucrative sales of gasoline and diesel.
That said Shell already has a successful first of a kind gas to liquids plant in Qatar producing diesel at $35 a barrel with a $20 a barrel plant proposed for Louisiana.
So expensive are the all in costs of fossil fuels that the conversion from fossil to nuclear energy would pay back at 40% per annum to the nation as a whole with a 4 year payback on a fleet conversion to EV's proportioning nuclear costs by energy. Using nuke based synfuel like ammonia/methanol or diesel supplemented in the transition by Natural gas synfuels is just the ticket, while waiting for EV technical breakthroughs.
Keep in mind that if the money wasted on wind/solar/biofuels had been spent on nuclear the nation would now be coal free saving as many as 30K lives per annum from coal air pollution.
LPG(liquefied petroleum gas)and LNG (liquefied natural gas) vehicles cars are in daily use all over Europe. But if you want fuel efficiency go for a small turbodiesel when 80 miles per gallon is routine. If you want to be really wasteful generate electricity for your battery powered car from gas, oil, or coal. If you want to be utterly wasteful generate electricity from gas oil or coal, and then make hydrogen for your fuel cell car. If you want a real gamechanger, generate electricity from Thorium nuclear plants. But before you start to howl in protest about nuclear, do yourself a favour and look up nuclear power from thorium. It can't be used to make a bomb, it won't melt down, it don't produce nuclear waste, it burns up existing nuclear wastes and it's got the seven sisters shitting themselves: No carbon, and no arabs!!!! Christ guys it aint rocket science, it just needs somebody with the money to get off their fat butt and do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEngine performance drops 25% and fuel economy drops 10% or more with natural gas. Why would anyone want to use natural gas? Oh wait SciAm promotes global warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally good reporting on this at greencarcongress.com, it does look like DOE is funding affordable home filling stations: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/07/eaton-20120720.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, in supposedly backwaterish Brazil, Natural Gas is routinely used as a car fuel (taxis and vans use it almost exclusively), about one fourth of the service stations sell it. Most cars are "flex" (gasoline – ethanol, which puts out slightly less power up a steep slope) and many people are converting their cars to gas anyhow. It is less pollutant even than ethanol and much cheaper to fill ‘er up.
I would still prefer electric cars, though. A very low-power engine could use a flywheel as a secondary “booster” angular momentum battery. For instance, GM had a perfectly good electric car going on in California in the late 90s, which was scrapped as soon as law allowed:
Who Killed The Electric Car
(add usual initial part of link)
movie2k.to/Who-Killed-the-Electric-Car-watch-movie-780880.html
The concept is good, we already have vehicles that run on the fuel. So instead of ridiculous taxpayer funded government research, how about we let the auto companies and energy companies work out the details on their dime. Spare me the evil oil company crap, they sell natural gas as well and can likely charge more for it under the concept of greener than gas or moving the psychos in the middle east out of our energy market.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we continue to rely on government to pillage money from others and do so called research, it will never get done. The best the government can do is mandate the fuel into use which tells the various auto and energy companies they have X number of years to effectively replace gasoline with natural gas. That is what they did with HDTVs. This will be the only way it works and that means no grandfather exceptions, if you have a car made prior to the mandate, you either convert it or put it in storage but there wont be any gasoline to purchase. Do this mandate and let private industry work out how to do it and it will happen.
Otherwise, we will just continue the nonsense we have today only with the government pillaging more money in the name of proving natural gas can run a car, which we already know works.
Always love the fascist spew.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPrivate corporations are run by attorneys who look no farther than the next quarter - Elon Musk's they are not. Right now they have $5 trillion in taxpayers cash sitting in their Swiss bank accounts waiting to buy those islands in Jamaica mon. They need to have it all taxed back and the bunch of them put to work in the fields hoeing potatoes - the only job they are qualified for.
We could then use the cash to fix the infrastructure we built and they failed to maintain.
First the energy companies have to demonstrate that they can safely and cleanly run fracking operations before the public revolts on their present attempt to show they can. It is fraught with pitfalls that no sane governor wants these days. Too bad they practice was for decades to just burn off the gas directly into the air which is partially responsible for the rise in CO2.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI doubt it can. Mother Earth does not like turning the bed rock into Swiss cheese and crumbled crackers.
Uh let's not forget that at least in 2003, 92% of our actual domestic consumption is met by domestic production. Once CNG becomes viable, large energy companies will "OPEC" it as they did with our beloved domestic resource. They will add it to an international pool and then set global standards on par with their losses in oil sales. Nothing will change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople, the rich like being rich. They will be the ones supplying CNG. Your optimism though infectious is severely misplaced. The only true difference between using gas in place of oil will be a reduction in ocean spills from ship and platform accidents. I'm sorry but unless congress passes a historic legislation regulating its cost (HA!) that's just the way it is.
In South Africa they have been producing liquid fuel from natural gas for the last 30 or so years. It may be as much as 7% of the fuel used. At current oil prices it must be very profitable. I agree with sethdiyal that electricity should be produced exclusively in nuclear power stations, and that "renewables" especially wind and solar may be great for isolated farms in scarcely populated areas, but for the majority they are just a waste of money. Anyway all the money that has been invested in these technologies must have shown by now that it is just not affordable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...spent on nuclear..." As long as this spending was on more modern reactors than what are in use, such as designs which produce minimal waste or waste having short half-life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...92% of our actual domestic consumption was met by domestic production..." This is incredible, because if there is this overabundance of domestic oil, then why have the strategic reserves been tapped over the years in order to help mitigate prices? It wasn't that long ago gasoline in America was $6 a gallon, or not available at some stations. Katrina was blamed, but was the hike was part of an upswing started months before the hurricane. The bellicose attribute a lack of refineries, EPA regulation, all those hippies, low sulfur diesel, unleaded gasoline...let us pollute more. Alternative energy, electric vehicles are a threat to so many of the vested interests which have long been manipulating and beguiling Americans into polluting and killing, oppressing freedom and stopping democracies, supporting and arming despots, from Mexico to Arabia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid I go to sleep and wake up 20 years in the past ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen I moved from Tulsa, Oklahoma over 10 years ago, Oklahoma Natural Gas Company has been running their fleet of vehicles on natural gas for quite some time.
It is painted right on the vehicles, " This vehicle runs on natural gas ".
Judging by this article, the government seems to just now be offering grants and prizes for developing it as an alternative viable fuel for transportation.
The conversion from gasoline to natural gas is not that difficult, A pressure tank, a sealed carburetor, and a regulator.
As far as being able to run on either fuel. Industrial forklifts have been coming from the factories able to run either gasoline or LPG or CNG for years. The one I drive runs on LPG, but has a built in gasoline tank.
The only studies that they are doing is, How can we make people WANT to pay more for natural gas, and the vehicles that can run on it.
In my opinion, it is all just smoke and mirrors designed to DUMB-DOWN the American people even more. You don't know what's good for you, till we ( the powers that be ) tell you what's good for you.
I could be wrong. After all, I am ( in the governments eyes ) just a poor dumb working class, tax paying citizen who doesn't know what is best for me and my family.
L.W.McQueary (aka) oldtroll_57
Methanol fuel, can be made from stranded NG. The Lurgi MegaMethanol plants can convert NG to Methanol from stranded flared gas for 5.2 cents per liter. Methanol from Coal costs 50 cents per gal. Methanol is the cleanest burning of all liquid fuels - and the most environmentally friendly. Spills are trivial. It quickly evaporates into the atmosphere or dilutes completely into water. And bacteria consume it. They add millions of gallons of methanol to sewage treatment plant effluent to destroy nitrates.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMethanol has 5.9X the energy density of the CNG they send down pipelines and double the energy density of CNG @ 3000 psi ( CNG vehicles). It would be far cheaper to send Methanol down a pipeline than CNG. Much easier to convert vehicles to Methanol than CNG.
Methanol is the best fuel for vehicles and burns at double the efficiency of gasoline, in a converted diesel engine, even more efficiently than diesel. With a much wider island of high efficiency than the diesel engine. And much lower emissions. The 43% efficient Methanol engine:
http://epa.gov/otaq/presentations/sae-2002-01-2743-v2.pdf
The EPA tested a converted VW 90hp TDI diesel, with a 19.5:1 compression ratio, burning methanol. The engine easily met the tough new tier II new low emission vehicle standards, unlike the diesel. The peak efficiency of the engine was 43% vs 41% for the diesel, and peak hp was 112 hp vs 106 hp for the diesel. Most importantly the engine had a much bigger high efficiency island, than the diesel. Whereas the 90 hp diesel driving a typical Sedan @ 60 mph on flat highway would use about 13 hp at an engine efficiency of 32%, the methanol version of the engine would have a 40% efficiency at the same output, a 25% improvement in fuel economy. The numbers are even better for lower speeds.
The EPA states replacing Gasoline with Methanol will reduce vehicle fire related deaths & injuries by 95%.
And Methanol to DME - DME is the best fuel for Diesel Engines, much cleaner burning & highest cetane (diesel efficiency) number of any fuel.
The World's #1 Expert on Fuels, the Nobel Prize Winning Chemist, George Olah, has concluded that we can replace Fossil Fuels with the Methanol Economy, and has written a book of the same name. He has invented a reverse Methanol fuel cell that produces Methanol from Electricity, water and CO2. And Methanol will cleanly produce Electricity in a Direct Methanol Fuel Cell. With Methanol having 40% more Hydrogen per liter than liquid Hydrogen. So who needs Hydrogen fuel or the much hyped Hydrogen Economy.
Three mile island
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChernobyl
Fukushima
Huh?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisS-C-I-E-N-C-E!
Use facts. Avoid propaganda.
I traded my Infiniti G35 coupe (nice car!) for a CNG Honda Civic this past January. My commute is 183 miles roundtrip each workday. Saving just over $22./day on gas makes the $400.+ payment on the new $27k car.
40mpg fwy/35mpg city
CNG costs $1.89 today at my local San Diego Gas & Electric fueling station.
Pete,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy 183 mile roundtrip commute
2012 Honda Civic CNG - 40mpg fwy
$1.89/gal cng
The $22/day fuel savings makes the monthly payment on the new car.
GR,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a Ford SuperDuty E350 w/6.8L V10 gas engine and a 4.18 rear diff. I tow a lot across the continental divide/mountains. With the 25% loss in power and 10% less mpg with natural gas fuel, towing across the continental divide is literally not possible. Changing to natural gas is not feasible for everyone. More power, Scotty...I need more power...
P
Ninety seven per cent of transport is fossil oil reliant; part only of the effect of economic activity now rivals that of natural erosion, apart from the massive amount of transport that does not do this; and fossil oil is simply a fuel tank that cannot be replenished, used to build and maintain a world that only hydrocarbons will allow,of bricks, mortar, extreme heaviness and rigidness, which energy has been put together by natural forces only, to be released by explosive combustion, so powerful in the scheme of things it does not matter that the many forms of internal combustion engine are all highly inefficient and are now at the limit of improvement of efficiency. Adopting natural gas does not overcome this finiteness of the fuel tank, at a time of soaring demand from a rapidly growing world population, of an increasing percentage seeking an advanced standard of living. It is the immense forces of nature, including the extreme pressure over eons, for condensed solar energy par excellence, that made the natural hydrocarbon fuel tank, without rival, whether singly or in combination, to allow so much energy for so much power to mobile units that sets it apart, to fill machine fuel tanks with the fundamentally unchanged action of retrieval of already created form of energy, once largely assisted in flow to a growing cumbersome distribution system, by natural forces. To the extent of any switch to natural gas will see the equal depletion of natural gas, with finally nowhere to go, as with fossil oil. Many transport businesses are not in a position to handle hydrocarbon shocks, and the fossil oil world is beset my more internal difficulties which natural gas would not present. But the distant second place to oil of natural gas, shows just what a front runner oil is, without any attention paid to hydrocarbons' absolute limits, of a power hungry world of our own unintended making.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis gas policy is just short-sightedness. All fossil fuels cause climate change and need to be replaced. One solution is to pyrolyse biomass and produce eco-diesel. This reduces atmospheric CO2 by 40%. Coupled with energy efficiency, there can be an alternative to fossil fuels, but investors in fossil fuels must be persuaded that they are destroying the future of their descandants. The USA is the sick man of the world in this respect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can reduce CO2 emissions all you want and it will make absolutely NO impact on the environment whatsoever.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCo2 emissions by us, and the damage they say it is doing, is just a scare tactic.
Our CO2 contribution isn't even a blip on the geological scale.
Just 1 volcano erupting for just 3 days, puts out MORE CO2 than the entire human race has, since we came into existence.
Don't get me wrong. We have done a lot of other stuff in the way of pollution. But please, don't let them scare you with all that CO2 crap.
"...Three mile island..." Zero deaths.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...Chernobyl..." Soviet military reactor, nothing whatsoever to do with commercial nuclear power, but 52 deaths, possibility of 4000 of the most treatable cancer - thyroid cancer and only because the Soviets didn't give out iodine pills after the incident"
"...Fukushima..." Zero deaths.
Deaths per TWh of energy:
Coal: 161
Oil: 36
Biomass: 12
NG: 4
Hydro: 1.4
Wind: 0.15
Nuclear: 0.04
nextbigfuture.com/2012/02/how-many-lives-does-coal-and-oil-have.html
That about nails that one shut.
dwbd,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe waste products of nuclear energy production has put the future exisitence of the humanity in doubt. Fukushima is one more earthquake away from a unrecoverable disaster. Nothing has been done is fix the damaged used fuel rod containment pools. And do you honestly believe the Japanese government has been truthful or even knows how much radiation has been released? Radiation waves are still appearing on the USA west coast. Does our government tell us? No. These type of plants are all over the US and their waste products are not able to be stored anywhere safe, because frankly safety in regards to nuclear materials safety is an illusion. Wake up. Nuclear power was an experiment gone awry. Shut down all the nuclear plants and begin to create a storage facility for these dangerous wastes. The future of humans depends on it. Need sources? Do your homework...This is real.
The word for Don and Eco is synfuels - nuclear based already a fraction of the cost of petrol and in infinite supply.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be better if the methane (natural gas) comes from sewage, agricultural and municipal wastes via anaerobic digestion rather than from fossil plants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs it an infinite supply or more correctly, an infinite amount, as in the case of the Sun. Fossil oil has set up a certain pattern of motion, the most dense and complex ever. The reason for posing the question in this way is that despite overwhelming financial and risk factors for many years the maximum amount of possible fossil oil transport remains 97 per cent, the three percent balance the province of grid, natural gas and battery powered transport, up against a "fraction of the cost of petrol and in infinite supply". Dr Strangelove raises the question whether the volume of gas can be supplied at the necessary rate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry Don you need to read up on how synfuels are made from carbon or nitrogen and nuke hydrogen. They can be identical in chemical composition to diesel or gasoline and since they are made from offpeak nuke hydrogen the supply is infinite.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Dept of Energy is giving away $30 million for ideas about 'harnessing' Natural Gas as a fuel for cars in the U.S. ? Pah-leese...there are already thousands of natural gas vehicles driving around on U.S. roads. Honda sells brand new CNG passenger vehicles in the U.S. and they have been doing so for several years. There are already 50 CNG refueling stations in my state. ANY gasoline powered vehicle can be converted to a CNG vehicle. Why in HELL does the DOE need to pay big money for ideas about harnessing CNG as a vehicle fuel ? Why is Argonne Labs sticking their nose in CNG vehicles ? The US government needs to get the hell out of the way as US private industry makes the inevitable transition to CNG vehicles. The DOE and Argonne labs are simply wasting tax payer money as they attempt to justify their own existence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDear Sethdiyal, then why aren't energy businesses doing this? For a world that is now utterly power hungry, synfuels would give far greater control and certainty than all the unknowns, limits and costs of fossil.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@DWBD
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou said:
"Methanol fuel, can be made from stranded NG. The Lurgi MegaMethanol plants can convert NG to Methanol from stranded flared gas for 5.2 cents per liter."
I would like to see some comparisons made of GTL diesel to methanol diesel particularly in terms of process cost and energy expenditure.
GTLs can be blended in oil pipeline throughput (good for stranded gas (on the North Slope, for example). Liquid pipelines are more efficient than gas pipelines. Most filling stations have underground tanks for liquids.
So why is CNG supposed to be a better fuel than GTL or methanol?
The energy content of CH4(methane, the chief component of compressed natural gas, CNG) is 55.7 kj/gm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGasoline's energy content is ~ 46.6 kj/gm.
The emissions of CO2 is far higher for gasoline than methane because of the higher hydrogen content of CH4. There is also far less energy cost in extracting methane, distributing and preparing it for use in a IC engine than there is in refining gasoline or even diesel fuel. So burning methane CNG emits far less CO2 than gasoline. It is also available from domestic gas lines. I think the companies who own the distribution and marketing organizations for gasoline will make less money marketing CNG than gasoline. But, that's too bad.
CNG is a pathetic fuel compared to Methanol. Entirely crazy fuel, if Methanol is available. GTL usually starts with Methanol which of course can be used to synthesize large molecules at considerably added expensive and energy cost. Rather dumb idea. We have enough Oil to supply the long chain hydrocarbons we need for high density fuels and petrochemicals. The stupidity is wasting those hydrocarbons for run-of-the-mill fuels like vehicle fuels, for which Methanol would do the job BETTER than gasoline or diesel, including long distance trucking. It is only for some shipping, like icebreakers, remote outposts where fuel must be flown in or trucked long distance for a short seasonal window, or aircraft where the very high energy dense fuels like diesel are needed. Save crude for those applications. Furnace Oil, most transportation applications can run quite happily on Methanol.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are exaggerating the emissions of CNG. Including methane leakage from the bulk of future CNG, Shale Gas it is every bit as bad as coal for GHG emissions. And CNG vehicles are less efficient than gasoline vehicles whereas methanol vehicles are double the efficiency of gasoline. The Lurgi MegaMethanol plants can convert NG to Methanol from stranded flared gas for 5.2 cents per liter. 100 million cubic meters of NG are flared every year, that can produce 130 million tonnes of Methanol per yr vs 39 million tonnes of Ethanol the USA produces per yr. Methanol being one of the easiest fuels to transport. NG is relegated to the very expensive, difficult and dangerous LNG transport.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd the USA will start having shortages and price surges in NG within 10 yrs max. Likely $8 per mmbtu this winter, which is the production cost of Shale Gas in the USA & Canada. That makes it much more pricey than Methanol which can be produced from Coal for $8 per mmbtu while burning at double the efficiency of CNG while being easy to store, easy to convert, much safer and unlimited supply from Coal, Biomass, Waste, Atmospheric/Industrial/Volcanic CO2 plus Nuclear Electricity and Hydrogen. Methanol is a sustainable fuel for the future. CNG is just not nearly as practical as a transportation fuel, only good as an industrial and domestic heating fuel and for chemical industry, and that is only as long as domestic supplies are assured. LNG commerce is one giant boondoggle SCAM, launched by Big Oil which is looking for an assured replacement for depleting Oil, and it is banking on LNG supply from the Middle East, where most of the NG supply is, which it will sell to Canada at the Oil Energy price, around $18/mmbtu.
@dwbd
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou said:
"GTL usually starts with Methanol which of course can be used to synthesize large molecules at considerably added expensive and energy cost. Rather dumb idea. We have enough Oil to supply the long chain hydrocarbons we need for high density fuels...."
What mpg for GTL vs Methanol? What production / energy cost for GTL vs Methanol? Methanol is (same as) wood alcohol so obviously a liquid. Why is Methanol a better liquid vehicle fuel than GTL or gasoline?
Nothing was left unsaid, because they are correct in their point that CNG has higher energy density than plug-in EV's.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat being true, the fact that EVs are nevertheless being used for small cars begs the question so why not CNG.
The fact that they both are inferior to gasoline power is besides the point.
Methanol optimized engines are more efficient and much cleaner than diesel engines, with a much wider island of high efficiency, and double the efficiency of gasoline engines:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://epa.gov/otaq/presentations/sae-2002-01-2743-v2.pdf
Methanol use in China:
http://emsh-ngtech.com/methanol/methanol-energy
"...In fact, Methanol actually increases energy efficiency. This means that the volume required is no longer 2.15 liters of Methanol for every liter of gasoline or 2.346 liters of Methanol for every liter of Diesel but only 1.6 liters of Methanol for every liter of gasoline or Diesel...The second extraordinary fact about Methanol is that you can cover about 40% more distance on 1.6 liters of Methanol than you can on a liter of gasoline or Diesel. This gives Methanol a huge advantage as a fuel..."
Methanol is a better fuel, because it burns much cleaner than GTL, diesel or gasoline. Much lower fire hazard. Lower CO2 emissions. More efficient. But most of all Methanol is easily scalable to replace all Oil fuels. You can even look at the terrible fires and homes destroyed in the USA this year, loads of diseased, dead and excess wood in forests that is preventing the CO2 consumption of green, healthy growing forests, and typically burns in disastrous fires, or rots releasing huge amounts of GHG/soot emissions into the atmosphere. A danger to homes, to health and a major Global Warming contributor. Not economical to use the Wood for most applications. The wood can easily be converted to Methanol fuel at 50% efficiency in truck mounted portable converter plants. Quite capable of replacing all transportation fuel in the USA, unlike agro-ethanol that can replace at most 10% with huge fossil fuel inputs. You can make methanol cheaply from any biomass, waste, coal, NG, stranded Gas, even waste/industrial/volcanic CO2 plus Nuclear energy - GHG free in virtually unlimited quantities.
http://deq.mt.gov/Energy/bioenergy/Biodiesel_Production_Educ_Presentations/KVogt_Pablo_NCAT_10_31_07.pdf
So bottom line is there is no cheaper way to produce Carbon Neutral or Domestic transportation fuels than from Methanol. At least 1/2 the cost per vehicle mile of GTL and lower emissions, including CO2. And fully scalable for 100% replacement of fossil fuels. Beats importing biodiesel raped from tropical rainforests, with massive fires and eco-destruction to produce palm-oil plantations - but Greenie Nutballs and Euro Gov't Morons claim - It's Renewable, so it must be good. Unbelievable stupidity.
Nope, EVs run > 80% efficient - plug to wheels. Whereas your CNG vehicle probably averages < 10% efficiency pump to wheels. So with modern Li-ion batteries at 250-730 wh/liter and CNG at 2200 wh/liter, so CNG is 3 to 8X the energy density of Li-ion batteries, but the batteries are 1-3X the EFFECTIVE Energy density of CNG to start. But even more so when you include the massive unwieldy tank that must be used to store the CNG @ 3,000 psi. A tank that needs to be removed for safety regulations testing. And is very dangerous if leaks occur in a confined area. And you also need a MUCH BIGGER engine, a much larger and more complicated drivetrain, with a vast array of associated parts like muffler, cat converter, radiator, starting battery, starting motor, alternator, exhaust system, pcv, driveshafts, differentials etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo yeah, CNG would provide slightly higher range than the current generation of EVs, not really significant for city vehicles, bigger factor is the large installed base of ICE vehicles makes CNG conversion much cheaper than EVs at present, largely due to battery cost - which is rapidly falling while CNG cost will soon be rapidly rising and is in limited supply, whereas electricity is unlimited in supply.
Personally I would MUCH RATHER have an EV than a CNG vehicle.
The point is moot though, since Methanol is a much superior fuel to CNG. Ridiculous pushing CNG when we could switch to methanol instead. Fact is that is ONLY because Big Oil and Big Agro don't want us to use Methanol - because it will kick their butts.
Added feature Methanol is an excellent fuel to supply interior heat to EVs in the winter. So safe, simple to store and clean burning. One liter per hour of Methanol at 15 cents per liter, would keep an EV warm in the coldest weather, and you can even burn it in a flameless catalytic heater. And a small 3 kwe Direct Methanol fuel cell would be great for interior heat and a range extender/charger for your battery, if you wanted to make an occasional longer trip, or to prevent range anxiety.
yes, we need the technology for methane engines honed over the years to greatest efficiency, but i hate to tell you-- methane has only 40 years capacity until depletion below current consumption levels. by comparison, petroleum has only 2.5 years (2015) until its depletion below consumption levels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTwo words: Ka boom!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen you factor in the cost of CCS no fossil fuel is economical. The chinese are investing heavily in solar, wind and biomass, so their economy will succeed and that of the USA will fail.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this