natural gas vehicles

[TrophyHusband 0]

natural gas vehicles were brought up in another thread and honestly i have never thought of them as a possibility before. this prompted me to do a little research into the fuel cost. if my numbers are correct, then this is a great alternative to gas. hopefully someone smarter than me can confirm or deny my findings, and i would like to hear from the nay-sayers as well.

the way i am billed is cubic feet/100 x billing factor = therms. therms used x rate = total bill. for example, the random bill in front of my says that i used 7400 cubic feet, so (7400/100) x 1.119 x 1.06648 = $88.52. (it actually should be $88.31, but they rounded up to the nearest therm before multiplying by my rate.) over the past two years, my billing factor varies from 1.013 to 1.169, and my rate varies from $.86105 to $1.07285. if the conversion i found on the internet is correct, then 1 gallon is equal to 83 1/3 cubic feet. theoretically, that means that my fuel cost could range from $.7287 to $1.0451 per gallon. in reality, the extremes in my variables don't hit at the same time, so without doing any math, i think my average fuel cost would be around a dollar a gallon. this is phenominal, so what am i missing? why aren't more people demanding this? i realize that road trips would require some serious planning, but we live in rural idaho and have to drive a shitload of highway miles. we have natural gas coming into the house, so if we could get a filling station put in, this would be a great thing. the one website that i looked said it wasn't available in this state, but that may change, or maybe another company does it here. i can't shake the feeling that i'm overlooking some huge downside or my math is flawed somewhere.

"Your scrotum is quite nice" - Skymama
www.kjandmegan.com

[BIGUN 1,488]

Here's a natural gas vehicle cost calculator to validate your numbers:

http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/vehicles/natural_gas_calculator.html

The first calculation is incremental costs.
The second submit button will calculate fuel operating costs.
Needless to say, CNG is the most economical, but the most costly conversion (about $7k).

Another consideration is LPG. The conversion is cheaper (about $2k), but you'll spend approximately $1.60 more per gallon than CNG and only about 15% less per gallon than gas. The truly big upside to LPG though is - LPG enters your engine as a completely vaporized fuel that's free from lead, carbon, gum, sulfur and most pollutants. LP won't foul your car's plugs, ruin its valves, contaminate its oil, wash down its cylinder walls and rings, burn out its muffler or destroy the air we all breathe. And mileage and performance are about the same as with gasoline.

I'm also investigating street legal golf carts. While more economical, it would appear they emit about as much pollution as a lawn mower and depending on which State can only be run on roads with a 35 mph limit.

Hope that helps... I'm doing my homework also.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[downwardspiral 0]

Looking at the Honda Civic NGV the only real benefit would be emissions. A huge flaw would be the 16 hours to fill up an 8 gallon tank using the home fill station. I did a cursory search for fast-fill stations in SoCal (a very pro NGV state) and they were very few and very far between.

http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-gx/specifications.aspx

Also not sure about your math because according to the article linked below natural gas is only 40% cheaper than gasoline.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080501.wh-vaughan-0501/BNStory/specialGlobeAuto

www.FourWheelerHB.com

[TrophyHusband 0]

a 16 hour fill up and lack of filling stations are a huge downside. driving the car from california to here would be a major hurdle.

"Your scrotum is quite nice" - Skymama
www.kjandmegan.com

[TrophyHusband 0]

i just found a pretty big flaw. according to this epa website

http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/natural_gas_locations.html

most filling stations are private. that means that i would have to tow this car home and i would be limited to staying close to home. i could go to boise, but i couldn't even go to twin falls. since my wife could get orders to go someplace else at any time, this just isn't a viable option right now. so disappointing too, i would love to pay $1 a gallon for fuel.

"Your scrotum is quite nice" - Skymama
www.kjandmegan.com

[mnealtx 0]

Quote

i just found a pretty big flaw. according to this epa website

http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/natural_gas_locations.html

most filling stations are private. that means that i would have to tow this car home and i would be limited to staying close to home. i could go to boise, but i couldn't even go to twin falls. since my wife could get orders to go someplace else at any time, this just isn't a viable option right now. so disappointing too, i would love to pay $1 a gallon for fuel.

A propane conversion may be a better bet for you, then...

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[azdiver 0]

look into bio diesel home kits, a little expensive to start with but, with diesel at 4 bucks a gal it will take aprox 2500 gals of fuel to break even on the cost of starting up. after words it will average out to 1.60 to 1.75 gal according to some of the manufacturers if you use the peanut oil to make. even less per gal if you use old fry oil, but that could be hard to get now as alot of people are doing this, if you wait a while algae biofuels should start making some progress, this could be what makes the biggest impact as u can get many different fuels out of one crop, hydrogen, biodiesel and eth. And produce 30 times more than food crops per acre.

light travels faster than sound, that's why some people appear to be bright until you hear them speak

[LongWayToFall 0]

Your numbers are off because you are saying 1 gallon of gas coming out of the pipe in your house is equal to one gallon of gasoline, which it isn't. You need to go by weight, or better yet the amount of energy per gallon compaired to gasoline.

[LongWayToFall 0]

You can get everything you need to start making biodiesel for a couple hundred bucks. Check out the appleseed reactor. Also, 1.60-1.75 would be without the oil, just the cost of the methanol and lye. Oil by itself is only slightly cheaper than gas, so once you add it to the cost it becomes more. Waste oil is the only way to make it profitable.

[shropshire 0]

The price of SVO (Straight Veggie Oil) has risen a lot of late too.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[warpedskydiver 0]

The parts necessary to convert a gasoline powered vehicle to LPG powered/Dual fuel is $160 in parts if the car is carbuerated

Most of the parts can be scavenged off of old RV's from the 1970's for a cheaper alternative

Of course for FI cars, the cost is significantly higher due to the electronics involved

[TrophyHusband 0]

if i had a car with a carb, the last thing i would do to it is convert it to run on something other than gas. of course i would also probably drive it around for fun when the weather was nice.

"Your scrotum is quite nice" - Skymama
www.kjandmegan.com

[LongWayToFall 0]

Why are you knocking carbs? Some very fuel efficient vehicles have come out with them in the past. They also are very simple, and when your brand new car is getting sensors replaced, it is still rolling down the road......

[TrophyHusband 0]

i'm not knocking carbs, i'm just saying that if i were to own something with a carb, it would be something like a 67 malibu or for some reason i want a late 70's ford truck. these would be project vehicles and not for every day driving. anything that i would buy to drive every day would be too new to have a carb.

"Your scrotum is quite nice" - Skymama
www.kjandmegan.com

[billvon 3,120]

> Why are you knocking carbs?

Nothing wrong with carbs, but they aren't as efficient as fuel injection and cannot be used with catalytic converters.

>and when your brand new car is getting sensors replaced, it is still
>rolling down the road......

True. OTOH, when you are driving over the Rockies, fuel injected cars will be passing the carbureted cars. And while a carbureted car is in the shop getting adjusted, the fuel injected car's computer is making those adjustments on the fly.

[LongWayToFall 0]

Why can't you use a catalytic converter? if the engine is tuned right, it won't load up the cat unless you are at high altitude like your example. Cat converters suck anyways

Also, I think instead of "carbureted car in the shop" you mean "carburated car in your garage". Cleaning out the carb takes only a couple minutes, and if you keep your fuel filter clean it hardly ever needs it. Man, I love carbs.
But alas, fuel injection is here to stay. I just wish sensors were of a high enough quality that they didn't require frequent replacement.

67 Malibu............ Mmmmmmm..............

[billvon 3,120]

> Why can't you use a catalytic converter?

You need a stochiometric mixture to run a catalytic converter, and carburetors will not guarantee that without a lot of other stuff (at which point basically you have throttle body fuel injection.)

> Cleaning out the carb takes only a couple minutes . . .

. . . and tweaking the idle and mixture takes only a few more. However, most people are not able to do that, and thus to the shop it goes.