TEDTALKS: T. Boone Pickens: Let's transform energy -- with natural gas (VIDEO)

[Supa Dexta]

Would be interesting for a crafty person to play around with this at home.. You guys have the luxury of having gas tapped right into all of your homes. NS put their pipeline in and pointed it right towards the USA.

If one could siphon off their home line, and convert their car over it would be pretty slick for a commuter car. May need a compressor setup though, to jam enough in for any sort of range. Maybe arash is interested?? ha

A lot of work and investment to get stations around the country though, so dont drive too far from home.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by Supa Dexta
Would be interesting for a crafty person to play around with this at home.. You guys have the luxury of having gas tapped right into all of your homes. NS put their pipeline in and pointed it right towards the USA.

If one could siphon off their home line, and convert their car over it would be pretty slick for a commuter car. May need a compressor setup though, to jam enough in for any sort of range. Maybe arash is interested?? ha

A lot of work and investment to get stations around the country though, so dont drive too far from home.

http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-natural-gas/

Although, I don't see the home compression unit for sale anymore. I think Honda want to get out of supporting the compressor.

[ZenOps]

Its worth noting that Natural gas is unusally low in price in North America this year.

Right now its at $87 per thousand cubic meters. Russia natural gas is $438 per thousand cubic meters.

Thats a 5x difference - depending on which side of the globe you are on and the demand, supply and/or whether or not you are currently in a brutal winter.

Suggest to a Russian that they should use natural gas in a car - and they will put you in an insane asylum.

[davidI]

The NG price is unusually low because of the huge production / reserves unleashed through shale gas development. Storage inventories have been record breaking this year.

From Wikipedia:
Russia is the largest oil producer in the world, producing an average of 9.93 million barrels (1,579,000 m3) of oil per day in 2009 for a total of 494.2 million tons.[2] It produces 12% of the world's oil and has a same share in global oil exports.



The U.S. is an oil importer. Russia is an exporter.

Russia likes the shady countries in the Middle East because they buy their weapons. (Ask me how I know, just saw a Mig fly by my office in Yemen). US wants to keep money out of terrorist harboring countries.

Russia doesn't give a f*ck about the enviroment. US does.

Apples and oranges.

[Euro_Trash]

Originally posted by Supa Dexta
Would be interesting for a crafty person to play around with this at home.. You guys have the luxury of having gas tapped right into all of your homes. NS put their pipeline in and pointed it right towards the USA.

If one could siphon off their home line, and convert their car over it would be pretty slick for a commuter car. May need a compressor setup though, to jam enough in for any sort of range. Maybe arash is interested?? ha

A lot of work and investment to get stations around the country though, so dont drive too far from home.

Apparently there was a pilot project for this in Ontario - basically a small pump to pressurize a household gas line into a car. Took ~8 hours to fill up the tank. Not sure what the results were

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by Euro_Trash


Apparently there was a pilot project for this in Ontario - basically a small pump to pressurize a household gas line into a car. Took ~8 hours to fill up the tank. Not sure what the results were

http://greenmyfleet.com/shop.html?pa...id=37&vmcchk=1

This is why NG Civic flopped.

You have pay $7000 more for a Civic and then another $5K on a fueling station that take 8hrs to fill the car, has lower miles per fill and another $2000 every ~10 years to re-certify the unit.

For the price of NG Civic and its infrastructure, I can buy a normal Civic and has enough money for fuel for at least 5 years.


Now since we Albertans have a big stake in NG, I think anyway to promote usage is great. Especially at a time when Encana will sell off CEO's shirt on his back to stay alive. But it's just like any alternative fuel source, you really have to hate money in you wallet to switch.

[davidI]

It just takes a properly implemented carbon tax / subsidy program to entice people to switch.

Unfortunately, people are adverse to making changes that require large amounts of up-front capital, even if they pay-off in the long run. That's where I do believe government needs to play a role (even though I'm a believer in free markets, I understand market psychology...)

[Projek01]

Has anyone also looked into how much energy is required to pressurize the NG into the vehicle? Yes NG is a great source of energy but I dont think it makes sense in moving vehicles. Storing the huge amounts of pressure just to get decent miles per tank seems pretty scarry to me. Might as well invest in converting the coal burning power plans to use the excess NG we produce. I guess that doesnt solve the american problem with crude oil. Maybe use electricity to run Chevy Volt.

Has anyone seen the documentry on discovery about Russia's intentions to claim the north pole for the NG reserves. They are doing some crazy stuff.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by Projek01
Storing the huge amounts of pressure just to get decent miles per tank seems pretty scarry to me.

And you are right....3600psi



If we start using NG for cars, I rather see LPG over CNG.