CNG cars

Infrastructure?
I also wonder how the fuel price and availalability would be if burnt in cars on a very large scale. Natural gas is an expensive energy and indexed on oil prices.

At least it's used over here on urban buses, which is a great improvement on the old diesel ones. When cycling they don't even really bother me.
 
They're quite common here in the Netherlands. Most cars can be fitted with a tank and injectors. The normal tanks are rather bulky, but you can get ones that use the spare tyre compartment.
 
Frank said:
They're quite common here in the Netherlands. Most cars can be fitted with a tank and injectors. The normal tanks are rather bulky, but you can get ones that use the spare tyre compartment.
Click to expand...
Does your government encourage their sales instead of regular cars?
 
Some taxies in Taiwan are CNG cars. It was mainly for better air (CNG is "cleaner" than petroleum), because gas price was not that high, and CNG is actually not cheaper. However, CNG stations are still not very wide spread and there are some misconceptions about the safety of CNG (although many people use CNG in their homes for cooking...), so most people are still reluctant to buy CNG cars.
 
epicstruggle said:
Does your government encourage their sales instead of regular cars?
Click to expand...
Most of those cars are LPG (liquid petrol gas), which has been encouraged some times, but is now actually more expensive, as LPG itself is cheaper than gasoline and the government likes to tax cars to the max, regardless.

You can also get a LNG (liquid natural gas) tank, but there aren't much places where you can fill that up. It is used ever more often for public transport.

And you can also get a CNG tank, which is taxed extra as there is less tax on regular natural gas and you need to fill up at home. It is used for public transport as well.

LPG has a better energy density (buthane and propane) than LNG (methane), so you can drive almost twice as long on the same volume of LPG as LNG. And CNG is only compressed, not liquified, so you can drive only about half as far on the same volume of CNG than LNG.

And CNG is more problematic than electric to refill, as you normally only can do so at home.


Recently our government has changed things a bit by changing the 40% car tax (that's next to 19% VAT). If you have a very clean car, you pay a bit less, and if you have a gas-guzzler you pay much, much more. Like, more than 50,000 Euro extra for a hummer.
 
Here in the UK LPG is currently untaxed (or taxed at a very low rate) - costs around £0.50/litre. In comparison, Unleaded petroleum is currently £1.10/litre and Diesel is £1.30/litre.

Downsides are LPG conversions cost a bit of money, LPG gets lower mileage/litre than standard fuel (or so I believe) and, more importantly filling stations which sell it are pretty few and far between. If I commuted long distances and did most of my driving on the motorway, I'd certainly consider moving across to LPG.
 
DudeMiester said:
Many if not most taxis where I live run on propane, I'm not sure if that's the same as LNG though.
Click to expand...

Propane has 3 carbons.
LNG is natural gas in liquid form. That is methane. 1 carbon only.

1) Methane=Natural Gas
2) Ethane
3) Propane
4) Butane
5) pentane
6) hexane
7) heptane
8) octane

Note at pentane they go to liquid
 
I read a piece on Yahoo recently (I know, I know) that discussed the CNG car situation in Utah. Can't get enough of the things out there. Something like 90 cents per gallon (effective ratio $/mile). This seems like a decent alternative to gasoline, especially the way it's done in Utah. Doesn't need to replace gas altogther, just something to ease energy costs.
 
LPG is cheap, because generally considered a by-product (it's often burned at the oil well, when it's too expensive to transport without a pipeline) and very environment friendly. It's also easy to store and the tank in your car is a bit smaller than two stacked PC tower cases. You can drive about 3/4 of the distance compared to a tank of gasoline. And most gas stations in the Netherlands sell it.

LNG is less desirable, as you need to keep the tank cold. So those tanks are rather bulky and normally only used for big cars like busses. And they can be a risk when used badly. I don't know if you can buy one for private use.

CNG is simple and cheap, but you need a tank that is about four times the volume for the same distance you could drive on LPG. And while you can use them everywhere where you have a natural gas connection to your home and a compressor, you still need to burn gasoline for longer trips if you live in a country where you cannot buy it at the gas station.

So, overall it is probably best to use more LPG and build more pipes to transport it. Because it's burned for no gain otherwise anyway.
 
DudeMiester said:
Many if not most taxis where I live run on propane, I'm not sure if that's the same as LNG though.
Click to expand...
It's LPG. That's a mix of buthane and propane, from 0-100 % of either, depending on what's cheapest at the moment. The colder it gets, the more propane is needed.
 
In Bulgaria 95+% of taxis are either on LPG or CNG. 1-2% on diesel.

Atm some brands succesfully increase their sales of new cars by offering to install LPG/CNG without braking warranty (Renault, Chevrolet, Hyundai), I even have seen a Cayenne/Tuareg or Ferrari filling LPG :D
LPG coverage here is just fine - there's barely a gasoline station without LPG, CNG is rare but almost all big towns have at least one, so its actually not a problem to drive arounf (with biggest in-country distance ~600km one needs only 1 refill).
No wonder - obviously people with lower incomes are more open for savings :)
I myself drive a Civic with LPG - making 1500km per month this way I spend almost 2x less
 
chavvdarrr said:
In Bulgaria 95+% of taxis are either on LPG or CNG. 1-2% on diesel.

Atm some brands succesfully increase their sales of new cars by offering to install LPG/CNG without braking warranty (Renault, Chevrolet, Hyundai), I even have seen a Cayenne/Tuareg or Ferrari filling LPG :D
LPG coverage here is just fine - there's barely a gasoline station without LPG, CNG is rare but almost all big towns have at least one, so its actually not a problem to drive arounf (with biggest in-country distance ~600km one needs only 1 refill).
No wonder - obviously people with lower incomes are more open for savings :)
I myself drive a Civic with LPG - making 1500km per month this way I spend almost 2x less
Click to expand...

Wow that's a huge installed base, I wish here in the US it's at least 25% of cars available to run on LPG/CNG.
 
DudeMiester said:
Many if not most taxis where I live run on propane, I'm not sure if that's the same as LNG though.
Click to expand...

It's not. Propane is easy to liquify; natural gas(mostly methane) is stored as a compressed gas(CNG). LNG needs to be kept almost as cold as liquid nitrogen and is not used in vehicles that I'm aware of.
 
After asking a friend, it's apparently that many taxis in Taiwan are not CNG cars, but LPG cars. They say that LPG cars don't vibrate as much as gasoline cars, but some older models (using older injection systems) have lower hp and can sometimes be problematic when driving on mountain roads. This problem is mostly solved in newer models, though.
 
Natural gas is 2% of Sweden's primary energy consumption. Half of that gas is biogas, either from anaerobic digestion plants or from landfills. The feedstock is manure, slaughterhouse waste, household food waste, sewage, confiscated moonshine and other unsavory bits and pieces.

Much of it gets used as vehicle fuel in busses, garbage trucks and company cars. It's cheaper than gasoline or diesel, but only because it's not subject to the same taxation.

It has the potential to grow to about 10% of Sweden's primary energy; but that would necessarily include quite a lot of use of crop wastes. The digestate would have to be put back into the soil(compost like leftovers from anaerobic digestion) in order to limit soil erosion.

I'm more interested in dimethylether produced from gasification of black liquor in sulfate-process paper production. It has a slightly higher cetane number than diesel, is non-corrosive, safe enough that people don't mind spraying it in their face(propellant in hair spray), no known carcinogenic or chronic toxicity and low emissions. World-wide it will always be small potatoes(maximum potential of ~500 000 barrels of oil equivalent), but it can potentially supply about a quarter of Sweden vehicle fuel at a cost of production that could be as low as 30 USD/bbl equivalent.

The DME could potentially cover all vehicle use if commuters can eventually switch to electric power.
 
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