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Natural gas is going to be a fuel option available for some Chevrolet and GMC pickups beginning late this year. These will be bi-fuel vehicles, like the present flex-fuel vehicles (that can run on either gasoline or ethanol) but in this case, the fuel choices are gasoline and compressed natural gas (CNG). Chrysler has also announced similar plans for its Ram pickup.
There are many utilities and service companies that have pilot fleets of CNG vehicles, and the Honda Civic Natural Gas was this named this past year's Green Car of the Year. But these are all dedicated CNG vehicles. The newly announced pickups will be able to run on either gasoline or CNG.
Economics is certainly a factor in this. The cost of CNG fuel is about one third less than an equivalent amount of gasoline. But the bi-fuel option is several thousand dollars of additional cost over the base vehicle. The numbers for these vehicles are rather meager, with GM planning to build 2,500 of these pickups in the fourth quarter and Chrysler planning to build 2,000 of its trucks this year.
Overall, it's only a small step, and not without its downside. While seeing new markets for cheap CNG will have some cheering the use of this cleaner burning fuel, there are also environmental consequences lurking at the corners of the gas fracking boom that make us think this is a mixed development at best.
However, wider adoption of natural gas vehicles could lead the way to wider distribution infrastructure. While the use of fossil natural gas is still problematic in terms of CO2 emissions, methane is fairly easy to synthesize compared to gasoline, and several solar and microbial fuel processes could potentially produce gas that could be used for more vehicles in the future.
via: GM Media
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written by Eric Zinn, March 16, 2012
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written by haggar, March 16, 2012
each application as a new discovery ?
Come WW II, gasoline became such a strategic commodity in the operational area that it was reserved to the military in nearly all of Europe. So ? Coal gas, Methane, Producer Gas, etc . . . ended up as fuel for gasoline engines in buses, cars, ambulances, lorries(!)
fire engines. Conversions were simple and mostly carried out by the local garage, the vehicules reconverting to gasoline when it became available after V-Day. The fuel was less efficient, granted, but it was very much cheaper and available. Boats ran engines on kerozene (albeit started with a cupful of gasolene) for weeks on end. Many a taxi in Europe still runs on (more modern versions of) LPG bottled
gas. Electric floats replaced horsecarts a 100 years ago for local deliveries.
With modern technologies research could easily redevelop all theses solutions if only industry tried.
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written by Carol S., March 20, 2012
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I think that the small number of bi-fuel trucks made by various manufacturers reflects the fact that consumers, regardless of their environmental awareness and decision to adopt an ecological mind, cannot turn completely price-blind and buy a more expensive model. Therefore, manufacturers have predicted that demand for that specific type of vehicles will not be in the big numbers.
This can be counterbalanced by the low price of natural gas compared to gasoline. For a professional using a bi-fuel truck every day at work, doing many miles on the road, the difference in price between the gasoline model and the bi-fuel one can be offset in the medium to long term, with the side benefit of contributing to a cleaner environment.