There is an interesting article on the ExxonMobil Perspectives website titled “How many gallons of gasoline would it take to charge an iPhone?“. It compares the energy density of various fuels and demonstrates why it will be difficult to replace the use of liquid fuels like gasoline in certain uses.
An article on the Forbes.com website explores the use of natural gas as a vehicle fuel in China. “At the end of 2010, more than 80 cities across China had gas refilling facilities and the number of CNG/LNG refill stations totaled more than 1,000.” They appear to be way ahead of the United States.
An article on Forbes.com reviews some aspects of the NAT GAS Act, which has a goal of stimulating the demand for domestic natural gas by funding infrastructure that will support the use of natural gas vehicles.
The Financial Times has an article that describes the joint efforts of General Electric and Chesapeake Energy to increase the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel.
General Motors plans to produce a new line of pickup trucks that can be fueled by compressed natural gas or standard gasoline. This will allow owners to take advantage of the low price of natural gas and help the United States consume an oversupply.
“Electric cars have been heralded as environmentally friendly, but findings from University of Tennessee, Knoxville, researchers show that electric cars in China have an overall impact on pollution that could be more harmful to health than gasoline vehicles.” Quoted from the NSF press release.
President Obama proposes a tax credit that will refund 50% of the extra cost paid for a natural gas-fueled truck above what would have been paid for the same truck with a diesel or gasoline fuel system. This is the type of incentive needed to assure that US natural gas contributes to US energy independence.
An article on the Philly.com website explores areas of market expansion for natural gas. Enormous amounts could be: used as a vehicle fuel, used to produce plastics, used to produce electricity and converted to LNG for overseas export. Each of these could provide slowly increasing gains.
“Six full-size pickup trucks took a wild ride on a 16-foot-high steel bridge when it shook violently in a series of never-before-conducted experiments to investigate the seismic behavior of a curved bridge with vehicles in place.” Quoted from the University of Nevada, Reno news release.
“Air quality test undertaken during an Australian dust storm showed that large dust particles swept up the smaller, potentially fatal ultrafine particles caused by everyday vehicle emissions.” Quoted from the Queensland University of Technology news release.
Sasol, the South African company that is famous for making liquid fuels from coal, considers building a $10 billion plant to convert US natural gas into a liquid vehicle fuel.
Chevron and Texaco are working to develop the natural gasvehicle fuel market in Colombia. Chevron produces the gas and Texaco sells it to consumers at TEXGAS brand fueling stations. “In the last six years, NGV consumption has grown more than 800 percent and now represents nearly 10 percent of Colombia’s national gas usage.” Perhaps ExxonMobile will start selling gas at hundreds of fueling stations atop of the Marcellus Shale gas play?
In this video, Andy Karsner, CEO of Manifest Energy, explains how natural gas could play a much larger role in the US energy mix. Explosive growth in the use of natural gas will occur if these ideas are aggressively pursued.
Dan Akerson, CEO of General Motors believes that a $1/gallon tax on gasoline will encourage conservation and move people to driving smaller cars. The federal tax on gasoline is currently only 18.4 cents/gallon.
Lots of lawmakers are thinking about a tax that would be levied on each mile that you drive. That could be on top of the current taxes that you pay on every gallon of gasoline. Recording and reporting are two big problems for the driving tax while the gas tax is easily paid at the pump. The gas tax would encourage resource conservation while those who drive cars fueled by electricity or natural gas are not paying.
Royal Dutch Shell is completing a gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar that will convert natural gas into diesel and aviation fuel. If that technology is successful they may be able to use the same process in the United States.
One way to use a lot of the new natural gas being produced from the many worldwide shale gas plays is to quickly get it into the transportation fuel mix. Valero Energy is launching new fueling stations that will dispense natural gas, electric battery recharges and E85.
Heckman Water Resources will become the operator of the largest fleet of LNGtrucks in North America as they purchase 200 Peterbilt vehicles that will be used to haul water for Encana’s Haynesville Shale drilling operations. Encana will provide the LNG from a mobile refueling station.
The West Virginia Legislature is active with a bill (SB465) that promotes the use of Marcellus Shale gas in vehicles. It has provisions for converting existing passenger vehicles, converting commercial vehicles, and refueling stations.
Rising precious metals prices have increased what a thief will be paid for stealing a catalytic converter from your vehicle. The thief might be paid a hundred dollars for a hot converter but you might pay over a thousand to have it replaced.
Honda plans to sell what they refer to as a “nearly emission-free natural gas-powered car” later this year. It will be a Civic sedan to be sold in all 50 states.
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