Lng
 

With all this talk about using up oil and $4 gas, why is there so little talk of running cars on LNG? Farmers and some municipalities have been running their vehicles on propane/butane and LNG for decades. The conversion is dead easy.

No infrastructure for the fuel.

How long would a cylinder from Home Depot last in, say, an LNG 280E 123 do you think?

The infrastructure is there for low-volume right now -- if everyone did it there would be a problem -- but I imagine it'd be possible to do pretty well.

I think you're referring to "CNG" rather than LNG
 

Compressed natural gas is a common fuel in some parts of Europe, and has some pockets of popularity in the US. I rode in a CNG taxi in Gulfport, MS, many years ago... The airport busses in Baltimore are CNG, and you see CNG fleet cars operated by some gas utilities here.

CNG is much easier to handle than LNG. LNG requires cryogenic handling equipment. Main advantage to LNG is storing much more energy per volume than CNG. But anything cryogenic is very expensive.

Rgds,
Chris W.

LNG is a cryogenic process, gotta keep it cold and under high pressure.

And I seriously doubt a propane cylinder from Home Depot is DOT approved.

There are a lot of fleets using CNG, but most fleets have their own fueling systems and the vehicles do not travel far from home base.

Nobody would buy a car without a reliable source of fuel on a trip to anywhere.

Its a Catch 22. Nobody will build cars for an alternative fuel if there is no supply and nobody will build fueling stations if there are no consumers to use it.

I think Australia mandates all gas stations sell propane as well, so the government forces it to happen.

Notr exactly. As mentioned above, it's a common enough fuel in parts of Europe. Either the cars or the fuel stations had to come first, whether through government mandate or private sector recognizing a market (don't know which it was in Europe). It could at least be done either in sections - major routes for shipping or commuting - or small markets like in NYC. Switching 50% of NYC cars to CNG or LNG would be significant and doable.

In the 90's my school had a large tech program teaching fleet mechancis how to do CNG conversions. Lots of utility companies were doing it but I assume they all had fueling stations in their yards and their trucks didn't travel more than one tank of fuel distant from the station.
Some marinas have CNG pumps because some sailboaters prefer CNG over propane because natural gas is lighter than air and wont sink into the bilge and cause an explosion like propane.
CNG tanks are quite different than LPG tanks. Most CNG tanks I have seen have an external layer of fiberglass.

It's got less energy/mass than gas or diesel. You'd need a bigger tank to go the same distance, taking-up more room and it has to be stronger since it is pressurized, -- greater weight.

I read a brief article about an experimental process that converts woodchips + natural gas into a biodiesel. Anybody else heard o fthat?

B

Natural gas is heavier than air. Somebody was pumping you with gas.

I think not:

http://www.questargas.com/AboutNaturalGas/Properties/NGProperties.html


It's why houses that use propane should have drains so the gas can run outside if there's a leak and houses with natural gas don't need them.

I'll be damned. Too many movies, not enough science!

B

DOT-approved or not, I'd totally run Home Depot cylinders in a converted gasser if I had the chance.

Only if there were some way to switch fuels, though. Like WVO in a diesel :p

There is. Conversion kits from gassers to propane/gassers are available. Don't know if you can duel fuel CNG.

Liquified gasses do not need to be kept cold if they are kept under pressure. They are cold if you release them but are not cold in the tank. Example: put your hand on the side of a tank of propane. We used to use propane or butane, depending on the time of year, in our house years ago. Most rural homes and farms still use butane/propane. Many farmers in this area used to run their trucks on propane but have switched now that Diesel is so common.

Another beauty of propane is that you can you run your oil almost without changing it. There is no carbon or acid build up.

I never change my oil.

Joe