Would you invest???

With the rise of fuel prices IE gasoline!, would you invest in a "home" natural gas filling system for you vehicle.
I was thinking that the conversion for your vehicle would much like the propane conversion kits , impco ETC.
Then you would require a compresser and tank for your house/home (plus training)
There is a overabundance of natural gas in north america and the price is about $4.00 per 1 million BTUs

Thoughts

Re: Would you invest???

Sounds like a good way to level a neighborhood with a gas leak. Is neighborhood disaster training included with the kit?

Re: Would you invest???

He's an insurance salesman.

Re: Would you invest???

So is the amount of energy in $5 of gasoline similar to the amount in $5 of natural gas? If it were cheaper to run on natural gas I think that's actually a cool idea. I'd be saving money, able to fill-up at home, and the exhaust would be cleaner helping to reduce my emissions.

Can you use propane and natural gas interchangeably?

Re: Would you invest???

The average energy value of a gallon of gasoline is roughly equal to 5.66 pounds of natural gas. I haved no idea what a pound of NG cost.

Re: Would you invest???

df909 said:

So is the amount of energy in $5 of gasoline similar to the amount in $5 of natural gas? If it were cheaper to run on natural gas I think that's actually a cool idea. I'd be saving money, able to fill-up at home, and the exhaust would be cleaner helping to reduce my emissions.

Can you use propane and natural gas interchangeably?

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The way things are going CNG (compressed natural gas) will be/is the most readly available fuel source in north america.
And while I will not get this totally right as I do not have the math in front of me, CNG has less than 40-50% +- of the power of gasoline, but the cost of an equal fill mile to mile would be about 30% +- less at todays prices.

If you have a CNG outlet to your BBQ, there is your fuel source, and I figure all you should have to do is compress it into a transfer tank, then move it over to you vehicle.
(I think)

This would be good for commuting to and from the office and store, school ETC. for long haul trips gas or diesel power would be much handier.

Re: Would you invest???

dingbat said:

The average energy value of a gallon of gasoline is roughly equal to 5.66 pounds of natural gas. I haved no idea what a pound of NG cost.

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I see it at $1.80 +- per gallon in seattle (remember there is road tax on this as well) at a filling station, but if you did this at home, $1.20 +-???

Re: Would you invest???

watch the price of NG if Crude rises... All the utilities will follow. They'll blame it on the service trucks in the company or something...

Re: Would you invest???

rbh said:

I see it at $1.80 +- per gallon in seattle (remember there is road tax on this as well) at a filling station, but if you did this at home, $1.20 +-???

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I gallon of NG weighs roughly 3.462 pounds so at that price your break even point would be roughly $2.94 a gallon for gasoline.

No idea about canadian road taxes. Most in the US average less than 20 cents per gallon.

BTW: Your $1.80 a gallon equates to roughly $21.42 per m/btu. A bit more more expensive that the $4 per m/btu you quoted above.

Re: Would you invest???

dingbat said:

I gallon of NG weighs roughly 3.462 pounds so at that price your break even point would be roughly $2.94 a gallon for gasoline.

No idea about canadian road taxes. Most in the US average less than 20 cents per gallon.

BTW: Your $1.80 a gallon equates to roughly $21.42 per m/btu. A bit more more expensive that the $4 per m/btu you quoted above.

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(actual from NYMEX natural gas futures today $3.867 per million BTU)

Re: Would you invest???

Unless you are going to drive the vehicle around in your yard, only, It's likely that your Uncle, is going to want a piece of the action, through road use taxes.

You could probably skirt the laws, but getting caught, could be pretty ugly.

Will this be a "flex-fuel" vehicle, if you need to refuel elsewhere?

Re: Would you invest???

Honda has been making a natural gas version Civic since 1998. I almost got one a while back. http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-gx/
The home-refueling is less clear. The station used to be available, but it seems the company that made it is no longer in business.

Re: Would you invest???

Most propane and natural gas conversions don't usually work very well in cold climates.

Re: Would you invest???

df909 said:

Can you use propane and natural gas interchangeably?

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I don't know about vehicles, but on home appliances the jet or openings are different sizes and you can not mix and match openings / gases.

Re: Would you invest???

puddle jumper said:

Most propane and natural gas conversions don't usually work very well in cold climates.

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The tanks are different for propane and NG...we ran an inline heater on the heater hose line with the propane to keep it warm for easy starts in sub below temp.....or hot kettle of water dumped on the vapourizer worked well also.....And I wouldn't INVEST as the cost to set up one vehicle to run on either is about 2700 bones.....3 years running 300 km a day you might break even that cost.... then to pay for a filling station and delivery charges....sounds like a loss for YEARS....When you finally break even you will be running an electric car LOL's

Re: Would you invest???

dolluper said:

The tanks are different for propane and NG...we ran an inline heater on the heater hose line with the propane to keep it warm for easy starts in sub below temp.....or hot kettle of water dumped on the vapourizer worked well also.....And I wouldn't INVEST as the cost to set up one vehicle to run on either is about 2700 bones.....3 years running 300 km a day you might break even that cost.... then to pay for a filling station and delivery charges....sounds like a loss for YEARS....When you finally break even you will be running an electric car LOL's

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I know what you meen about costs for propane, we still have 2x E-150's and a F-150 on propane still, but I am seeing in my snowy crystal ball a time when you will have a choice right off the show room floor for a factory CNG vehicle.
(I do see a few fleet CNG vehicles come up occasionally, but not often, still in service)

Re: Would you invest???

mscher said:

Unless you are going to drive the vehicle around in your yard, only, It's likely that your Uncle, is going to want a piece of the action, through road use taxes.

You could probably skirt the laws, but getting caught, could be pretty ugly.

Will this be a "flex-fuel" vehicle, if you need to refuel elsewhere?

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Aint that the truth, I wonder how they are going to get their pound of flesh from people that charge up their electric cars at home???

Re: Would you invest???

I can't believe I missed this thread . . . This happens to be what I do for a living. Natural Gas for heavy trucks. Some comments:

1) Home refueling for CNG is still around. Owned by Impco now: http://www.impcotechnologies.com/fuelmaker.asp

2) Oil and Natural Gas pricing have "decoupled" due to shale gas. It is expected that $4 - $5 per million btu will be around for a while regardless of what oil does. We have a glut of natural gas in North America now, and unlike oil, it is hard to get rid of. Yes I know about LNG, way too much to type here. But you can't simply start shipping LNG all over the place if you do not have liquefaction near export terminals. We have neither. Soooo? Glut for a while.

3) It takes roughly 125,000 btus to equal a gallon of Gasoline (HHV). Do the math. Then you have to add costs for profit, transportation (pipeline), local taxes, local gas rates etc. etc. Even with all of that you can make a good case for a $1 gallon savings at a retail station and some are a lot better than that.

4) Light duty (cars) are generally a poor choice for conversion. That's why we do trucks. Say you go 20,000 miles a year, and you get 20 MPG. That's 1000 gallons. So you have the potential to save $1000 per year ($1 per gallon benefit). How much is the station (Phill) and the stuff for the car car premium? Pretty simple math from there . . .

5) Propane is a by product and also a minor component in most natural gas. There is a gagillion times more methane (natural gas) than propane on the planet.

Re: Would you invest???

dingbat said:

I gallon of NG weighs roughly 3.462 pounds

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Whatchoo talkin' about Willis? A pound of natural gas is about 23,600 BTUs, so a gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE) would be 125,000/23,600 = 5.3 lbs per "gallon" (GGE)

Edit: Oh I see your other post at 5.66 lbs, so that makes sense. I think you are referring to LNG as a "gallon of NG". Get's really confusing if we talk GGEs (5+ lbs) and LNG gallons in the same discussion. It takes roughly 1.55 gallons of LNG at -259 F to equal those dang BTUs again . . .

Edit 2: rbh's numbers are almost certainly GGE's . . . so equal BTUs to a gallon of gasoline. Pretty much 100% of the retail CNG stations in the US sell at GGE.

Re: Would you invest???

Two years ago I watched a program were this ladys well had been drilled in/through a bed of coil bed methane.
It was so bad she could not cook without opening the windows, if she ran the kitchen tap it would blow up!
And this got me to thinking about methane recovery from your water well and all the things you could do with it, BBQ, hot water heater, "CAR"

But if you have CNG/LNG feeding your BBQ now, why not take advantage of it???