What's The Skinny On CNG?

[Darrell]

What IS the skinny on compressed natural gas??? I've seen some guy named McClendon, I think, doing ads following on T. Boone Pickens' campaign for clean energy sources. Upside, downside? Performance compared to gasoline, equivalent mileage, etc.? It's supposedly like 40% cheaper than gasoline. I remember years ago, some guy drove a liquified natural gas powered truck into a car wash, it blew him, the truck and the car wash to smithereens. That WAS liquified, not compressed, gas, though.

[Erik]

I do know that to get to the natural gas you need to drill.
Drilling is what they are against when it's for oil, but apparently is ok if you hit gas instead.

[Darrell]

We do have LOTS of natural gas in the US, Erik, and they're drilling for more. Lots of drilling for it going on here in Colorado, for instance, and yes, the hippies have a problem with it.

[Erik]

I know.
What I ment was that I've heard people that are against drilling for oil touting natural gas as a great "clean" energy. They apparently dont get it that you need to drill for NG too, and you need to drill in more or less the same areas where they allready want to ban all drilling.

Isn't T Boone Pickens the guy who wants to stop using oil and start using windpower instead? And they claim it's better to use NG?

[Aglifter]

T Boon Pickens really wants the water rights in Rural TX, so he can sell it to cities such as San Antonio and Austin, which are growing rapidly, but refuse to build reservoirs, etc.

TX does have lots of gas -- the state's been trying to promote it for years -- HEB runs, at least some, of their rigs on LNG. CPG is much safer than LNG, but is not nearly as energy dense as gasoline.

[Rod]

I know.
What I ment was that I've heard people that are against drilling for oil touting natural gas as a great "clean" energy. They apparently dont get it that you need to drill for NG too, and you need to drill in more or less the same areas where they allready want to ban all drilling.

Isn't T Boone Pickens the guy who wants to stop using oil and start using windpower instead? And they claim it's better to use NG?

As always, follow the money. T. Boone has a huge amount of his money invested in natural gas fields. IIRC, wind power sucks (pun intended), use your google fu to find out.

Two charts, same vehicle. Remember that cng is cheaper

CNG = http://www.fueleconomy.gov/Feg/byfuel/CNG2001.shtml

Gasoline = http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/ ... _Van.shtml

You'll spend half the amount on cng, when you can find stations (which would change) but you only cut your greenhouse gas emissions by about 5.4 percent. Conversion may also cost more than the car is worth.

[Erik]

IIRC, wind power sucks (pun intended), use your google fu to find out.

No need, they are spending loads of money to invest in it here.
I googled a bit and made the calcualtion that the one field of windmills off the coast here generates just about the amount of power needed to keep Al Gores house running. The field is spread out over an area larger than the area of houses it's supposed to supply power to.

[Darrell]

Here's a video of a windmill overrunning and coming apart. I wouldn't want to be anywhere within a mile of the thing when it went. I believe this happened over in Denmark. The Danish maker is about to open a plant in the town south of here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA

[Erik]

Yeah, that's in Aarhus in Denmark. They're supposed to be stopped when the wind blows too much, but this one broke loose. It's getting coomon here to put them in fields close to major roads too, so it's just a question of time until this happens with people close by. Previously when it happened it was usually far out to sea.

I dont have the figures right now, but I believe they actually only produce energy 25% of the time, and the only way windpower is at all competitive in price is because it's so heavily tax subsidized. Which they never count in comparizons with other sources of energy.

[Fivetoes]

What IS the skinny on compressed natural gas??? I've seen some guy named McClendon, I think, doing ads following on T. Boone Pickens' campaign for clean energy sources. Upside, downside? Performance compared to gasoline, equivalent mileage, etc.? It's supposedly like 40% cheaper than gasoline. I remember years ago, some guy drove a liquified natural gas powered truck into a car wash, it blew him, the truck and the car wash to smithereens. That WAS liquified, not compressed, gas, though.

CNG doesn't have the same energy as gasoline. The big drawback is that you have to have a big mofo tank on your vehicle. Maybe ok on a pickup but on a sedan you might not like the looks.