Natural gas powered cars... (1 Viewer)

[mikaloyd]

Im not up on what it takes to burn natural gas in a piston engine designed for gasoline, but to burn propane efficiently you either need to raise the compression mechanically (new pistons) or via supercharging. If a car already has supercharging its possible to raise the boost pressure fairly inexpensively.

It is possible to run propane without raising compression in a normally aspirated engine but you wont get very great power or fuel mileage that way. Propane would need to become mighty cheap compared to gasoline again before it would make economic sense for a person to just slap a propane injector or dual-fuel setup on his car without any other changes.

I know all this first hand because I bought a propane powered box van from an industrial laundry to haul around my race bike in the 80s. The laundry had the van stripped of gasoline gear and fitted with propane gear to run laundry locally. At the time propane was very inexpensive compared to gasoline so it worked out OK economically. I had to carry another tank of propane and carry a campers bible which had listings of every place that sold propane to make it accross country but that was OK. Not long after that propane rose in cost and the abysmal mileage eventually made converting the van to gasoline worthwhile. Too expensive and time consuming to put in 14:1 pistons and too much uncharted territory to want to add a turbocharger or blower to a beast of burden truck and tune it. It was cheaper to buy a gas tank, carb, fuel pump, fuel filters, fuel lines etc and install them than it was to keep paying to feed propane to a motor set up for gasoline. Once it had gasoline it became more powerful and efficient just like it should. Roughly from 7- 9 mpg on propane to 12-16 mpg on gasoline from a small block Ford with a normal van front and an aluminum box.

Howzabout we just burn alcohol instead?

 

[staphory]

Never mind the fact that as more people convert to CNG the price will go up.

 

[BHM]

Back in the seventies several cities tried out the n.g. motors. At the time they were very underpowered. Things may have changed now with technology but i don't know.

You macho cops just like to go fast.

 

[Rickboy]

IMO CNG will eventually be the replacement for gasoline for many of the reasons stated above. The US has about a 200 year supply with KNOWN reserves. The only drawback is that some of those reserves are in shale. The extraction process is pretty high on the pollution side. If they get it cleaned up, I think it'll be really viable in the long term.

Right now, infrastructure is really the only thing holding it back. It is a chicken or the egg scenario. There aren't a lot of stations because there aren't a lot of vehicles. I suspect subsidies will eventually change this but it will be a slow process...

BTW, in India, CNG is the norm. The majority of the taxis are fueled with CNG. Lots of passenger cars and trucks use it too. However you need to keep in mind that CNG will have a lower range. CNG has fewer BTUs than gasoline and of course there is that heavier fuel tank that you have to worry about.

I don't think CNG will be the silver bullet that ends the oil age but it will definitely be part of the answer. IMO electric cars will start to play a bigger roll in the next 20 years. Especially in major cities. If battery or capacitor technology ever catches up with consumer needs, it will become the really dominant power storage medium. CNG will then be regulated to powerplants to charge those batteries. (unless we really go nuke)