Despite claims to the contrary, it seems like General Motors is getting more and more involved in the refueling business. GM has already invested heavily in two different cellulosic ethanol companies (Coskata and Mascoma), and has now partnered with Clean Energy Fuels Corp. to open a hydrogen fueling station near the Los Angeles Int’l Airport (LAX). The station will be located at Clean Energy’s compressed natural gas (CNG) facility and should be operational by the fall.

Mary Beth Stanek, GM’s director of energy and environmental policy & commercialization made it clear that this is just a continuation of the company’s general policy to advance the development of refueling infrastructure for their future vehicle fleet. No one wants a car they can’t buy fuel for, and GM isn’t go to wait around for the government to step in and mandate or subsidize one of the options.

“Developing and growing hydrogen infrastructure is vital to GM’s efforts to bring larger volumes of fuel cell vehicles to the market.”

Reforming hydrogen from natural gas is controversial, especially since California already has a reasonably well-developed CNG refueling system powering some of the cleanest cars on the road (14,000 daily according to GCC). But proponents argue that natural gas is an ideal transition feedstock until a more sustainable alternative for hydrogen production can be developed.

Hydrogen from the new station will be used primarily for Chevrolet’s Project Driveway, which is the largest market test of fuel-cell vehicles to date. If you want to test drive a Chevy Equinox Fuel-Cell Vehicle, check the link to see if you’re eligible (I tried to get through Project Driveway’s survey, but gave up after answering 50 questions that still wouldn’t tell me if my area is included—I’m pretty sure it’s not).

Final words from Andrew J. Littlefair, Clean Energy president and CEO:

Developing a cost-effective hydrogen infrastructure is a challenge. By leveraging the growing network of natural gas stations, a variety of hydrogen station designs can be introduced to the public. Ultimately, reforming pipeline natural gas to produce hydrogen at our stations may be done inexpensively, thereby taking advantage of the ready infrastructure. This approach can help accelerate a larger-scale deployment of hydrogen vehicles.

Posts Related to Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Vehicles:

• Toyota Announces New 516-Mile Range Fuel-Cell/Electric Hybrid
• Want to Test Drive a Hydrogen Powered Car? GM’s “Project Driveway” Looking For Drivers
• Natural Gas Cars: CNG Fuel Almost Free in Some Parts of the Country
• GM Announces New Cellulosic Ethanol Partnership with Mascoma Corp.
• Provoq Concept Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicle

More: GM partners with Clean Energy for new hydrogen statiion in Los Angeles

Photo Credit: Clayton B. Cornell (Detroit Auto Show)

Clean Burning Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs) are hot commodities in some parts of the country, where fuel can sell for as low as $0.63 per gallon.

Unlike the world’s most fuel efficient car (VW’s 285 MPG bullet), the Honda Civic GX looks like a standard passenger vehicle. What makes it special is what you don’t see: tailpipe emissions that are often cleaner than ambient air.

The Civic GX is powered by compressed natural gas—methane—the simplest and cleanest-burning hydrocarbon available. With an economical 113-hp, 1.8-Liter engine, the EPA has called the Civic the “world’s cleanest internal-combustion vehicle” with 90% cleaner emissions than the average gasoline-powered car on the road in 2004.

And get this: in Utah, natural gas can be purchased for $0.63 per gallon.

At $24,590, buying a new Civic GX won’t exactly break your bank account, especially since up to $7,000 will come back to you in the form of state and federal tax credits. But don’t expect to find one easily. The car is only sold in two states, New York and California, and Honda can’t build them fast enough. One dealership said they have over 80 people waiting to buy.

It’s fairly obvious why densely populated states would be interested, especially since natural gas is a readily available source of heating fuel for many parts of the country. Most importantly, the Civic is the Eagle Scout of emissions certifications: it qualified for the California Air Resources Board’s Advanced Technology Partial Zero-Emission Vehicle (AT-PZEV) status, which means that it’s a Super-Ultra-Low-Emission Vehicle (SULEV) with zero-evaporative emissions. To qualify for AT-PZEV, the Civic must also carry a 15-year/150,000-mile warranty on emissions equipment. It also meets EPA’s strict Tier-2, Bin-2 and ILEV certification.

Despite getting the equivalent of a good but not quite amazing 36 MPG highway/24 MPG city, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) awarded the Civic the green ribbon as the greenest vehicle of 2008. That’s the fifth consecutive year it’s taken the top prize.

So what’s the downside?

Drawbacks to the Civic GX and other Compressed Natural Gas Vehicles

Earlier this week I was clued-in to the explosion in popularity of compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles in Southern Utah, and their potential to overwhelm the 91 refueling stations already in place there.

That’s the biggest drawback to NGVs:

• There are only about 1,600 CNG stations nationwide (compared to 200,000 gas stations), though some areas (like Utah and California) are better served than others. To see where these stations are, see the alternative fuel locater from Mapquest (under #2 on that post).

One way to get around this is to buy your own natural gas refueling station. Since a large number of us burn natural gas for heat, this doesn’t require much more than setting up a pump. The refueling kits, made by FuelMaker, will set you back about $3,500, but that can be offset by substantial tax credits.

• Second drawback: since natural gas is a compressed fuel, the tank takes up some trunk space, and only holds the equivalent of 8 gallons of gasoline. Honda estimates the vehicle’s range to be 220 to 250 miles, although Consumer Reports claimed it was closer to 180 miles.

NGV enthusiasts are getting around range limitations (and vehicle scarcity) by converting their own vehicles to run on natural gas and adding spare tank capacity. Throwing extra tanks in the bed of a truck, for example, can boost driving range to around 600 miles. The best part about converting a vehicle (as opposed to the Civic GX) is that if you run out of CNG, the system automatically switches back to gasoline.

• Third drawback: NGVs don’t provide that great of a reduction in greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions when compared to their gasoline counterparts.

According to the industry group Natural Gas Vehicles for America (NGVA), the reduction is only 20%, which is about the same GHG reduction you get from corn-based ethanol. That doesn’t sound too impressive, but it’s still a reduction, and clean air could be worth it.

The big question mark is natural gas supply. If large amounts of biomethane can be produced from biomass (which is probably already done at your local landfill), the emissions reductions would be much greater.

But What About Natural Gas Supply?

Natural gas supplies 20% of all energy use in the US. According to NGVA: “Even if the number of NGVs were to increase 100-fold in the next ten years to 11,000,000 or roughly 5% of the entire vehicle market (a formidable goal), the impact on natural gas supplies and the natural gas delivery infrastructure would be small — equating to about 4 percent of total U.S. natural gas consumption.”

At first glance, that sounds pretty good, but any increase in natural gas usage means importing more fuel.

Taking a look at data from the Energy Information Administration, the US uses about 21.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year, most of which is produced domestically (18.5 trillion cubic feet) with the difference being imported (4.2 trillion cubic feet). Proved natural gas reserves in the US amount to about 211 trillion cubic feet. If my math is correct, without taking into account any increase in demand, the US only has about 11.5 years of natural gas left. After that, we’re back to square one: importing oil from Russia, Qatar, Iran, and Saudi Arabia

Like petroleum, two-thirds of world natural gas supply exists in just a few countries. If we’re at all worried about having domestic (let alone renewable) energy sources, basing the future of US transportation on natural gas puts us right back in the same position we’re in now.

Also like petroleum, there is an “infinite supply” argument: “Don’t worry, we won’t run out… promise.” NGVA says that if we can tap into methane hydrate ice formations that exist under 1000 feet of water at the bottom of the arctic oceans, we’ll be just fine. Right now, this is about as plausible as time travel, and methane hydrates serve a very important function—they’re a crucial sink for carbon dioxide in the global carbon cycle.

Conclusions

Whether or not we’ve learned our lesson about importing foreign energy, natural gas could still provide a functional infrastructure and technology for transition to hydrogen fuel cells. Natural gas is currently the number one feedstock for producing hydrogen, and refueling stations along California’s hydrogen highway may produce the fuel by reforming natural gas on-site. Basically, this gives us a transition fuel until we figure out how to make hydrogen sustainably.

As for the Honda Civic GX, it may be the cleanest-burning vehicle on the market, but the drawbacks listed above are likely to keep NGVs out of mainstream production for the forseeable future. It seems unlikely that natural gas will stay as cheap as it currently is in Utah, but relatively low pricing could keep the car’s popularity high in some areas. It will be interesting to see how things resolve there.

For more on the Honda Civic GX, see Honda’s Website and Consumer Reports. See more pictures below.

For more on Natural Gas, see Natural Gas Cars: CNG Fuel Almost Free in Some Parts of the Country.

Posts Related to Alternative Fuels and Green Car Technology:

• Affordable Electric Cars Coming to US in 2009
• How Biodiesel Fuel-Cells Could Power The Future (And Your Car)
• How Solar Panels Could Power 90% of US Transportation
• Six New Technologies Will Help Manufacturers Reach the 35 MPG Goal (Without Hybrids)

Photo Credit: Honda

While the national average price of gasoline is now $3.60, some residents of Utah are happily filling up on compressed natural gas (CNG) at $0.63 per gallon. That’s the country’s lowest price for CNG, which has understandably caused a surge in demand for vehicles running on a fuel that one man described as “practically free.”

So far, CNG vehicles haven’t made a blip on my radar screen, even though the group Natural Gas Vehicles for America (NGVA) estimates there are 150,000 NGVs on U.S. roads today and over 5 million worldwide. It took a phone call from sunny Southern Utah to clue me in to recent developments, which include a local refueling station overflowing with CNG-hungry vehicles.

There are about 1500 CNG refueling stations in the US, which is about the same number of commercial stations offering E85 ethanol blends. Utah has a total of 91 CNG filling stations, most of which are reserved for commercial fleet use, but there are 20 open to the public. According to an article by the Associated Press, you could drive Utah from top to bottom and hit 22 different stations offering compressed natural gas.

The NGVA also says there are 50 different manufacturers producing 150 models of light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles and engines that run on compressed natural gas. Unfortunately, there’s only one for sale to individuals, Honda’s Civic GX, and it’s only offered in California and New York (although Utah could be next on the list). California ranks highest in number of CNG refueling stations, but fuel prices are also higher—more like $2.50 per gallon.

There’s so much demand now in Utah for CNG-ready vehicles that Honda can’t make them fast enough. Savvy customers are buying the vehicles from other states and shipping them back for sale. But waiting for a new Honda Civic GX to role off the assembly line isn’t the only option. It’s also possible to convert a used vehicle to run on natural gas, like Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who converted his state-owned Chevy Suburban. And for either used or new vehicles, the tax incentives are substantial. Combining state and federal tax credits in Utah can almost completely offset the approximately $7,000 difference in price between regular and CNG-ready vehicles.

One of the major benefits of using compressed natural gas is a significant reduction in emissions when compared to gasoline. Compressed natural gas is touted as the “cleanest burning” alternative fuel available, since the simplicity of the methane molecule reduces tailpipe emissions of different pollutants by 35-97%. Not quite as dramatic is the reduction in net greenhouse-gas emissions, which is about the same as corn-grain ethanol at about a 20% reduction over gasoline.

The big question in Utah is whether or not the infrastructure can keep up with the amount of new CNG cars on the road. Utah already has 5,000 CNG vehicles, up from none a few years ago, essentially overwhelming the refueling network.

Then, of course, there’s the question of natural gas supply. According to the NGVA, worldwide supply of natural gas is almost infinite, assuming we can tap into methane hydrate ice formations at the bottom of the arctic oceans. If we can’t figure that out, we can just drill more (please note the sarcastic tone):

…there are huge natural gas resources on public lands in the U.S. that currently are off-limits to drilling. These include areas a hundred miles or more off the coast of Florida and America’s east and west coast as well as the Rocky Mountain area. The current run-up in natural gas prices is increasing political pressure to allow gas exploration and production in these areas.

More promising is the potential of bio-methane, or the production of methane from the natural breakdown of plant material, something already captured by landfills in the US. The NGVA says that waste biomass could supply enough natural gas for about 11 million natural gas vehicles, which is approximately 5% of the nation’s automotive fleet.

This is certainly something to watch out for, and maybe even participate in if you live in Utah. Now that it’s got my attention, I’ll be taking a closer look at the Honda Civic GX this week, a car that has been called the cleanest burning vehicle on the planet.

More on Compressed Natural Gas Vehicles:

The Cleanest Cars on Earth: Honda Civic GX and Other Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs)

For more on this story, see Natural-gas vehicles hot in Utah, where the fuel is cheap. Also see How Natural Gas Vehicles Work for more background.

Photo Credit