Green Options

A decade after their first unpopular attempt at a natural-gas vehicle, Toyota says they are looking to CNG for the future.

High gas prices have made natural-gas vehicles more desirable, but Honda is still the only major carmaker currently offering a CNG vehicle. While their car is only available in California and New York, Honda says they can’t keep their Civic GX in stock due to popularity, and plans to build 2,000 more for 2009. Toyota wants some of the pie.

There is nothing really new about using Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) as a vehicle fuel. It works well in internal combustion engines and it is possible to squeeze enough energy on board in a reasonable size tank at a reasonable pressure to provide gasoline or diesel equivalent range. There are modification kits available for a number of automobiles, there is at least one production automobile (Honda Civic GX) and there are a number of options for buses (Viking CNG BS-III, New Flyer C/L30LF, C/L35LF, C/L40LF, etc.) suitable for municipal fleets.

The new thing, the reason that talk about CNG is growing, is that natural gas now costs about half as much per unit energy as gasoline and has an even greater cost advantage over diesel fuel.

Robert Bryce, the managing editor of Energy Tribune is one of my favorite energy thinkers. He is a throwback journalist with an inquiring mind who asks hard questions and really thinks through the answers. He has recently written a book titled Gusher of Lies.

I have not yet had a chance to read the book, but I recently listened to a Tavis Smiley show interview with Robert where he talked a little about one of the topics discussed in the book - the use of natural gas as a vehicle fuel.

This topic caught my interest as my energy obsessed brain began weaving several threads into a new pattern. One thread is the growing disconnect between the cost per unit energy of natural gas compared to diesel fuel in the United States. Another thread is a story that has been playing on my drive time radio station about the challenges that local school districts are facing as they prepare their student transportation budgets in the face of rapid increases in the cost of diesel fuel. The final thread is my continuing belief that new nuclear power plants have a role to play in alleviating our current energy crisis.

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.