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Page added on March 9, 2013
Can Natural Gas Replace Regular Gasoline?
Natural gas is abundant, clean and far cheaper than diesel. That has the U.S. transportation and auto industries looking for ways to kick their dependence on dirtier fossil fuels.
After years of debating how to tap domestic energy sources, new innovations in the sector have created a boom in U.S. energy production. And natural gas is now being viewed as something of a panacea for much of what ails the world’s largest economy — cheaper energy could make U.S. manufacturing globally competitive again.
Indeed, natural gas was the buzz of CERAWeek, an energy conference in Houston that explores hot topics in the energy sector.
Using the fuel in conventional transportation is one avenue that appears to hold vast potential.
This week, BNSF Railway, one of the largest consumers of U.S. diesel fuel and a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, announced a natural gas pilot program for its fleet of locomotives. Observers and market participants say it could be the first step toward eroding the stranglehold oil and traditional gasoline has on cars, trucks and trains.
“Natural gas is a huge boom here in the economy,” Lorenzo Simonelli, General Electric Transportation president and CEO told CNBC this week. GE is currently competing against manufacturing giant Caterpillar to develop natural gas locomotives.
The energy source is “a huge opportunity”, Simonelli said.
Natural gas has been slow to catch on in the auto industry, but there are tentative signs that consumers may be warming to using the cheaper fuel as an alternative to regular gas.
This week, auto maker Ford said it sold a record 11,600 natural gas vehicles last year — a fourfold increase from just two years ago. In recent months, General Motors and Chrysler have added natural gas pickup trucks to their automobile lines.
Honda also sells a natural gas version of its popular Civic. Analysts, however, estimate their sales are far more modest than sales at Ford.
Natural gas has its share of critics, many of which are activists who bemoan the impact the process of natural gas extraction, known euphemistically as “fracking,” has on the environment.
Still, the sector also has some high-profile backers, many of whom see it as a way to revitalize the U.S. economy and build its energy independence. It’s biggest boosters include alternative energy maven T. Boone Pickens and Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris.
The glut of natural energy in the United States is “a game changer, and I think it’s the story of global economic recovery if handled right,” Liveris told CNBC in January on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
8 Comments on "Can Natural Gas Replace Regular Gasoline?"
Kenz300 on Sat, 9th Mar 2013 10:52 pm
Diversify…diversify…diversify….
End the oil monopoly on transportation fuels.
Electric, flex-fuel, biofuel, hybrid, CNG, LNG and hydrogen fuels can all help to break the oil monopoly on transportation fuels.
Competition is good for the consumer.
Beery on Sun, 10th Mar 2013 12:10 am
Natural gas is only ‘cleanER’ when compared with other fossil fuels. It is not ‘clean’ by any stretch of the imagination.
Dmyers on Sun, 10th Mar 2013 12:52 am
The problem is that, no, we cannot replace gasoline with natural gas. What we can do, though, is substitute natural gas for gasoline.
A substitute does NOT replace; it merely substitutes. It works, but it doesn’t work as well as the original stuff. The energy density of natural gas is much lower than gasoline. The use of natural gas to replace gasoline will lower our standards of speed and power and convenience by a fraction equal to the energy density of natural gas divided by the energy density of gasoline.
So, the change to natural gas as the transportation fuel would not be the same, only different. It would be ONLY DIFFERENT.
BillT on Sun, 10th Mar 2013 3:24 am
Grasping at straws … and maybe you can drive your SUV for another year or so, but eventually, personal cars will be history. As soon as demand increases from the switchover, NG prices will escalate until they may be more than gasoline. Besides, how will 240,000,000 cars get switched? That takes money and time, lots of both. Then there are the millions of trucks and did we hear that trains are also in the mix, plus exporting dreams? Sounds like another disaster coming in the near future. Can they punch enough holes in the rock everyday to keep up? Nope! Crash!
Plantagenet on Sun, 10th Mar 2013 4:17 am
BillT you are wrong. Obama says we have a 100 year supply of NG
NG is cheap and abundant. We WILL use it for transportation as oil becomes more expensive
BillT on Sun, 10th Mar 2013 1:57 pm
Planet, you obviously believe in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus also. lol. Some of us matured and realized that lies, disguised by authority, are just that.
GregT on Sun, 10th Mar 2013 4:28 pm
What ever Obama says must be a fact. Yah right!
The 100 year myth, is based on current rates of consumption. If we actually used nat gas in any meaningful amounts in the transportation sector, we would run out much faster. Use 10 times as much and it runs out ten times as fast. I have read that if the US were to switch all transport over to nat gas it would be gone in about three years.
alokin on Mon, 11th Mar 2013 1:25 am
A mix of fuels for transport means that you have to develop and build cars for all these different fuels and that you have to build and maintain the distribution system for different fuels.
The complexity of our society expands until it crashes.