by Xenophobe » Sun 02 Jan 2011, 21:38:03
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KingM', ' ')I just want people to have a rational discussion instead of letting the thread degenerate. I don't think that's too much to ask.
Completely reasonable.
So, here is the uptake on CNG transport. It is used on all sorts of mass transit, it's used in certain types of hybrid mass transit (saw a few in Vegas a couple months back), you can buy a CNG powered Honda Civic in America without too much trouble, and T. B. Pickens, for all his peak oil failings, seems to recognize that with as much natural gas as America has, it might be a reasonable idea to use some for transport, rather than paying foreign powers to send us ever more costly crude.
I, like millions of other Americans who heat our homes with the stuff, are a few joints of 1" line pipe and a small compressor in the garage from being able to fuel these things right at home. With hundreds of thousands of miles of pipelines ready to go, infrastructure certainly isn't any trouble.
The rub, as usual, is in those who certainly aren't about to change unless someone, or something, makes them, or there are incentives. The incentive business seems to work much better for anything EV rather than CNG powered. I would attribute that to lobby power, the electric utilities in this country are substantially better represented than the small independent natural gas drillers in America. Those electric utilities REALLY want a slice of the billions Americans spend on fuel for their transport. Natural pipeline infrastructure is good, but electric distribution across the country has it beat, hands down.