by the48thronin » Fri 03 Jul 2009, 12:37:54
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gerben', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')mployees who drive the small CNG cars have learned from unpleasant experience not to venture onto a freeway with less than a half tank of gas. The gauge can plunge to “E” with alarming swiftness. Stranded employees have no recourse but to call our garage for help. The garage cannot simply send out a pickup with a gallon of gasoline, for they are not equipped to dispense CNG. They must send a wrecker to tow the car to the fueling station. So it goes with CNG vehicles.
Long-haul truckers, whose livelihood depends on continual travel pulling full loads, do not want to
worry about making it to the next fueling station; few wreckers can tow a fully-loaded 18-wheeler. Nor
do truckers want to surrender 25% of precious cargo space to CNG tanks.
Just like you'd need a jerrycan for carrying gasoline, there are also CNG bottles (with hose) for refueling stranded vehicles. Tow trucks however are there already so garages don't bother investing in it.
No idea where he got the 25% from. You don't lose space if you accept a lower driving range. Or could hang a zillion CNG bottles underneath the trailer. I've seen a truck with the back of the cabin full of CNG bottles to get normal range; you'd lose about 6 inches with this solution. I've never seen 2 foot length trailers.
Weight is often the critical factor in many trucking operations. Unless shipper expectations can be changed, the added weight I have seen on those LNG trucks will be a problem.
Over the years I have been trucking, we have gone from 40 ft trailers to 53 ft trailers and the PTB in the industry want 58 ft trailers now. Our weight has gone from 72,380 to 80,00 and they want 90,000 now.
1 MPG can be gained in most trucking operations with the simple expedient of adding a battery bank, sine wave inverter, and ac unit so that drivers will not have to idle the motor when sleeping. FEW trucking companies can afford the weight, in fact the less useful generator and ac units they sell on the market now have made little headway into the market until they allowed a 400 pound extra exemption for trucks so equipped.
My own operation is in an area where weight is seldom a consideration, but fuel availability is, and reliability is, and cold weather is. My brother has been propane driving for years and lives at 8000 ft in the mountains, winters can be real interesting with a propane vehicle, I am not sure of the LNG situation there.
As to the portable refills for LNG wanna tell me the pressure numbers of compress NG again? Gasoline spills are a small hazard in roadside encounters, now picture that hose after 3 years of riding around in the back of that service truck.... Possible in mounted reeled situations it might be only 10 times as dangerous as a gasoline can, but I can see the labor laws and lawyers and training requirements and.... oh regulation ad nauseoum right?
Just my thoughts
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