[Healeys] gas - natural gas

[Atkinson, Robert]

The forward-looking solution to fueling new and reasonably recent vehicles
(not Healeys) is natural gas.

Any modern internal combustion engine can run on natural gas as easily as
gasoline. The best approach is a "bi-fuel" car which has one engine and two
fuel tanks: gasoline and natural gas.  The additional cost of a bi-fuel in
Europe is $2-3,000 but that is quickly offset by fuel savings: natural gas
currently costs $1.90 per gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE) and that price is
likely to be stable or even decline because of the sudden and longterm glut of
domestic natural gas. (Congress is considering a law that would give consumers
a $3,500 tax credit for purchasing a bi-fuel natural gas car, which would
instantly offset any additional cost.)

In a bi-fuel, consumers would presumably use the much less expensive natural
gas as a primary fuel and gasoline as the back-up if convenient natural gas
isn't available.  Over time, the US natural gas refueling infrastructure will
become widespread-any gasoline station that can be connected to the local
natural gas utility can offer natural gas as a motor fuel by adding a
compressor, storage tank and dispenser (all off the shelf)--so the size of the
gasoline tank can shrink, eventually to zero.  And then the US will have
"energy independence":  with a 100 year supply of domestic natural gas

The bi-fuel system is easy to add to SUVs, pick-up trucks and minivans that
are too big to run on batteries.  These "big" vehicles are also the most
profitable for the manufacturers, so they are very interested in natural gas.
(Mercedes, Volkswagen, Volvo, Fiat and others are selling thousands of
bi-fuels in Europe today because natural gas as a motor fuel is widely
available.)

Finally, natural gas has 22% less greenhouse gasses than gasoline and
substantially greater reduction of other local pollutants.

So, less pollution, energy independence, lower and stable consumer fuel price,
any sort of vehicle, profits for the "Big Three" (and other auto
makers)...what's wrong with that?

Bob


On 4/29/11 4:57 PM, "healeymanjim at hansencc.net" <healeymanjim at hansencc.net>
wrote:

since i drive my healeys year round i do not notice any had starting, etc.,
but ever since the feds started mandating ethanol i have replace more than a
few gas tanks where the ethanol apparently scours off the scale inside, and i
do not get the mileage i used to get.  i still cannot believe that we as a
nation use food needed the world over to make fuel.  there is so much other
stuff we can use.  i would think that oil at over 100 bucks a barrel would
push us to make synthetic fuels like germany did in ww2.  probably pollutes
too much or something like that.
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