Convert Your Car To Natural Gas

Driving a car powered by natural gas a bargain?
energy reserves of the United States in the form of natural gas are about 80% larger than its petroleum reserves. future drilling add modestly to either reserve likelihood that new natural gas reserves will be more important.

T. Boone Pickens proposes to use more natural gas used as fuel for automobiles. His ads are gaining ground and many people are beginning to wonder if compressed natural gas or CNG powered car is in their future.

The answer depends on knowing three simple facts; CNG is really much cheaper than gasoline, CNG is readily available, and are commercial cars with bi-fuel capability available for sale? The answers are yes, no, yes.

Natural gas can be offered at a price significantly lower than gasoline. In a recent announcement by a company gas grand prize of $ 2.04 per BSE was offered for CNG while the price of regular gasoline has been shown to $ 3.46 a gallon. The energy content of CNG is quoted in "gallon of gasoline equivalent" or BSE. This is a new measure, which is based on the energy content of gas supplied. By basing the price of gas compressed natural on its energy content, one can compare energy prices of CNG and gasoline directly. This is by far the best approach for the customer who can compare prices for two equal tranches of energy, one for gas and one for gasoline. Measuring the dispensed quantity of CNG is more difficult than measuring an equivalent amount of gasoline. However, an accurate measurement can be made. Installation measuring CNG is a little more expensive than its gasoline counterpart.

At present, there are almost no fueling stations equipped to dispense CNG. The natural gas industry must make considerable investments before a sufficient number of refueling stations available on site. If you are the lucky ones who lives near such a new station, you should seriously consider buying a new car with a dual-fuel capability. To conduct local uses CNG to travel long distances continue to depend on gasoline. By having two fuel tanks on board, one for CNG, the other for gasoline, the driver can select the fuel he wants to use.

Existing cars can also be converted. Cars that burn compressed natural gas will work perfectly without any performance handicap. However, converting a gasoline powered car is expensive and large high pressure cylinders for storing CNG must be installed in the trunk of the car during the redevelopment.

A few automakers are already offering vehicles equipped to use both fuels, CNG and gasoline. You can either use one or the other fuel. An immediate changeover can be done by toggling a simple switch. In the U.S. Honda is already offering its Civic GX model. Volkswagen Opel, Mercedes and Fiat are selling dual-fuel models in Europe. Other Europeans are CNG powered models, too. U.S. automakers are sure to follow.

There are two outstanding issues. How natural gas reserves in the United States does possess and reliability of price signals earlier? After all, the imported natural gas is sold mostly by OPEC countries and the United States is already importing small quantities of natural gas.

Available data puts U.S. natural gas reserves at 230 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). current consumption is about 2 billion cubic feet per year. Consumption of natural gas will obviously sharply increase once CNG is widely used in automobiles and will also continue its annual rise in total energy consumption in the United States continues to grow. The annual consumption of natural gas could soon increase by nearly 4 billion cubic feet. With this rate of consumption known natural gas reserves for a period of more than fifty years.

When buying a car bi-fuel, we must convince ourselves that CNG prices will remain stable and competitive in order to recover the higher purchase price of the bi-fuel.