Drive your car for $1/gal?

glhs837

Power with Control
Yep, thats the problem. And T.Boone is salivating over the idea of Uncle Sam paying to subsidize that distribution network. and lobbying really hard to make it mandated fuel. Cant win in the marketplace? Just pay politicians to require folks to use your product. Where have we seen that sort of action before?
 

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
Converting a vehicle to NG is not cheap.

That. It was relatively painless to convert to propane back when engines were carburated. I've done several and even have a conversion kit sitting on the shelf collecting dust.

Any car built after about 1993 (might be even earlier) however, would be not only hugely expensive to convert (if conversion kits for same even existed; they do not), the conversion would be illegal in most places under current emissions and emission equipment law.

Designing a new vehicle to use LNG would be a snap ..but to make one capable of burning either gasoline OR LNG would present a real challenge though and is probably not even feasible. The storage for each type of fuel is completely different and so is the injection technology. Unlike the case for ethanol versus gasoline, for example, where the same fuel storage and injection system is used for both fuels.
 

Larry Gude

Strung Out
Yep, thats the problem. And T.Boone is salivating over the idea of Uncle Sam paying to subsidize that distribution network. and lobbying really hard to make it mandated fuel. Cant win in the marketplace? Just pay politicians to require folks to use your product. Where have we seen that sort of action before?

Ok, but, this is a PERFECT example of a proper use of government power; infrasrtucture. PROMOTE the general welfare. Build the backbone, the major pipelines, the commitment to nat gas.

We're talking an ENOURMOUS number of new jobs, not taking from place and giving to another as is the Obama model but, brand new jobs building the infrastruture. Then, all sorts of secondary, private jobs taking CNG from this backbone to the stations, modifying exisitng ones, building new ones. That is REAL work. REAL jobs.

Same for modifying, for setting your home up, all of that. It would be a wash the jobs that go from exisiting engines to building nat gas ones but, a wash is not bad in this case.

Then, and this is the best part, instead of over a billion dollars a day LEAVING our economy, that becomes something like a third, or less AND every last mother####ing stinking ass penny stays HOME.

In the mean time, oil use crashes. Think that through. Gasoline and diesel proces fall to parity with nat gas to remain competitve. More money stays in American pockets.

We are fools. :buddies:
 

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
Conversion kits can be had for about $1,000

Finding a fill station is another story....

Or you can make a fill station at you house
 

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
Conversion kits can be had for about $1,000

Finding a fill station is another story....

Or you can make a fill station at you house

After looking at it, I do stand corrected; there are now several vendors that advertise OBD-compatible kits (implying, at least, that they might be emissions-legal. I saw some that stated 'off road use only' and didn't find any that clearly stated they were Federal-compliant) to convert to propane in the 1400-1800 dollar range. Another grand or so for installation I would guess.

I have only converted older carbed engines; wasn't keeping up with the changes.

Of course, propane is not LNG....but if LNG were made more widely available and continues to be cheap, those same conversion kit manufacturers would be offering LNG kits too.
 

nebeno

New Member
How about driving your car for $0 a gallon. You can make your own natural gas with a biomass gasifier, which you can build yourself. Ok, maybe not exactly a weekend project, but doable I'd say, and free if you have some wood or other biomass (corn cobs, vegetation maybe). Of course, ideally you would have a car that could run on both gasoline for long trips and your homemade biogas for local driving. Anyone want to get together an actually build something like this?

A Home-Built Biomass Gasifier for Producing Wood Gas
 
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