Phil is back!

I don't know anything about 'the Phil', but natural gas is probably the future in fuel. We have 100 years known supply. Once we get passed the unethical companies that have caused problems with fracking, natural gas could solve a large part of our fuel problem. The companies will have to be regulated, I hope you know that.

By the way, what's the difference in CNG and propane? I do know propane is a compressed liquified gas and a by product of natural gas.

Marked for later reading.

yes propane is liquified and is a bit different....CNG is not liquified like LNG, so there is less processing involved with it.....they can also get it from biomass.

I am assuming that there are already regulations in place for the natgas companies....I am not sure what additional regulations would be required, but naturally if they are actually necessary, then make them....hopefully they won't create bureaucracy for the sake of funneling more money to government and make it not worth the savings....I could see that happening.

Sounds interesting. I'm curious how many models will be available cus I don't drive a Honda and I don't really want to lose my horse power but at a dollar a gallon, cutting my monthly gas bill from roughly 300 a month to roughly 100 a month is a nice chunk.

I heard there was a fiat in production, and I know there were some others, but I can't remember....I believe there is a list of vehicles that can be retrofit to the system.

I drive an Ford F-150 crew cab that gets about 15 to 17 MPG, so a buck or so a gallon sounds pretty damn good to me.

I was reading that another advantage to CNG is less required maintenance....your oil lasts alot longer.

Our public transporation fleet (or part of it) was converted to run on natural gas but I don't know what type of gas or the system they use. I should call them and ask about benefits. I used to see a lot of pick-ups around here running on propane, now I don't see any. Do you know if it would be a fuel saver to do that? Access to propane is easy here - probably everywhere.

I am not sure.....I have seen propane fuels pickups around here as well, but they had a pretty sizable tank in the bed....and I am not even sure if the propane that we use in our bbq, etc, is the same thing.....there is a fuel referred to as autogas that is propane, but I believe it is mixed with butane or something like that...Propane is a by product of natural gas processing and also oil refining, so it seems to me that it would be less plentiful and make less sense than the CNG......especially if the goal is to get our motor vehicles off petroleum products as much as possible.

Looks interesting, but another waste of time. If CNG becomes popular, you can bet
Big Brother will add on a tax that makes it no cheaper than regular gasoline. Big
government is the problem, not the oil companies or because there is a shortage
of oil. I personally think that the earth is constantly creating more oil and that we
will never run out of gasoline. We will just be painted in the corner by political 
correctness and Liberal dogma until we are all driving around something that is
much less efficient and much more dangerous than what we have now. I figure
living closer to home and taking mass transit to work is the future of land travel
in this country and most of the world. CNG cars, diesel engines, etc., are just a
cute divergion from where we are headed. Liberals will not be happy until we 
are all crowding on some electric cattle car on our way to some government
job.

Then you need to provide something that supports that belief. And not only that the earth is creating oil but that it is at an equal or greater pace than we are using it. The earth is constanly creating trees too but we could easily run out. By your logic Conservatives won't be happy until we all starve to death and their dying words are "Ha ha, took you with me stupid hippy!"

Think about it. If we run out of oil -- we run out of oil. Currently, we are in all
kinds of trouble because we are simply using other people's oil when we should
be using our own oil or natural gas. I think the CNG idea is great. I also think
that Big Government will find a way to make it as expensive as gasoline. I am
all for switching to something else, but I am also of the opinion that there is
no big hurry. We converted from horse and buggy to gasoline powered autos
in less than 50 years. We could just as quickly, or even more quickly, convert 
to something other than oil if there was any reason to. If Big Brother would
leave entrepreneurs alone, we would probably already be converted to some
other form of engine just as Henry Ford had us all in gasoline powered 
automobiles in no time, and he created millions of jobs and still creates
millions of jobs today.

We don't have that much oil of our own. We simply don't.

Your next point hinges on the idea that we both have an alternative and don't need to change. We changed from horse and buggy to car but horses still exist and haven't (really) gotten more expensive than they were before. Tell me, three years ago when oil spiked what new tech showed up? If oil runs out (which it will sooner or later) it's unlikely we'll have 50 years to gradually change. We'll need to change over damn quick.

Synthetic oils have come a long way....you can make oil out of many things now....oil can be re-refined also.

One of the advantages to the CNG is lower maintenance needed.....the oil doesn't get near as dirty, therefore it lasts longer.

This is a giant leap towards energy independence, should it catch on.

You can make oil out of damn near anything. I'm well aware of this. I actually do look into this stuff.

Ultimately it doesn't really matter for two reasons. Currently it's simply not cost effective to use either method. Whatever step they missed nobody has figured out and it's simply more expensive. Any discussion about oil should factor in what our economy can handle. I mean yes we could get oil literally from shit but how much does it cost? If gas moves up to six or nine dollars a gallon sure we've got it but our entire way of life is built on the idea that gas costs less than four dollars a gallon. You start fucking with that and you've got a problem. Besides as much trash as there is I suspect if we were to start actually using it we'd find it to be a limited resource as well.

I keep hearing you can make oil and gas out of many things, most of them cheap like garbage which is free if you'll take it. In fact I saw them several times do it on tv. One was a small plant set up near the Katrina disaster making building materials from the debris.

So why aren't we doing these things on a large scale? Is it politicians paid off by the forest industry, for instance? Synthetic oil costs twice as much as conventional oil. It is much better for your vehicle, but if people won't use it because of cost (a $70 oil change instead of $35) where is the headway?

Did you ever think you would see people paying $4 or more for a pack
of cigarettes? If people want something, they will pay whatever they 
have to. Gasoline has gone from around $2 a gallon up to and over
$4 a gallon, and then back down. During all that, I have not really 
changed my driving habits. I use about a tank of gas (around 15 
gallons) every 10 days or two weeks depending on where I go on the
weekends. 15 gallons at $4 is not that much more compared to $3. 
The question for CNG might be, will that $1 gallon take me the same 
distance my $3 gallon of gasoline will take me? If the answer is yes,
the next question is, are there inconveniences to driving a CNG powered 
car similar to driving an electric car? In other words, if I want to go any
distance, too far away from my personal refueling station, is that 
possible? Of course, my plan has always been to buy two small electric
cars for everyday driving and keep a gasoline powered car for long
trips.

If a president or congress was really serious about energy independence,
instead of throwing money at Wall Street, they would throw some of those
billions at creating garbage-to-oil and more refineries. My thought is, yes,
most of our problems are political, not lack of resources.