Very interesting Moontanman.
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Originally Posted by Moontanman
the most puzzling aspect of this was the reasons we didn't start moving in the direction of something other than gasoline. At the time methane was very cheap and often burnt off as waste from oil wells and other places. Wells were drilled and capped waiting for the prices to go up. methane was judged to dangerous to use because it had to be compressed. this simply wasn't true but it was what most people thought.
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Do you mean in the 70’s? I do not know the particulars of the history of natural gas production, but I know it was a useful and capitalized commodity earlier than the 70’s. Methane was harvested and distributed to the whole country.
I can, however, imagine it being burned off at wells like you say. If the cost of collecting the gas at a particular well would have been higher than the profit of collecting it, then it would be disposed of. While that sounds reasonable to me, I do not know how common it was nor how indicative that was to the state of the natural gas market.
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Originally Posted by Moontanman
Methane was used in fleet vehicles with a very good safety record. It was assumed and often confirmed by people who should have known better than methane was too explosive and a leak would be disastrous. Like gasoline isn't.
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There are currently many fleet vehicles that use natural gas (NGV fleets). I find references to school busses, taxis, trucks, shuttles, and others.
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Originally Posted by Moontanman
methane is much safer than gasoline, methane rises quickly and leaves the area of a leak gas pools and it's vapors travel across the ground almost like a liquid.
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I agree. So does this link:
HowStuffWorks "How Natural-gas Vehicles Work"
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Originally Posted by Moontanman
It was also thought the government would have a difficult time taxing methane since you could fill your own tank from your home gas mains with a small compressor. (like the government couldn't figured a way) Mostly the gas companies didn't want to compete with an energy source that could be home based and by pass their network of gas stations.
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You can buy such a compressor. Honda makes this one:
Phill natural gas refueling appliance - Phill home natural gas refueling appliance
There are also over 1,300 fueling stations that accommodate natural gas vehicles. I'm pretty sure the same companies that profit from gasoline do so with natural gas as well - but, we would have to check.
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Originally Posted by Moontanman
methane not only polluted less it also made engines last much longer. It was a great fuel with no development at all and could be used in cars with almost no modifications other than carburetor.
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Indeed, that is a good selling point for me. From the link above:
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The biggest advantage of NGVs is that they reduce environmentally harmful emissions. natural-gas vehicles can achieve up to a 93 percent reduction in carbon monoxide emissions, 33 percent reduction in emissions of various oxides of nitrogen and a 50 percent reduction in reactive hydrocarbons when compared to gasoline vehicles. NGVs also rate higher in particulate matter 10 (PM10) emissions. PM10 particles transport and deposit toxic materials through the air.
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Originally Posted by Moontanman
Think of how methane powered cars could have been developed if the same amount of money had been invested in methane instead of gasoline.
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NGV cars have been developed. According to the natural gas coalition there are over 130,000 in the US and more than 2.5 million world wide. That isn’t many compared to the number of petrol and diesel vehicles - but it’s not nothing. Also, there are more than 40 manufacturers including Ford, Honda, GM, Toyota, Volvo.
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Originally Posted by Moontanman
Methane started out far superior to gasoline, it didn't need to be refined or changed for use as motor fuel, it staggers the imagination to think where we might be with methane.
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Much like gasoline needs to be refined from crude oil, natural gas (including methane) needs to be processed when it comes out of the ground.
Natural gas processing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Originally Posted by Moontanman
At the very least we would be used to handling a gas instead of liquid when we want to go to hydrogen. Again the cars companies and oil companies did everything they could to kill the idea and it died.
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They mostly all make NGVs which is hardly compatible with killing the idea. I also don’t see what their motivation would be. A car company makes a profit on either kind of car.
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Originally Posted by Moontanman
Now we are faced with cars that cannot run on anything but gasoline with out extreme modifications that would make the cars illegal to modify. we are stuck in a situation that almost completely prevents any one from modifying their vehicles in way, so much for the home based tinkerer. I really don't like conspiracy theories but in this case I think there really was a concerted effort to stop the development of methane as a motor fuel for the masses.
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I think you might be wrong about the conspiracy theory. Check out wikipedia’s list of natural gas vehicles:
List of natural gas vehicles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Let me stress this link again, which I think is really good:
HowStuffWorks "How Natural-gas Vehicles Work"
