14-10-2019, 10:30 PM
Many years ago I was in business converting cars to CNG in the early 1980s when we had a large discovery of natural gas in NZ and one of the oil crises. The government of the time was on a "Take or Pay" agreement, meaning they had to pay for the gas whether they used it or not. Hence there were a number of other methods used to consume the gas such as a methanol conversion plant (still running) and a Gas to Gasoline plant.
One of the big issues with gas as a vehicle fuel is the problem of adequate storage on vehicles. CNG required a high pressure gas cylinder installed in the boot, they stored at 3000 psi, but only provided about 150km of range, typically.
The other problem with gas fuels is the problem of transportation, they cant hold enough energy in road tankers to make those feasible so there needs to be an extensive pipe network to get it to the filling stations and they need high pressure gas compressors and storage. From memory the energy stored in vehicle Hydrogen Gas Cylinders at 620bar is only abut one third of the CNG equivalent. So range is likely to be an even bigger issue than E cars.
Unfortunately there is no Silver Bullet, and philosophy cant overcome the physics.
One of the big issues with gas as a vehicle fuel is the problem of adequate storage on vehicles. CNG required a high pressure gas cylinder installed in the boot, they stored at 3000 psi, but only provided about 150km of range, typically.
The other problem with gas fuels is the problem of transportation, they cant hold enough energy in road tankers to make those feasible so there needs to be an extensive pipe network to get it to the filling stations and they need high pressure gas compressors and storage. From memory the energy stored in vehicle Hydrogen Gas Cylinders at 620bar is only abut one third of the CNG equivalent. So range is likely to be an even bigger issue than E cars.
Unfortunately there is no Silver Bullet, and philosophy cant overcome the physics.