I hear so much on alternative fuels. Why don't we use Natural Gas?

Question

I see govermennt cars use it, bus lines use it, and probably even the CEO's of oil companys use it. So whats the problem?

Answer 1

its to easy of a answer and hold to regulate the prices from day to day and even harder to gawge prices when a hurricane hits or natural disaster, and would be cheaper for the public to use, and cheaper gas is not the american way

Answer 2

How would the oil companies make a profit? Money talks and bulls*it walks.

Answer 3

Natural gas comes from the same place that oil comes from. And it is even rarer than oil. If we used it as much as we do oil, it'd be gone much sooner than gasoline.

Answer 4

Natural gas conversions have been offered for years. It works well, but just not cost effective for most. Require a high pressure tank, and high pressure charging system. Normally only cost effective for large fleets in a city location.

Answer 5

Ok,,go buy a Honda that does offer CNG..Where are you going to refuel? Yes, you can get a home charger....for $4000... you home gas line WILL NOT charge to 4000 PSI.

No interstrucure for them and not economically justifiable. I do agree with you. The US has a huge amount of natural gas and more can be made from Coal, but $4000 for a home compressor?? Not worth it...Yes, I recently was VERY interested to convert my car, and yes, there are kits to do it. Let's not forget our ambulence chasing lawyers...Harry or Harriot home ower with a 4000 PSI compressor of natural gas. I could not imagine the liability costs for a manufacturer in our legal system.

Answer 6

In the 70's vehicles running on natural gas were common. Chrysler Corp. produced several small V8 engines that would run off of gasoline or natural gas. Even some Class A motor homes came from the factory with Natural Gas conversions.  

The problem is the infrastructure to fill natural gas vehicles never developed. Propane is readily available, but one had to search for someplace to buy natural gas for a vehicle.

Also when the vehicles ran on natural gas, they produced less power and the engines got less miles per gallon, so the cost just about averaged out with the cost of gasoline, making it fiscally not worth the hassle to the average person.

Maybe today with the environmental mood of the country, people might put up with the hassles.

Answer 7

As you can see in the link below, Honda offers a natural gas powered Civic (the Civic GX).  It's approximately as environmentally friendly as a Prius.  Yahoo gives the Prius and Civic hybrid Green ratings of 86 and the Civic GX an 85.

The initial cost of the car is a bit higher than a hybrid, and you have to lease the equipment to set up a fueling station at your home.  Then the problem is that the only place you can refuel is at home.  Owners do claim it's only about $1.50/gallon to fuel it up, and it gets about 33 mpg equivalent.

The other problem with natural gas is that it's still a non-renewable resource.  It burns pretty clean, but there's a limited amount available, so we don't want to rely on it too much.  In other words, we're better of moving toward electric cars which can be fueled by many different power sources than becoming too dependent upon natural gas.

Answer 8

In Australia it is quite common to see privately owned cars fuelled by gas. My car runs on gas and its great very cheap and clean.