(06-11-2017 11:55 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(06-11-2017 10:02 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(06-11-2017 09:23 AM)LeFlâneur Wrote:  I've posted before and continue to believe that one subsidy that I would support would be for compressed natural gas (CNG) for autos. There's a chicken-egg problem. People won't buy the cars until they can be assured there are refill locations and gas stations won't install refill pumps until there is a critical mass of personal autos.
I believe that CNG is THE most effective solution to energy and pollution problems.

The infrastructure issues involved in making CNG available on a widespread basis are huge. What does make sense is CNG for applications like local delivery fleets, where there can be a single refueling delivery point. A number of such fleets have converted. We should take steps to encourage this number to become 100%.

I actually looked into this at one point, but you can put your own CNG station in your garage for something like $5,000. I think that you can have a truck that runs on either gasoline or CNG. The more expensive cost barrier is the truck conversion, and you're making a big gamble that CNG prices versus conventional gas will make that payoff over time. What I didn't know at the time was the fillup time. The Phill station runs at 800 watts, but for 12 hours, it seems like you'll have to calculate the cost of electricity into the mix.

I have been personally burned by price fluctuations screwing with the payoff of a system. Back in December of '98, I was ordering a large backyard building structure which would need to be heated. Nighttime temps had to remain above 50F, as the structure contained material that would perish below those temps. I ordered an electrical heater for the structure. A rep from the structure company called me and told me that I should absolutely change the electric heater out for a propane heater. He said gas was more efficient (true) and therefore would be cheaper to operate (false). I told him that we got our electricity from a nuclear plant, and it was cheap (about 9cents per kilowatt hour at the time), it was unlikely to go up very much over time, and I didnt want the hassle of having to have a large propane tank and constantly ensure I had sufficient propane on hand and wouldnt run out before they could come out and fill the tank back up.

After conceding that the guy was the expert on this and I wasnt, I gave in and ordered a propane system. When I ordered the system, propane was around 20 cents per pound. I was going to fill the tank in the summertime, when prices should be at their lowest. But prices for propane tripled by mid-summer, to over 60 cents per pound. And that year we had a wickedly cold winter, And I had to fill the tank 2 additional times during the winter, at which point the price of propane had quadrupled. Also, because the demand was so high, it took the propane company several weeks to make it back to my place. Although I had given them plenty of heads up, the tank had run empty for a couple of days before they were able to fill it back up, which caused me to lose some of the perishables in there.

By 2003, I had switched back over to electric and never looked back. Actually, the only time I look back is when I remind myself that I am going to junk punch that rep if I ever meet him.