CNG:
Drawbacks to CNG vehicles include the availability of fueling stations. The natural gas filling stations that are available in the U.S. tend to be concentrated in areas where commercial fleets of CNG vehicles exist; buses and trucks are the biggest market for CNG today.Electric:
Additionally, CNG cars also have less power than gasoline-fueled cars, said Rinek, who road tested a 2012 Honda Civic CNG vehicle earlier this year and was underwhelmed by its performance. After-market enhancements to boost power on CNG cars are costly, and a fact with which most drivers will have to learn to live.
However, the limited driving range of electric powered cars – with drivers lucky to get 100 miles between stops at charging stations -- has been a deterrent to their widespread adoption in the U.S. market. As a result, EVs ended up being relegated to a second or third urban vehicle used for short trips, Rinek commented.
The limited range of electric vehicles and the lengthy time required to recharge an electric car's batteries are two big Achilles heels for EV vehicles, said Michael Gorton, an engineer, physicist, lawyer and power systems engineer who writes and speaks on topics related to energy, alternative vehicles and solar power finance.
My hunch, in the United States in 2030: we will see three markets. The vast majority of miles driven in the US will be on CNG. Commercial trucking will make up the bulk of CNG miles driven cross country along CNG corridors. Yuppies, millennials, and post-millennials packing the urban centers will routinely drive CNG mid-size and compacts, with rare special trips (vacations?) in conventional or hybrids. This doesn't mean the vast majority of private automobiles will be CNG, but 75% of miles logged in this country will be on CNG.
Electric vehicles, hybrids, and conventional (gasoline/diesel) will share the rest of the market space, perhaps 30 percent. The conventional will predominate in fly-over country, whereas EVs and hybrids will outpace the conventional on the east and west coasts.
Use CNG to directly power your vehicle.... or... burn natural gas to heat water to create steam to spin a turbine to create electricity which is transferred through the grid and eventually ends up stored in the EV batteries.
ReplyDeleteHmmm.
In a way I view the fueling stations and infrastructure problem with CNG close to the problem with having large wind farms in the middle of nowhere with no population and no transmission lines. LNG, while more expensive and a little more dangerous than CNG, at least eases some of the fueling station problems. We're already set up to handle liquids at stations, minus the cooling and a storage of LNG.
EV or CNG or LNG. Either way the energy industry wins right? Unless, somehow, wind and solar technology make a huge jump in the next decade. Even if it does, it's going to take awhile for that industry to improve on the <3% of the electricity it puts into the grid. The nuclear power plants could handle an extra 3% that by just pushing a lever forward.
There will be very small niches for solar and wind, but neither will amount to much in the big scheme of things. Between the two, solar has even less promise than wind.
DeleteThe math consistently shows there is not enough real estate for either, and the cost of either will never be able to compete with natural gas or coal.
Why not just make the Volt one big solar panel, with a wind generator mounted on the roof and your good to go. Charge while you drive . I'm betting as long as Obama is in office I can get a 2 million dollar grant to see if it would work.
DeleteEspecially if there was an implied agreement that some of that $2 million would go back into the campaign.
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