"CNG is the way to go, its a no brainer"

Can you explain this further?

The bulk of the remaining reserves of natural gas in the world are in areas that conceivably could be hooked into a pipeline system that could supply Europe (and the UK, aren't you building a natural gas pipelind under the sea to the mainland?).

Natural gas isn't going to last forever though, and there are a LOT of competing uses for natural gas.

My thinking is that it is exactly not the way to go, and even if natural gas is available to the UK at a cheaper price (debateable I think) for a decade or so, it isn't worth the trouble, since the existing car fleet is built for diesel and gasoline.

What am I missing here?

All cars, buses, trucks can run merrily on natural gas, no technical issues at all. New Delhi switched 115,000 taxis and buses to CNG in the space of 5 years between 2000 and 2005 and the air quality transformation is amazing. Germany is building 1000 CNG filling stations and most car major car makers now make CNG cars.

In 20 years time, Iran will have clean, almost free energy for transportation.....US may be on fuel cells but the hydrogen will be made, you guessed it, from Middle East oil and gas!

Middle East countries are using a fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars of extra income they are gaining from >$60/bbl oil to fund the development of fuel cells to maintain the US dependence on the fossil fuels found within 500 miles of Mecca!

The key thing is energy eficiency. Wasting valuable natural gas to make electricity to make hydrogen to run a vehicle is manifest nonsense when you can just burn natural gas in the vehicle. The planet must eek out what energy it has. Hydrogen as a vehicle fuel should be illegal. All renewable electricity should be used to save and reduce fossil fuel consumption.

Natural gas is abundant (Peak NG probably 20 years after PO), but lets stop using it to make electricity (other than CHP), lets use it for transportation which is its best application.

Don't forget bio-gas too which is still being made!!


More discussion on this at:
http://peakoil.com/fortopic6948.html

Do CNG vehicles emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere?

CH4 + 202 -> C02 + 2H2O

Yes.

Yes, but about 25% less than petrol ones.

The new CNG Zafira launched this week at Frankfurt Motor Show wil be less than 140 g/km - the lowest CO2 production car in the world.

If you add a hybrid bit (as per Prius) then it will be by far the lowest well to wheel CO2. Hydrogen is very high as it needs natural gas to make it.

Yes, Gordon's plan is

1. To try and alleviate frustrations by saying something about oil prices, whilst not reducing the tax.
2. To take part in the New Labour/Fabianist spin campaign to show that he might make an excellent Prime Minister. What leadership he has.

As usual however, these promises will be empty. And in any case, you seriously believe that OPEC's books aren't cooked?

Mark

Take a look at the new General Motors Zafira that is launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show this week.

Given the problems with diesel supply, this comes at a great time.

http://www.ngvglobal.com/index.php?opti ... =2&lang=en