Ayoob wrote:On a more personal note, I'm getting ready to install a vehicle CNG pump at my house, and install CNG fuel tanks in my vehicles. I'm hoping to get it all done by the end of the summer. The pump is $4K and allows me to pump nat gas into the compression tanks at the rate of about a gallon an hour. Overnight my ten gallon tank would fill up completely, and my wife's vehicle can fill up during the day.
The calculators tell me I'm looking at a 4.5 year break even vs 3.75 gasoline, I think that's about right. The convenience of fuelling up at home every night is also nice. The cars will still have full gas tanks but I'll probably fill them up with no-ethanol 91 octane race gas so even if it sits for a couple months there's nothing to clog up the fuel system.
Nat gas will probably be around longer than liquid gasoline, or will be viable longer, however you want to look at it. Apartment renters are going to be kind of fucked though, it will be tough to find a way to fuel them up.
Interesting thoughts.
First, re keeping 91 octane no ethanol race gas, I suspect that will be rather expensive.
Another approach which should be cheaper and viable, would be to use a fuel stabilizer. Based on my experience with finicky lawn mowers and cars that mostly sit --
During the worst of the pandemic (thus far anyway), I was hardly driving at ALL, and was concerned about fuel deterioration. But even when I just had, say, a half of a tank of normal 87 octane Shell brand gas with ethanol, my '17 Camry showed NO issues with starting or running at all after several months, with the ethanol in the gas tank sucking up whatever moisture might get to it. This was with me driving literally 100 miles a month at most, buying food on occasion.
And that was WITHOUT any fuel stabilizer. I think you could use normal gas, cheap fuel stabilizer, just drive a little on occasion to stir things around and run gas through the system a bit, and you'd be good. I'm no expert -- that's based on my experience with gas and fuel stabilizers and mowers and cars.
Second, if the issue is primarily economic, it's far easier and likely more financially rewarding to just put money in high quality relevant stocks, collect the dividends, and if oil and natural gas get expensive, your stocks will generally be quite profitable.
CVX (Chevron) seems relatively cheap to me, for example, given that WTI is solidly above $70, and it pays a nice dividend.
You could even use options to improve the return. On a $96.5ish stock that pays nearly a 5.5% dividend, and the ability to sell, say, two month out of the money calls or puts for 3 or 4 percent of the price of the stock, that's a way to make some nice income over time for the patient investor. (Obviously, selling call options reduces your protection if fuel prices spike -- people pay you the premiums for a reason. OTOH, you can bank any expiring premium, and roll options a little in the money at expiration over to more expensive and/or higher priced calls. Same idea with puts if the prices go down.) Just never overdo it with any one stock, as oil is a very volatile beast over time.
Third, if the concern is that fuel might get scarce (and/or very expensive), then some form of EV seems an obvious choice. An HEV instead of a pure ICE with the Toyota hybrid system will give a LOT of the bang for the buck if gas is $4 or especially $5, over the life of a quality car. And with the fantastic HEV system warranty, at least on all new Toyota HEV's in the US, the risk is minimal.
Pure EV's or PHEV's are generally expensive for new ones, but supposedly they're going to get much cheaper in the next 3 to 5 years. We shall see, of course, but if there is a $10K or so federal tax credit, that certainly won't hurt. And then you can conveniently charge at home and have NO worries re fuel for the EV at all. The expensive batteries and battery life are clearly the risk there, though in most places you save substantially on fuel, especially if fuel prices spike. I'm not buying the idea that, for example, Tesla batteries will last DECADES until that is firmly proven in the real world, and it's documented how that happens (like charging and driving habits required).
Despite all the moaning about doom going around, it's great for consumers to have a LOT of viable choices -- if they're just willing to do some thinking and planning and saving so they have resources to utilize their choices well.