<DrumBeat: June 7, 2006 The Oil Drum Greenspan on Oil Dependence>

126 comments on Rhode Island's Smart Choice

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Leanan on June 7, 2006 - 10:27am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
I drive a CNG vehicle occasionally, at work.  (My employer has a fleet of them.  For environmental reasons.  It was that, or force the employees to carpool, and CNG vehicles were seen as the lesser of two evils.) We also have some electric cars, and one hydrogen vehicle.

The CNG vehicles drive pretty much like normal cars.  The drawback is limited range.  Maybe 150 miles, which means 75 mile radius, assuming a round trip.  That's enough for many trips, but not for all.  Wouldn't be too much of a pain, except it's not easy to find places to refuel.  

And the range is seriously impacted by load.  Much more so than with gasoline-powered vehicles.  If you've got more than one person in the car, have heavy equipment in the trunk, or run the air conditioner, the range drops sharply.  Takes some getting used to.  

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Valuethinker on June 7, 2006 - 11:30am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Leanan

Good info. Thank you.

Electric vehicles were deemed 'impossible': now the streets of London are full of them (built in Bangalore, retail for £8000 each).  

And the roads are full of Toyota and Honda hybrids which are electric vehicles (at urban speeds).

In the early days of automobiles, the steamer car looked like a real competitor.  To kill them off, the internal combustion engine makers had to pull some very dirty tricks (commissioning articles about car boilers exploding), the Stanley brothers were very uncommercial, and there was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease one summer (closing all the cattle and horse troughs, so no water to refill).  A steamer would probably run CNG much more efficiently than an ICE car?

The key was all these alternatives were to some extent 'purpose built'.

Whereas CNG vehicles are simply converted ICE vehicles.

I wonder if by actually building from the ground up a CNG vehicle, we could get much improved performance and range?

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fleam on June 7, 2006 - 6:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Heck I drive one of those cute toyota hybrids but I'm under no illusion that the only sustainable way to get around is my own two feet, animal power, or mayyyyyyyyyyyybe a bicycle.
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126 comments on Rhode Island's Smart Choice

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