 | The Bullroarer - Monday 23 June 2008 | The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand | Short shrift for the Long Paddock |  |
85 comments on Australia’s Oil-Based Energy Security
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85 comments on Australia’s Oil-Based Energy Security
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Strongly agree. That is why I discuss CNG for small mini-busses and "the existing personal car fleet" but do not discuss it for long-haul trucks. The majority of oil is burned in personal vehicles, so converting them to CNG would be enough.
aeldric, I think that CNG converson is thrown around here a little too flippantly as if it is already something you can just drop the car into the shop tomorrow and just get it done. My investigations for converting a standard Commodore to CNG has shown that it is not yet avaialable off the shelf and there is a rigourous certification regime required for each engine type that is put up for conversion. This is a costly exercise and just not economic for the individual to undertake. LPG is still the only real gas option for cars.
This is correct - it is still early days for CNG. So we better get off our butts and get a bunch of cars certified. The current driver for certification for a type of car is commercial fleet owners, who decide to get a fleet of cars converted.
Mangaing a fleet of commercial vehicles is not that straight forward. Most companies large or small will have a variety of vehicles at differnt ages and differnt qulity of vehicles for differen level of employee. There would be very few comapnies that say buy 20,000 Commodores or Falcons on 1 July 2008 and then turn all of them over in three years time.
It will take GMH and Ford to produce a factory fitted CNG car which fleet owners then have an option to take up. The government will have to roll out the filling infrastructure which will be very different to the current modes of fuel delivery. It could be done but it will ahve to be pushed by government. I just don't see anyone else that could clear the obstacls from the path and or lean on people who need to change their attitude. The government itself could simply act in the market by refusing to buy anything but CNG for ordinary passenger cars and that would soon get the attention of the car companies.