Hi all, I have a few questions about CNG fuel that I often am asked, thanks to the vocal anti-diesel lobby in the US, and to the many who oppose commercial biodiesel use because it offers a direct competition to compressed natural conversion for fleets.
We get a lot of comments about the cost of commercial biodiesel being a major problem in public and in municipal/fleet acceptance of this fuel. I'd like to find some facts on how the cost compares to CNG for fleet usage. I used to drive a propane-powered vehicle- and it got atrocious fuel economy compared to gasoline (it was a gas-to-propane conversion). the cost of the fuel also varied wildly compared to gasoline- but in general the cost of operating the vehicle was high compared to operating the same vehicle unmodified (gasoline), and that's not even including the cost of the propane conversion kit. It of course had cleaner emissions which is why we drove it instead of a gasoline one. I know it is true of propane conversions in general that you suffer a significant loss of fuel economy over gasoline. There are I believe CNG conversions available for both diesel and gasoline engines. Does anyone know about how the operating cost of CNG, and the cost of a heavy truck (or bus) conversion, compare with the $2.30 (?) a gallon that biodiesel costs small fleets in California? What I am interested in is fuel economy statistics for diesel-to-CNG conversions, the cost of the CNG itself, and any guesses (or Google-ings) on the cost of converting a heavy fleet vehicle to CNG, whether with a kit or a specifically-designed CNG engine. If it looks anything like my propane truck's economics, it seems that much of the argument about cost being a prohibitive factor for fleets such as the Oakland public schools/municipal vehicles/san francisco bus fleet isn't so much of an argument after all- it's either biodiesel in existing vehicles at a certain number of cents per mile, or CNG- at the cost of converting the fleet and then ???how much??per mile. Of course it might not be the case if CNG is cheap and the fuel economy is not affected similarly to propane conversions. it is also the case that fuel economy decreases with biodiesel in some instances- I have documented NO decrease in fuel economy in a Datsun truck (34 mpg on either fuel with very strict checking) but the Ecology Center curbside recycling truck fleet has documented a 17% loss sincemaking the switch. thanks in advance, mark ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Get a FREE REFINANCE QUOTE - click here! http://us.click.yahoo.com/2CXtTB/ca0FAA/i5gGAA/9bTolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
