Natural gas is an excellent alternative fuel because it is available in the U.S., has a well-established distribution network, is cheap, and doesn’t cause pollution. Conventional natural gas must be compressed (CNG) and Renewable natural gas (RNG) or liquefied (LNG) before they can be used in cars and trucks. It’s the same with natural gas as with any other fuel. There are some specialties to consider before using natural gas.
Contents
Energy Safety
There were more petroleum exports in 2020 than imports for the first time. However, there were still 7.86 million barrels of petroleum coming into the U.S. every day to balance domestic and international markets. As a whole, transportation uses about 30% of the total energy used in the United States. It also consumes 70% of the petroleum used in the United States. Using natural gas and further alternative fuels and cutting down on how much energy we use is still good for the country and for businesses and people who use transportation.
Performance of the Vehicle
Natural gas vehicles (NGVs) have the same power, acceleration, and speed as gasoline or diesel vehicles. NGVs usually have a shorter range than cars that run on gasoline or diesel because less energy can be stored in the same size tank as natural gas. Extra natural gas tanks or the use of LNG can help larger cars go further.
Dual-fuel, compression-ignited engines in heavy-duty vehicles are a little more fuel-efficient than spark-ignited engines that only use natural gas. This complicates the system because it needs to store fuel and work with diesel after-treatment devices, which adds complexity.
Emissions Reductions
All new cars have effective emission control systems and must meet the same standards, no matter what kind of fuel they run on. On the other hand, natural gas vehicles have tailpipe emissions that are about the same as gasoline and diesel vehicles when they have modern pollution controls.
The Greenhouse Gases, Controlled Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation (GREET) model says that minor to moderate GHG emissions reductions can be achieved by light-duty vehicles running on conventional natural gas. This reduces life cycle greenhouse gas emissions by 15%. (reductions are more substantial for cars running on RNG). In addition, because CNG fuel systems are completely sealed, there are no evaporative emissions from the vehicles.
Natural gas that is made using renewable methods has more benefits. Renewable natural gas (RNG) is biogas, the gaseous product of the decomposition of organic matter cleaned up. Capturing biogas from landfills and livestock operations reduces emissions by stopping methane from being released into the air. When it comes to making the Earth warmer, methane has a lot more power than carbon dioxide does. Also, making biogas through anaerobic digestion reduces odors and makes nutrient-rich liquid fertilizer.
Infrastructure and the availability of vehicles
There are a lot of new, heavy-duty natural gas vehicles that can be bought from U.S. original equipment manufacturers. The search for alternative fuel and advanced vehicles can help you find out if there are any available. Fleets and people can also use qualified system retrofitters to make their old gasoline or diesel cars run on natural gas.
Qualified system retrofitters can make many vehicles run on natural gas more cheaply, safely, and reliably. If you want to convert your car or truck to run on natural gas, you need to make sure that it meets the rules and standards set up by the Environmental Protection Agency and other government agencies. These rules and bars include the NFPA 52 Vehicular Natural Gas Fuel Systems Code, used by the NFPA 52 Vehicular Natural Gas Fuel Systems Code.
Even though the United States has a lot of infrastructure in place for distributing natural gas, there isn’t a lot of infrastructure for refueling vehicles. This is why many fleets choose to build their natural gas fueling infrastructure, which can be expensive or work with other fleets to set up a shared infrastructure. People who work together on infrastructure have a lot of advantages, like a shorter payback period and faster throughput, which often means lower fuel costs.
Natural gas’s benefits
- There is a lot of natural gas. If people kept using energy the way they do now, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says there would be enough resources to last about 230 years.
- It can be used in many ways. Gas-fired power plants start and stop much faster than coal-fired plants. Because it can be used at any time, it is a good partner for renewable energy sources like solar and wind, which only work when the sun comes out, and the wind blows.
- Gas is the cleanest-burning hydrocarbon. When it is burned to make electricity, it produces only half the CO2 and one-tenth of coal’s air pollutants. There is a lot of space to cut CO2 emissions and air pollution shortly by using gas instead of coal.
- Gas is now so easy to get through LNG that it can help countries deal with short-term gas shortages. Behind Fukushima, Japan shut down its nuclear reactors and operated LNG to make up for a lot of the electricity it didn’t get from nuclear power.
- Sometimes, it is cheaper to make gas than coal. In comparison, the most efficient gas-fired plant has investment costs of $1,100 per kilowatt, while the most efficient coal-fired plant has investment costs of $3,700 per kilowatt, says the IEA.
- When the long-term costs of climate change and air pollution, both for people and the environment, are taken into account, gas-fired power is again more competitive.
- Gas is also being used for more and more things, like using LNG instead of diesel and heavy fuel oil for transportation.
