Billionaire energy investor T. Boone Pickens says that he fills up his Honda Civic for under $15 bucks using domestic fuel that we all could be using today. Should we listen, or is it all a bunch of hot air?
Increased reliance on natural gas has the potential to deliver a range of benefits, but comes with a whole other set of environmental impacts. Extraction processes need to be carefully regulated, and those regulations rigorously enforced. This will add to the cost of the resource, but will avoid externalities like groundwater pollution[1] and atmospheric methane releases, which has a greenhouse effect more than 20x greater than that of CO2[3]. Still, converting our vehicle fleet, and particularly our trucking fleet, to natural gas as Pickens suggests would be an important step in America's energy renaissance. The Rocky Mountain Institute's "Reinventing Fire" plan spells out many other important aspects of this badly needed transition.[4] Bottom line is, our country is in desperate need of a real comprehensive energy policy, and not one designed by fossil fuel billionaires like Pickens.
Almost every regional trucking outfit should be converting to CNG. If you aren't doing long hauls away from CNG stations then you have no excuse and you're losing tons of money, or soon will be. Simply announcing these initiatives will scare lots of long speculators out of the oil markets and we will see all fuel prices come back down. I converted my car to CNG for about $2,000 and learned how at www.skycng.com.
It's a great thought, but as has already been pointed out there are definately issues. In the UK, we would be able to fill our cars for a similar amount IF our government didn't tax us to a point of despair. Oil based fuels are currently taxed and gas isn't. Generating a more widespread use will have the inevitable environmental impact of increased harvesting and usage of this resource, although it is cleaner than most alternatives. But also when it becomes the norm, it will become the subject of the same level of taxation, meaning the cost will be on par with current fuels
Increased reliance on natural gas has the potential to deliver a range of benefits, but comes with a whole other set of environmental impacts. Extraction processes need to be carefully regulated, and those regulations rigorously enforced. This will add to the cost of the resource, but will avoid externalities like groundwater pollution[1] and atmospheric methane releases, which has a greenhouse effect more than 20x greater than that of CO2[3]. Still, converting our vehicle fleet, and particularly our trucking fleet, to natural gas as Pickens suggests would be an important step in America's energy renaissance. The Rocky Mountain Institute's "Reinventing Fire" plan spells out many other important aspects of this badly needed transition.[4] Bottom line is, our country is in desperate need of a real comprehensive energy policy, and not one designed by fossil fuel billionaires like Pickens.
ReplyDelete[1]http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/hydrofracking/methane-levels-17-times-higher-in-water-wells-near-hydrofracking-sites
[2]http://www.sustainablefuture.cornell.edu/news/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf
[3]http://www.epa.gov/methane/
[4]http://rmi.org/rftransportationexecutivesummary
Almost every regional trucking outfit should be converting to CNG. If you aren't doing long hauls away from CNG stations then you have no excuse and you're losing tons of money, or soon will be. Simply announcing these initiatives will scare lots of long speculators out of the oil markets and we will see all fuel prices come back down. I converted my car to CNG for about $2,000 and learned how at www.skycng.com.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a bunch of hot, toxic water! http://www.dangersoffracking.com/
ReplyDeleteMaybe we'll have lots of awesome natural gas resources, but at what costs to the world's water supplies?
A fossil fuel is a fossil fuel is a fossil fuel is a fossil fuel...
Natural gas has been very famous to be use in most of our cars. In this way, we can help our earth to gain more resources.
ReplyDeleteIt's a great thought, but as has already been pointed out there are definately issues. In the UK, we would be able to fill our cars for a similar amount IF our government didn't tax us to a point of despair. Oil based fuels are currently taxed and gas isn't. Generating a more widespread use will have the inevitable environmental impact of increased harvesting and usage of this resource, although it is cleaner than most alternatives. But also when it becomes the norm, it will become the subject of the same level of taxation, meaning the cost will be on par with current fuels
ReplyDeleteValid point and solid insight. We here at The Revolting Blog always appreciate the contributions of our friends from across the pond.
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