Natural gas vehicles

Sitting Bull · #1 02-14-2018, 09:47 AM

Only ones I know of are some of the Epcore vehicles.
My question is why are we not seeing more development in this area?
Seems to me electric vehicles have a fair amount of issues as far as battery life, disposal of batteries and distance that can be travelled on a charge etc...
We have lots of natural gas available, I don't think it would be to difficult to have a conversion where you could use dual fuel . And correct me if I am wrong doesn't natural gas burn quite clean?
Please share your thoughts as to pro's and cons.

.257Weatherby · #2 02-14-2018, 09:56 AM

Well, the government drove natural gas and propane as a fuel the day they applied the fuel tax to it ...
Taxed the same as gasoline
Rob

densa44 · #3 02-14-2018, 11:45 AM

It was a 1/2 ton and I got it from an Oil guy. The 6 cly. engine had been retro fitted. The oil when I changed it looked like apple juice, very clean.

The tax story is correct, it didn't have as much punch as the same engine on gasoline. I don't know why they didn't catch on.

elkhunter11 · #4 02-14-2018, 11:53 AM

Natural gas and propane both have one drawback, that being the explosion hazard that a leak can create. For that reason they should not be stored in garages or enclosed parkades. As well they are not as efficient so an engine burns more to go the same distance.

roughneckin · #5 02-14-2018, 12:20 PM

Old man had a 68 Ford that ran on propane. It had a ton of spunk and ran great. Need that long box though to fit the tanks into it. Only other issue was it was hard to find a working pump when it got below -20 as they all seemed to freeze up.

Drewski Canuck · #6 02-14-2018, 02:01 PM

When working well, the energy on Propane is about 90 % of gas.

Natural Gas a lot less.

Other problem is that NG is not a liquid, and is very hard to confine high volumes in a mobile tank, so limited range. Propane as a liquid that easily converts to gas over - 40 C has more capacity, but you still use bigger tanks than gas for the same range.

IF a tank could contain NGL, then it would not work out too bad. Just a very very heavy tank to do so.

Death of Propane was $. 80 a litre, and a very expensive conversion that required a powered positive fuel shut off. Cost about $4K. Gas was not much more at the time, and propane converted vehicles slowly disappeared. Cheapest I had bought it was $.10 a litre in Kamloops during a price war. Wanted to drive to China at that price!

Drewski

sewerrat · #7 02-14-2018, 04:58 PM

The City of Red Deer has 10 new (cng) compressed natural gas transit busses.

DisplacedCaper · #8 02-14-2018, 05:21 PM

When I left calgary transit 3 years ago we had some new ng busses on a trial run. Never had the chance to drive one though. Haven’t heard anything sense so I guess they didn’t work out.

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MOUNTAIN MICKEY · #9 02-14-2018, 07:59 PM

We used to run 103 NG busses. 3 were straight NG and the rest were NG/gasoline. For the most part they were ok but some(internationals) were under powered. Tanks are very heavy as previously stated, A NG tank is one inck thick steel and contents are under about 3600psi from what I remember. In our fleet a NG conversion took on average 3 months to pay back the conversion and a propane conversion paid for its self in one month usage as compared to gas prices at the time. I converted my RV bus to propane and once paid 2 cents/ltr in Lethbridge. Normal price was 11 cents/ltr at the time. Price wars were frequent. NG/propane conversions in cars and trucks did much better. When I started in the trade there were a lot of irrigation pump motors that ran on NG. most of those motors were 6 cyl Chrysler industrial motors. We did a lot of valve jobs every winter. Those motors were super clean inside--pink in color almost. Todays NG / propane conversions are way ahead of what I worked on. Cant imagine NG tanks are any different though. German transit buses ran on low pressure NG with humongous bags on the roof as a fuel tank (back in the day)

Dewey Cox · #10 02-14-2018, 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elkhunter11

Natural gas and propane both have one drawback, that being the explosion hazard that a leak can create. For that reason they should not be stored in garages or enclosed parkades. As well they are not as efficient so an engine burns more to go the same distance.

Are NG vehicle prohibited from underground parking?
I thought it was just propane, because it's heavier than air.
I thought NG would be fine, because it's lighter than air, but I suppose parkades get to make that decision for themselves.

Map Maker · #11 02-14-2018, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sewerrat

The City of Red Deer has 10 new (cng) compressed natural gas transit busses.

They are real nice. Quiet and they drive past and cant smell any exhaust.

Quote:

Originally Posted by elkhunter11

Natural gas and propane both have one drawback, that being the explosion hazard that a leak can create. For that reason they should not be stored in garages or enclosed parkades. As well they are not as efficient so an engine burns more to go the same distance.

Small problems. I was out at a natural gas break on a 2" pipe. Atco guy came out and was smoking nearby, i said "what about explosion hazard?"
He said he has a sensor that shows ignition concentration in the surrounding air.
Set up sensors in parkades.

Id be all for natural gas conversion.

Junglefisher · #12 02-15-2018, 07:46 AM

Natural gas takes a while to refuel. That's why busses tend to use it, they plug them in overnight while they are not in use. Propane / LPG is way more common in some other countries. Seems it would be a perfect fit with the full sized trucks here.