Pickens reportedly spent $60 million on his campaign to promote natural gas for transportation.
Here’s my two cents worth.
Any analysis of using natural gas for transportation should begin by examining each natural gas vehicle market segment.
The market can be segmented as follows:
|
TABLE I |
||
|
Type |
Fuel |
Fueling Distribution |
| Heavy-duty, long distance trucks (18 wheelers) | LNG | Wide geographic |
| Heavy-duty fleet trucks serving limited geographic area | LNG | Centralized, or Limited geographic |
| Medium-duty fleet trucks | LNG or CNG | Centralized |
| Transit buses | CNG | Centralized |
| School buses | CNG | Centralized |
| Light vehicles | CNG | Wide geographic |
With current status:
|
TABLE II |
|||
|
Type |
Number Vehicles 2009 |
Fuel Used 2009 |
Incremental or Conversion Cost for Natural Gas |
| Heavy-duty long distance trucks (18 wheelers) | 3.8 million | 1.25 mb/d | $70,000 |
| Heavy-duty fleet trucks (See note) | 1.0 million (See note) | 0.38 mb/d | $70,000 |
| Medium-duty fleet trucks | 3.9 million | 0.4 mb/d | $32,000 |
| Transit buses | 0.07 million | 0.04 mb/d | $50,000 |
| School buses | 0.7 million | 0.6 mb/d | $32,000 |
| Light vehicles | 237 million | 8.2 mb/d | $6,000 |
| Note: Estimate 20% of 4.8 million 18 wheelers and 20% of 1.63 mb/d fuel usedSources: Energy Information Administration and National Renewable Energy Laboratory | |||
And:
|
TABLE III |
|
|
Type fueling station |
Number Existing in United States |
| LNG for long distance trucks (18 wheelers) | 0 |
| LNG for fleets | 40 |
| CNG for fleets only | 50 |
| CNG available to public | 820 |
| Gasoline | 116,000 |
Cost information for building fueling stations is also the most difficult to obtain. Here is the best I have been able to determine.
|
TABLE IV |
|
|
Type fueling station |
Cost |
| LNG (50,000 DGE per month or approx. 10 trucks per day) | $2 million each station |
| LNG (150,000 DGE per month or approx. 20 trucks per day) | $4 million each station |
| LNG (300,000 DGE per month or approx. 40 trucks per day) | $6 million each station |
| CNG (Low volume. 25,000 GGE) | $1 million each station |
| CNG (Moderate volume. 50,000 GGE) | $2 million each station |
| DGE = Diesel Gallons equivalentGGE = Gasoline Gallon EquivalentFor LNG stations, assume truck tank size is 200 gallons of DGE | |
Costs must be compared with market segmentation. At first reading, the largest segment is light vehicles, but costs, in the form of fueling stations, becomes enormous.
The cost of providing 70,000 CNG fueling stations, or approximately 60% of existing gasoline stations, would be approximately $139,000,000,000 ($139 billion).
The cost of LNG fueling stations for 4,000 truck stops would be $16,000,000,000 ($16 billion) for modestly sized stations.
Finally, there is the question of vehicle availability.
Heavy-duty and medium-duty trucks can be built and retrofitted in the United States.
With respect to light vehicles, there is only one CNG vehicle available in the United States today, the Honda Civic GS. However, most other automobile manufacturers build natural gas vehicles in foreign countries, and it would be relatively easy for them to build these vehicles here.
There is another drawback to light vehicles powered by natural gas, and it is range. The Civic GS has a range of 225 miles. Natural gas has less energy content than gasoline, and would require a gas tank about four times as large as a standard gasoline tank. Accommodating the size limitation results in less range.
With this information as background, let’s look at some alternatives in Part II.
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