The Cleanest Cars on Earth?: Honda Civic GX and Other Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs)
Clean Burning Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs) are hot commodities in some parts of the country, where fuel can sell for as low as $0.63 per gallon.
Unlike the world’s most fuel efficient car (VW’s 285 MPG bullet), the Honda Civic GX looks like a standard passenger vehicle. What makes it special is what you don’t see: tailpipe emissions that are often cleaner than ambient air.
The Civic GX is powered by compressed natural gas—methane—the simplest and cleanest-burning hydrocarbon available. With an economical 113-hp, 1.8-Liter engine, the EPA has called the Civic the “world’s cleanest internal-combustion vehicle” with 90% cleaner emissions than the average gasoline-powered car on the road in 2004.
And get this: in Utah, natural gas can be purchased for $0.63 per gallon.
- » See also: Roush Bringing Propane-Powered Mustangs To Drag Strips
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At $24,590, buying a new Civic GX won’t exactly break your bank account, especially since up to $7,000 will come back to you in the form of state and federal tax credits. But don’t expect to find one easily. The car is only sold in two states, New York and California, and Honda can’t build them fast enough. One dealership said they have over 80 people waiting to buy.
Here’s something new:
“According to EIA, worldwide demand for natural gas will increase by 52 percent from 2005 to 2030.”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/oil.html
We won’t be making any “progress” in the energy sector UNTIL we learn how to use energy without burning something, or just creating heat like so called nuclear energy does. For all the high tech components of Nuclear energy all we really do is boil water for steam to run a turbine and how high tech is that?
The world around us and the space beyond offers us a plethora of options for using its energy to do mechanical work, which is what we are really looking right now; producing heat is easy. So what is the problem we face? The answer of course is the greedy hand of Capitalism that is ever held out demanding tribute and always what is beyond reasonable. We need to start asking ourselves, our entire culture, how much is enough; especially for one person? I mean exactly how much luxury does any individual really need in their daily life? And even in business why must the goal always be more? What is wrong with attaining a reasonable level and accepting it as enough? Ponder that for a while before you answer.
it all sounds great but we have to reach into the american ego first. people love their mustangs ,f-250s,expeditions,hummers etc etc etc.not to mention the rich and famous cars like bentleys,ferraris etc etc etc .
tax the gas guslers and use the money for alternative energy sources.
Why don’t Ford, GM and Chrysler use LNG (liquid natural gas)in their vehicles. It seems to be a pretty safe alternative source of fuel that is being processed today.
seems a waste to me prices are almost the same as gas in connecticut and that was a 30day old price
as far as an explosion. the local utils have been using them for years in small office cars, ie ford escort for cng comes to mind..
I wouldnt call it an explosion. with the amount of change going on i doubt he could blow his nose…
Back in the 70’s was working as mud logger in Anadarko basin (Oklahoma) The rig was drilling at about 5 miles deep. The well hit a very high-pressure formation. http://www.ghkco.com/html/basin.htm has some info on their green #1. I also read that an over 5-mile well in Siberia also hit high-pressure gas. Technically these wells are below “bedrock” where there is no sedimentary formation source for oil/gas to be present for classical view of how a formation receives its oil/gas. In other words, this formation does not have a source of oil/gas below it that charges it with oil/gas. From what GHK is saying in the link above there is a vast amount of natural gas that isn’t being listed in the proven/proved reserves of natural gas in the U. S., I also worked a well near Weatherford Ok. that was drilled in the 30’s. It was producing at 100 PSI. They did a Frac Job on it and had 50,000-PSI coming out of the drill hole. I personally sat on the well that night and sent 1-million scf natural gas down the sales line. An hour after I left the site the well blew out because the next operator didn’t flush the mud from the separator. Separator clogged with mud, well head/80,000 PSI blowout preventors blew, parts found half a mile away. This was about 4 months before the Penn Square bank failure. Point is in Oklahoma I know of 2 vast reservoirs that aren’t being mentioned in the current discussions.
The MULTIFUEL INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE, MICE, has an approximately 30% better thermal efficiency than the present gas engines. That means that if all gas engines could be converted to MICE in say five years, the oil consumption would drop by 39%, without any other changes. Details: 708.447.1257 and ask about MICE. No obligations!
I saw the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car.” That seemed like a great alternative. Why isn’t someone pursuing that?
Why is this vehicle be avaailable in only two states? Do the other states pedal and walk to their destination?
[...] our houses, businesses, etc. and instead to use that extra natural gas as the fuel in our cars. (example) He also wants us to build more nuclear power plants, solar power plants, drill for more oil, [...]