The Cleanest Cars on Earth?: Honda Civic GX and Other Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs)
But What About Natural Gas Supply?
Natural gas supplies 20% of all energy use in the US. According to NGVA: “Even if the number of NGVs were to increase 100-fold in the next ten years to 11,000,000 or roughly 5% of the entire vehicle market (a formidable goal), the impact on natural gas supplies and the natural gas delivery infrastructure would be small — equating to about 4 percent of total U.S. natural gas consumption.”
At first glance, that sounds pretty good, but any increase in natural gas usage means importing more fuel.
Taking a look at data from the Energy Information Administration, the US uses about 21.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas per year, most of which is produced domestically (18.5 trillion cubic feet) with the difference being imported (4.2 trillion cubic feet). Proved natural gas reserves in the US amount to about 211 trillion cubic feet. If my math is correct, without taking into account any increase in demand, the US only has about 11.5 years of natural gas left. After that, we’re back to square one: importing oil from Russia, Qatar, Iran, and Saudi Arabia
Like petroleum, two-thirds of world natural gas supply exists in just a few countries. If we’re at all worried about having domestic (let alone renewable) energy sources, basing the future of US transportation on natural gas puts us right back in the same position we’re in now.
Also like petroleum, there is an “infinite supply” argument: “Don’t worry, we won’t run out… promise.” NGVA says that if we can tap into methane hydrate ice formations that exist under 1000 feet of water at the bottom of the arctic oceans, we’ll be just fine. Right now, this is about as plausible as time travel, and methane hydrates serve a very important function—they’re a crucial sink for carbon dioxide in the global carbon cycle.
Conclusions
Whether or not we’ve learned our lesson about importing foreign energy, natural gas could still provide a functional infrastructure and technology for transition to hydrogen fuel cells. Natural gas is currently the number one feedstock for producing hydrogen, and refueling stations along California’s hydrogen highway may produce the fuel by reforming natural gas on-site. Basically, this gives us a transition fuel until we figure out how to make hydrogen sustainably.
As for the Honda Civic GX, it may be the cleanest-burning vehicle on the market, but the drawbacks listed above are likely to keep NGVs out of mainstream production for the forseeable future. It seems unlikely that natural gas will stay as cheap as it currently is in Utah, but relatively low pricing could keep the car’s popularity high in some areas. It will be interesting to see how things resolve there.
For more on the Honda Civic GX, see Honda’s Website and Consumer Reports. See more pictures below.
For more on Natural Gas, see Natural Gas Cars: CNG Fuel Almost Free in Some Parts of the Country.
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Photo Credit: Honda
Rubbish. Hydrogen is far cleaner because it has *zero* harmful emissions, only water vapor.
What about the danger of natural gas? Isn’t it extremely explosive? How does that work out?
Joe: Hydrogen is only clean if produced via clean power. Right now, it’s not so clean. Same problem here: natural gas is a fossil fuel, but can also be produced by breakdown of plant material. So it just depends where you get it.
Wayne: Most of the sources say that because natural gas doesn’t pool as a liquid, but instead immediately evaporates, that it’s less likely to ignite.
The NGVA says:
“The fuel storage cylinders used in NGVs are much stronger than gasoline fuel tanks. The design of NGV cylinders are subjected to a number of federally required ” severe abuse” tests, such as heat and pressure extremes, gunfire, collisions and fires.”
http://www.naturalgas.org/business/analysis.asp
Estimates of Available Natural Gas supplies in the United States range from 1,127 - 1,451 Trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas.
Just like any problem we need to attack fuel usage from many angles. The government should throw down the hammer and make tighter restrictions on the type of cars you are allowed to drive. You can still buy any car you want but you will just have to pay extra tax to buy a large car when you don’t need to be driving one. All of these 20mpg cars are just a total waste. We could reduce usage by 50% right off the bat by selling cars that get 40mpg.
The use of the term “explosion” seems to be a poor choice here:
“Drawbacks to the Civic GX and other Compressed Natural Gas Vehicles
Earlier this week I was clued-in to the explosion of compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles in Southern Utah…”
I thought they were literally exploding until I clicked the link.
Know the difference between ‘proven reserves’ and ‘proved reserves’. Proved reserves have increased yearly within the US. As stated by Strawgate, ‘Estimates of Available Natural Gas supplies in the United States range from 1,127 - 1,451 Trillion Cubic Feet of Natural Gas.’
Natural gas will come a time it will be expensive and the criss will be the same as oil now. Both hydrogen and methane are highly explosive. Hydrogen is more environmental friendly though is explosive but we need that explosive part of it to make our car run. On my guess compress air, water and electricity can work the magic for our transport.
@2 Steve: Point well taken. I had a good laugh when I saw that, and it has been changed to “explosion in popularity”. Thanks for the comment.
All car companies seem to be looking for a single option replacement to the long running fossil fuels vehicles we are all used to. With the available technologies many seem like good solutions for specific niches. As for the natural gas car why are they not looking at extending the functionality by making a natural gas hybrid. If the natural gas engine were used as the charging center for the electric vehicle its lower horsepower output would not be as much of an issue. Added driving range or smaller fuel storage tanks should also be a side result. Who is doing this type of vehicle?