Legislation to Promote Natural Gas Vehicles
As I’m making my daily rounds on the web, there are few subjects that come across my news feed more often than natural gas vehicles (NGV). The messages about the positive benefits surrounding NGV’s are abundant. In fact, those benefits are so positive that a bill, H.R. 1622, written by Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK), passed last week by an overwhelming 393-35 vote.
H.R. 1622 authorizes the Department of Energy to spend $30 million annually for a five-year period on research and development for natural gas vehicles.
Some highlights from our press release on H.R. 1622 and the benefits of NGV’s include:
- Natural gas vehicles reduce carbon monoxide emissions by 70 percent and nitrogen oxide by nearly 90 percent when compared to most gasoline-powered vehicles.
- Natural gas is available in extremely large quantities in the United States, with 100 years of supply of natural gas available today and new technologies coming online that have the power to unearth enough gas to supply the country for much longer. Video from the Potential Gas Committee press event here.
- Natural gas costs one-third less than conventional gasoline at the pump.
You can read the full release about the legislation promoting natural gas vehicles here. You can also visit our friends at Natural Gas Vehicles for America.
If you have an NGV, feel free to leave a comment below on your experience.
Other posts that might interest you:
- AT&T to purchase 8,000 Compressed Natural Gas vehicles
- Mercedes-Benz looking at compressed natural gas vehicle for U.S.
- Will low natural gas prices lead to natural-gas fired plants
Comments
6 Comments on Legislation to Promote Natural Gas Vehicles
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Jim Hayhurst - President at GPS, Inc. on
Fri, 7th Aug 2009 11:40 am
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HID Kit on
Mon, 30th Nov 2009 12:50 am
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Silviu on
Thu, 3rd Dec 2009 12:14 am
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Jeff Greene on
Sat, 5th Dec 2009 8:49 am
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Jim Hayhurst - President at GPS, Inc. on
Sun, 6th Dec 2009 11:23 am
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anthony aantjes on
Sat, 26th Dec 2009 9:15 am
Dan,
I’m a 26 year veteran of the natural gas industry in Florida. My company is currently engaged in pursuing “Green Energy” initiatives with (CNG) fleet vehicle conversion as one of our many objectives. I do realize that the natural gas customer base in Florida is minimal compared to many other states however, I still struggle to understand why the local natural gas utilities fail to see the opportunity to grow through-put by spending capital funds in this area of the industry. I field several calls a month from people asking where they might be able to fill a CNG vehicle if they decide to purchase one. It pains me to inform them that their just isn’t a public fill station available in Central Florida. I’m excited that H.R. 1622 has passed, but I’m not convinced it will help us much in Florida.
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Nice comment.I read and enjoyed.
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Logically, if natural gas will become so popular, wouldn’t other energy sources like gasoline suffer? If I was to be a millionaire in oil stocks was I interested to promote something cheaper and more efficient like natural gas?
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Would energy sources like gasoline suffer? Seriously. We import over 60% of the oil necessary to refine gasoline and diesel. We have been a net importer of oil for over 35 years if not longer. If you are a millionaire from oil company stock, diversify into the natural gas utilities and/or alternative fuel companies. If we can decrease our consumption of oil by diversifying to electric, CNG, propane, biofuels or any other technology that comes along we can create a sustainable fuel balance that is not as volatile as oil and domestic. We are spending $26 BILLION per month on imported oil. If we diversify to American supply, that is $15-20 Billion of revenue to American companies and a multiplier of that added to the tax base. Not to mention the environmental benefits, the national security benefits and the jobs benefits.
China and India will continue to feed your oil stocks so fear not that they will go away because the United States wakes up. If you do any research you will see that the refineries are being closed down in the United States and built in China. The oil companies see what is happening and have adjusted or will adjust their business models accordingly.
This country has been a capitalistic country since 1776 and with the value proposition that natural gas poses, we are optimistic that this time we will see traction that we have not been able to maintain over the last 40 years. What has changed? Simple, the internet allows more consumer awareness and technology has improved. The only thing that could derail the alternative fuel movement is a complete abandonment by Washington, which does not appear to be the case or a drop in the price of oil back below $50 per barrel which seems remote by even the most conservative geologist and economist.
More likely we will continue to see a $75-80 trading range, which ironically enough is EXACTLY what OPEC indicated it wanted and $2.75-$3 gasoline prices. The next challenge is bringing down the infrastructure and conversion costs to make the $1.00-$1.50 per gallon savings cost justify the switch. We can do that two ways, government assistance to get the infrastructure built and volume to get the component prices down.
This is not rocket science. We have been preaching diversification for years in our stock portfolios, in our diet, why are we stuck on a single motor fuel.
I could go on but I think I have expressed my opinion sufficiently, let me know if you need more documentation to validate my claims.
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No, I suspect you wouldn’t be. However, this isn’t about you, or others like you. It’s about what’s good for our nation, and how to distance ourselves from our dependency of foreign oil. Gasoline and Diesel will always be here. We’re talking about growing the consumption of CNG from less than 5% currently, to less than 15% over the next 20 years. That’s not going to hurt your business model or your pocket. It will take at least that long for the natural gas utilities to install the infrastructure needed to satisfy such a demand.
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i was looking into buying six new work trucks for my company, with having a good gas well on my farm i was wandering if there were any goverment grants to help me with this perchase to convert these new trucks to nateral gas powered
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