Tune in to American Chopper on TLC, Thursday, June 25, at 9/8c to watch the crew from OCC build the world’s first natural gas-powered chopper. Built to show America the promise of natural gas as a clean energy resource, and in conjunction with Chesapeake Energy’s 20th anniversary, the talented crew from the hit TV show American Chopper partnered with the company to build a natural gas-powered bike. The episode covers the bike’s production process as Paul Sr. and crew visit a drilling rig and learn how natural gas can power everything form a semitruck to a custom chopper.
See the bike in person. Follow the journey of the OCC natural gas chopper on Facebook and Twitter. It may be visiting your area soon.

Full disclosure. I’m not a bike person. The last time I was on any type of bike, it was a bike-cycle years ago when I was teaching my sons how to ride. Luckily, we found an area with no witnesses and they both turned into excellent bicyclists in spite of my instruction.

Still, it’s great to see natural gas used in this sort of way. We all know the benefits of natural gas as a transportation fuel but some believe the benefits should be directed toward larger fleets. While others make the argument that the benefits can be seen across all vehicles (and I guess that now includes choppers). Check out the Natural Gas Vehicles for America web site for lots more information on the subject.

Here’s another photo of the chopper.

I’m going to put in a call to Chesapeake to see if i can get some more information on the bike before the show airs. Bruce Kauffmann and Chris McGill, contributors to this blog, are both big motorcycle guys and immediately began pelting me with questions, including how much range would a bike running on CNG have. Motorcycles, because of their smaller gas tanks, obviously don’t have the same range as cars. That challenge would be magnified in a CNG chopper.

Chris actually took four weeks last summer and traveled 5,000+ miles on his bike visiting member companies and the media talking about natural gas. We did a story in the November issue of American Gas Magazine that’s a great read. Here’s a link to the pdf of Chris’s trip. It’s a decent size file so it might take a moment to download.

If you have any questions on the bike, leave them in the comments below and I’ll see what I can get out of the guy from Chesapeake when I speak with him.

However, I found this one at leftlanenews.com the other day. Seems Mercedes was showing a compressed natural gas version of its B-Class small car at the recent Washington Auto Show. I didn’t get a chance to get down and see the vehicle. Did anyone else get a chance to see it?

The article goes on to say that Mercedes is strongly considering offering the technology in a U.S.-spec production vehicle and quotes Automotive News as its source.

We talk quite a bit around the office about the benefits of natural gas as opposed to other fuels. Here’s a good article on aftermarketcng.com examining some of the environmental benefits of natural gas as opposed to gasoline. Some of the highlights include:

• Ozone—Reduced tailpipe emission of ozone precursors (NOx and NMHC) On a g/mile basis, average reductions in NOx of 66 percent and 85 percent for NMHC emissions.
• Carbon monoxide—In normal driving conditions, at least 50 percent reduction in CO emissions and potential for 80-95 percent reductions under conditions like cold temperatures and acceleration.
• Sulfur Dioxide—Reductions of 90 percent or greater in SO2 emissions.
• Other gasses associated with global warming—At least 20 percent reduction in tailpipe emissions of global warming gases.
• Air Toxins—Reductions in air toxic emissions of over 85 percent. Elimination of 1,3 butadiene emissions.

The Blue Flame set the land speed record of 630.478 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah on October 28, 1970. The driver was Gary Gabelich and the record lasted for 13 years until it was broken by Thrust 2. The current record is more than 760 mph and held by Thrust SSC. The engine permitted natural gas use as a liquid or gas or both with a two-stage combustion start. Pretty impressive stuff.

During my brief time at AGA, I’ve noticed a ton of stories about natural gas cars and their benefits. UPS started using natural gas powered trucks as far back as 1989 and was using more than 1000 vehicles at its peak. I just saw this story about Wal-Mart experimented with different alternative fuel trucks for its fleet including natural gas.

Here are a bunch of links to other sites about natural gas vehicles.

• The Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition
• The International Association for Natural Gas Vehicles
• Alternative Fuels & Advanced Vehicles Data Center (from the U.S. Department of Energy).

And if you have a car that runs on natural gas, I’d love to hear about it. Pics are great, especially if you’ve done some customization.