Natural Gas Vehicles for America in Boston

August 13, 2010 by Dan Gibson · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Natural Gas, events

I don’t get out of the office nearly enough. Luckily, the format for conferences is gradually evolving as technology improves. A great example of this is the National Natural Gas Vehicle Conference-Summit hosted by Natural Gas Vehicles for America.

Nick Stavropoulos from National Grid was scheduled to give the welcome for the event but was also scheduled to do an interview with C-Span (see Chris’s post from yesterday). What to do? Well, how bout a nice video introduction from Nick that will play this morning. You can watch the embedded video below if you weren’t able to attend.

The summit, being held in Boston, started yesterday and continues through the 14th. They have a wide range of programs examining the benefits of natural gas vehicles. A sampling of the sessions includes:

Can Washington Embrace Revolution? A Candid Look at the Mood and Mayhem on Capitol Hill
Detroit’s Re-Engagement: Implications for the Light-Duty OEM Market
Striking a Balance: EPA’s Proposed Streamlining of Aftermarket Conversion/Retrofit Rules
The Communications Revolution: Should We Twitter? Do We Blog?
Capitalizing on the MDV/HDV Opportunity: Assuring OEMs’ Success and Continued Investment
Global NGV Snapshot: The Rapid Growth of NGVs Around the World
The Grass Roots Revolution: Fostering Collaboration at the Local and State Level

You can download a full conference program over at the site. If you’re at the summit, leave us a comment below on how it’s going. I’ll be checking out twitter to catch what I can.

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Tags: vehicles, video

CNGNow for all your compressed natural gas news

August 3, 2010 by Dan Gibson · 1 Comment
Filed under: Natural Gas

One of the sites I follow every day is CNGNow. They do a great job keeping up with all the news about compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles. The latest example is the story they featured from Tulsa World about Owasso accepting a $1.45 million federal stimulus grant to develop a CNG filling station. Some highlights from the article:

Money will be distributed by the state to develop a CNG fueling facility and convert as many as 50 gasoline-powered city vehicles to CNG by March 2012.
Cost of the fueling infrastructure will be $500,000, with the total cost of the conversion kits being $900,000. The design and engineering of the project is estimated at $50,000.
Grant also includes $300,000 in matching funds for the purchase of property, with the matching amount to be generated from private donations.
Conversion will cut Owasso’s fuel costs by 20 percent to 25 percent.

CNG portable fueling station
A picture of the portable fueling tank the Route 66 guys made.

CNGNow estimates that the United States operates about 1,100 of the 12,000 CNG stations in the world to power. These stations power only 150,000 of the estimated 10 million CNG vehicles worldwide. That’s only about 1.5 percent. Infrastructure is going to be paramount in developing CNG vehicles into a viable alternative to replace today’s automobiles. We can’t all construct our own portable filling stations like the guys from Route66. Let me know what you think of a CNG vehicle world in the comments below.

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Tags: vehicles

Meeting the Route 66 guys

July 16, 2010 by Dan Gibson · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Natural Gas

The other day I finally got a chance to meet the Route 66 guys in person. Well, at least one of them. Unfortunately Keith Barfield was back at his “day job” but I did get a chance to speak with Mark McConville. It was great to finally meet them after months of corresponding online and watching their progress.

Mark McConville and U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills, outside the U.S. Capitol with a Capitol Police Officer. (The Birmingham News/Mary Orndorff)

NGVsNow was hosting them at the Capitol in celebration of their completion of the trip from Santa Monica to Chicago. Their trip covered took 10 days and covered 2,460 miles. After the trip was over, NGVsNow invited them to to continue their journey to the reflecting pool in front of the Capitol. The 1966 Pontiac GTO is a beautiful car to begin with, but the fact that it has been modified to run on compressed natural gas, and emits 80 percent less carbon monoxide than it’s gasoline-powered counterparts makes it look even better.

The first thing you’ll notice when you’re speaking with Mark, and what sends a little chill along your spine, is how much they believe in what they’re doing. One of the things Mark mentioned was the feeling he gets filling up his tank knowing that the compressed natural gas is an American fuel and that the money he’s spending to fill up isn’t going to support a country that might not be friendly to the United States.

Mark spoke about the timing of the trip and how he watched President Obama speak shortly before they left and heard his challenge to “unleash American innovation.” Mark said that they took that statement to heart and plastered it across the side of their trailer, with a little modification…”unleashED American Innovation.”

I wasn’t the only one taking notice though. Congressman Spencer Bachus (AL-6) stopped by to see the car and actually took it out for a short spin. Congressman Bachus had a great quote about the project.

“Mark McConville and Keith Barfield left a lasting impression all along Route 66 with their car and their message about alternative fuels. It’s fascinating to see how an old ‘muscle car’ can be converted into a clean-burning, low emissions vehicle. This shows that we can solve our energy challenges using American technology and ingenuity. It brought great publicity to Alabama here at the Capitol and the only other thing we needed driving it around was an eight-track tape of Little GTO.” You can read the rest of Congressman Bachus’ release here.

A lasting impression indeed. Here are some pictures I took including the trailer that was signed by people that saw the car during the journey. Mark was also nice enough to take a moment and talk about some of the people he met on the journey. Enjoy and leave a “congratulations” to them in the comments.