Mileage (mpg) Using Ethanol Seen 20% Higher Than EPA Says - Bloomberg

[Bill USA]

39. the cost of buiding the infrastructure to distribute it would be enormous. The cars are not cheap.

Honda sells a NG Civic for about [font size="4"]$9,000 more[/font] than a standard Civic. any NG powered car involves more engineering challenges than one running on methano/ethanol/gasoline blends. For one thing it needs a tank that can handle NG under very high pressure (so that you don't get a fireball when you have a collision). You need the pressure to have enough NG to give you reasonable range.

Building the infrastructure to supply NG to millions of drivers would be a very expensive and time consuming operation. Far cheaper and easier to handle (distribution wise and in the vehicle using it) NG turned into a liguid fuel - methanol.

I am just going on memory here (couldn't find it by googling) but I read, some time ago, that Waste Management was building a distribution facility for a number of trucks they are going use that will be powered by NG. I think the cost was something like $17 million to build the facility - just going on memory.


The cost of the vehicles and time required to build distribution facilities works against you in the same way it does for hybrids and plug-ins. HIgher cost options mean people will adopt them more slowly. And we don't have 20 to 30 years to achieve a appreciable cut in oil consumption. We really are just about out of time as far as Global warming is concerned and the acidification of the oceans may lead to problems even before the planet's heating takes off on it's own - i.e. unretrievable no matter HOW MUCHGHG REDUCTIONS you can come up with.

USing methanol and ethanol to reduce oil consumption can occur faster because it's so much cheaper. There are no technical hurdles to be cleared making methanol and building cares which can handle it. It's relatively cheap (compared to hybrids and esp. plug-ins) to make FFVs which can use methanol/ethanol blends.