Here is one of Obama’s natural gas powered Honda Civics
CNG has to be kept at more than 200 atmospheres pressure. You can think of it as a large conventional explosive located six inches underneath your children.
One of the reasons why is natural gas. If extracted safely, it’s the bridge fuel that can power our economy with less of the carbon pollution that causes climate change. (Applause.) Businesses plan to invest almost a hundred billion dollars in new factories that use natural gas.
I’ll cut red tape to help states get those factories built and put folks to work, and this Congress can help by putting people to work building fueling stations that shift more cars and trucks from foreign oil to American natural gas.
America is the largest producer of oil in the world.
Climate experts have been telling us for years that methane (natural gas) is a 20X more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Now Obama says it produces less climate change. He is completely FOS, as always.
Factories that use natural gas? So like a bakery?
Yes, like any regular gas oven, or gas engine.
When you run gas pipes into a building, there is a small amount of storage in the pipes, but no requirement for large amounts of portable storage. Thus, pressure is lower and local energy that could drive an explosion is also lower. Mind you, it is still dangerous. Gas can accidentally fill a building and demolish it… has happened many times. However, the highly compressed gas tank in a vehicle is particularly dangerous because it is a single point of failure containing very high energy content.
Follow the link I posted below, they photographed the CNG tank and you can see the fiber protective layer which has literally turned to shreds. This tank is tough enough to withstand a lot of abuse, but everything has its limits.
CNG is at 200+ atmospheres pressure.
It is nothing like a “regular gas oven” which is just above 1 atmosphere pressure.
LNG rocks, man.
What is “LNG” ?
From Obama’s speech that you quoted:
In these cases we are talking about gas primarily used for heating purposes at low pressure. This is very old and well established technology, operating without local storage requirements, as safe as you can reasonably expect an energy supply system to be.
LNG is Liquified Natural Gas by cooling it to approximately ?162 °C (?260 °F).
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I know there’s a huge difference in use in buildings versus having to compress it enough to be useful in a vehicle. My comment was more about his seemingly ridiculous implication that use in factories is anything new. I didn’t watch the oration, so I have no idea of the context. I suspect this was where he was taking credit for the energy boom, which he has nothing to do with, other than trying to stop it on Federal lands and any other way he can.
Propane is an excellent fuel for car propulsion but natural gas is a no go. Why? Because the components dealing with high pressures like valves and pumps have a short life cycle span.
This makes the application unreliable.
Besides that, it takes too much time to fill up a tank and the radius is comparable with an electric car.
That sucks.
I can imagine the natural gas car is called the Obama car because he sucks too.
Natural gas is good for factories, home heating, electricity generation, and other situations where portability and local storage is not required.
Liquid fuel is much better for vehicles, but let’s be fair, liquid fuel is also dangerous when spilled or treated with any less than the respect it deserves. Avgas for example, is will known for burning people in surprising ways because it releases creeping tendrils of fumes that can spread out and seek an ignition source.
By the way, more photos here:
http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/general/t-cng-honda-civic-car-fireexplosion-dialup-warning-many-photos-7555.html
Please note that the car that was destroyed was deliberately set on fire by an arsonist so this was not just a normal auto accident. You can see in the background of he top photo, other burnt out cars that did not explode but still got set on fire. Also check out the roof of the civic, looks like it got hit by the can opener from hell.
CNG tanks are at 200+ atmospheres pressure. Even if it wasn’t flammable, it would be a high powered explosive. It is nothing like other liquid fuels.
CNG (compressed natural gas) and LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) were in widespread use in New Zealand during the 80’s. I’ve personally witnessed car accidents involving large Australian built sedans (Ford Falcons, GM/Holdens, and Chryslers) where the only recognisable item remaining in a recognisable state was the CNG tank.
The notion that such devices are more dangerous than petrol is risible.
Nothing weighing 2 tons and moving at 60 miles an hour is “safe”. Safety is a childish fantasy. Being alive is dangerous. We should just accept that, and deal with it like adults.
Scuzza old buddy I have to weigh in here and agree…gas powered cars (lpg) are in widespread use here in Australia and are quickly and easily filled and perfectly safe.
Just because the Alarmists are wrong about Global Warming doesn’t mean that we immediately have to oppose gas powered vehicles…that’s just playing their silly game.
Again, LPG is at much lower pressure than CNG. The two are not comparable.It really pisses me off when people lacking understanding attempt to rewrite what I said..
Steven – better to be pissed off than pissed on 😉
The below incident is CNG. Steven is right. I also don’t understand why people keep bringing up LPG.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aokCesGUR-M
American truck bombs.
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/trucks-eighteen-wheelers/156804-new-cng-powered-freightliners-plant-ready.html
A suicide terrorist must love this car. Its a dream come true. Great export product for the middle east and afghanistan.
For home use put a bumper sticker. Don’t Shoot at Me (from a short distance)
Pakistan CNG
http://tribune.com.pk/story/478704/flouting-rules-rejected-cng-cylinders-flood-market/
I am afraid that the only CNG powered factory that Obama has in his mind for our future is a crematorium.
One of our local trucking companies have converted their semi truck fleet to CNG. The above picture isn’t very comforting.
LPG/GPL is widely used and available as a fuel for vehicles. Several towns in France eg Poitiers used GPL powered PSVs
LPG is at low pressure. CNG is at very high pressure. They have nothing to do with each other. I didn’t say a word about LPG. Why are you discussing it?
Because they incorrectly equate the two in their minds. None of the those who made this mistake appears to have an agenda – they were just wrong. BTW, I hadn’t thought of the fact that even a nonflammable gas at 200 atmospheres of pressure would be a very dangerous kinetic energy weapon. Thanks for that insight.
High pressure is one of the failure modes of Light Water nuclear reactors. A reason to move to Molten Salt Reactors with its low pressure and no need for a 1500 times steam expansion pressure dome. energyfromthorium.com
Reblogged this on wwlee4411 and commented:
A rolling bomb.
What happened to BHO’s plan to force 1 million electric vehicles on the public? Seems like he’s given up on that one.
The idea of John Q Public jacking around with 3000 psi in his garage is frightening. I can see him putting the box end wrench on a 1/4″ connection to tighten up a leaking connection and blowing his head off. I am not really worried about fire as much as the explosive kinetic energy. However, when they make compressors to refill at home at least they can warm the house at the same time from the heat caused by gas compression.
I have an argon tank at around 3000psi for my welder…
I managed labs. I have seen (and heard) the results of a valve on a hydrogen tank blowing and driving the tank through a concrete wall.
If we wanted to be sitting on top of bombs we would have gone with steam driven cars.
(Yes I know about the sabotage.)
I recall an episode of Mythbusters where they were testing what happens when the valve of a pressure cylinder is broken off. They set up a mock wall to see if the cylinder would go through it. It went through that, and also several other walls of the warehouse they were testing in.
I’m trying to understand the distributor in chief’s new position supporting CNG.
The only way to provide the astronomical amount of NG needed to “bridge” energy from oil/coal to sustainable energy is by hydraulic fracking. BO’s support for CNG development has got to piss off his bankrollers on Billionaire Row and Hollywierd that are extremely anti-fracking and very pro wind/solar. BO, in his second term obviously doesn’t need their campaign bucks any more, so apparently he has tossed them under the CNG fueled bus. But why BO’s shaft to his largest financial supporters even if he doesn’t need their bucks now? Did T. Boone Pickens offer BO a retiremant plan he just couldn’t refuse? The political thinking in the WH must be; who else can the anti-frackers turn to that will take up their cause? Surely not those on the right. Still, if I was on the anti-fracking side, I would be infuriated with BO. Dems running in tight Congressional races this year must be beside themselves with this move by BO that will surely hurt their fundraising abilities from the left coast’s very wealthy anti-fracking crowd.
Maybe this is the ticket for sanity to prevail in the US. Just move to the side and let the left betray each other for self-interest reasons until they implode….or explode.
Reblogged this on CACA.
Steve, LNG is “Liquid Natural Gas” that uses temperature instead of pressure to keep Methane as a liquid. Since the vapor pressure of methane at 60 deg is about 5000 psi then cooling to -60 to -120 degrees keeps it liquid for transport at lower pressures. I can’t wait for the cooling system to breakdown on the LNG tankers that store liquid methane in 1000 psi tanks and the methane begins flashing back to a gas. The explosion of a few billion cubic feet of gas could make Hiroshima look like a firecracker.
Actually, it doesn’t take much but a really good insulator to keep LNG liquid once it is cold enough. True you would have to have some refrigeration in your car (simply because to have a good enough insulator would increase the weight of your car substantially) but it would be liquid and stay liquid. In fact, it wouldn’t even be explosive. I looked inside LNG tankers holding 2 billion-cubic-feet of liquified natural gas and comically I couldn’t have lit it if I tried (it won’t burn… no oxygen, had to wear SCUBA… pressure in the tank was less than 14 psig… or as one might think about 1 atmosphere). Looking down at it was like looking at water… very cold water… but in fact it was 100% methane. Now, spill some on the ground in an auto collision and it would flash freeze whatever it touched and then instantly vaporize… so not safe, but arguably no more unsafe than gasoline (gasoline actually is far more dangerous due to higher BTUs, but that aside it has a much higher boiling point, thus it doesn’t instantly vaporize like LNG would). So, I guess in summary, LNG is arguably safe. CNG is very hazardous, without a doubt (I work around 3000+ psig pipelines and wells containing 96% methane) and I know I would certainly not want to drive around on a car powered with CNG (passing city buses that use this currently in the D worries me, indeed).
Anyway, so I guess, all that being said… Mr. Goddard, I agree CNG is bad.
Out of curiosity, when did the Empty Suit say he wanted to use CNG in cars? I couldn’t watch the whole regurgitation of past worthless promises from the Empty Suit last night (it started to make me sick within a few minutes of BS).
Well, the LNG leak and explosion in Cleveland in 1944 only leveled a square mile of the city, so it’s hyperbole to say that it makes Hiroshima look like a firecracker…