Save Money on Gas: Buy a Natural Gas-Fueled Car

Natural gas powered-cars are becoming an increasingly attractive alternative to those seeking to lessen their impact on the environment and/or to escape the ongoing havoc at the pump. Honda is planning to roll out the Civic GX (previously available in only four states) at dealerships nationwide this year. It tops the list of greenest cars published by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Fuel Economy – besting electric cars and hybrids. It boasts no air-polluting emissions and is low on greenhouse gases.

         Natural gas is much more economical than traditional gasoline, ranging from $1-2.50 per gallon versus a national average of $3.25 for gasoline. As natural gas is a leaner-burning fuel, maintenance costs are lower than for traditional cars. Drivers of natural gas cars are also able to use car pool lanes, even if there is only one vehicle occupant.

Limitations do exist. Of course, sparse availability of filling stations is a major issue, although that is expected to change as popularity rises. The list price of over $25,000 for the Civic GX (some states do offer tax credits) can deter some buyers, as well.

         There is precedence for success for the natural gas vehicle: Brazil, for example, has 1.5 million on the road. In a crowded automotive landscape, it will be fascinating to witness how the American public reacts to widespread availability of natural gas cars.

                                            

Full text of articles:

 http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/cars-money/rising-gas-prices-how-about-cheaper-natural-gas-instead/2379/

http://www.autoweek.com/article/20101203/GREEN/101209960

Abdulaziz Alhadlaq

New Device to Store Electrical Energy

 By: Mohammed Alfares

     Electrical cars have become a great way of having lower costs and helping to save the environment of pollution from the emission gases.  Although, electrical vehicles also have disadvantages such as not having enough energy for driving distances and yet take hours of time to recharge which does not allow much power for acceleration.  For only a part of time renewable sources such as wind and solar can deliver such a great amount of power, but this can be very expensive and is too inefficient to deliver enough power for surge demand with these devices. 

     New systems of recently been developed and researched that are used for storing electrical energy that is derived from alternative sources which, in some cases, can be ten times more efficient than what is currently available commercially and this will enhance the performance of electrical energy storage devices.  A new technology that is growing rapidly has caused the development of these new systems which is called nanotechnology.  By using new processes centered in nanotechnology, millions of nanostructures are created identically with shapes that are tailored to transport energy very quickly to and from very large areas in the storage they are in.  These nanostructures were mainly created to deliver electrical energy, store, receive, and yet be virtually identical.  One of the main goals of this nanotechnology is having the ability to achieve high amounts of power and energy density and to enable the devices to hold and deliver large amounts of energy at high power with being able to recharge quickly.

For More Information:
\http://www.energyharvestingjournal.com/articles/new-device-to-store-electricalenergy-00001477.asp?sessionid=1

Electric Vehicles vs. Natural Gas Vehicles

By: Mohammed Alfares

     What has now become the comparison between electric vehicles and natural gas vehicles is the benefit of resources for production and the advantages along with the disadvantages of both vehicles that are used. As people think of Electric Vehicles having great benefits such as improving the environment and lower costs to keep the vehicle running, they then do not think of the disadvantages of using electric vehicles.

     Energy resources are very slim when using electric vehicles due to losing power over long distances, having the lack of transmission capacity and electric production to supply a major conversion of energies. With many electrical outages during the summer electric vehicles have a loss of a resource to gain more power and with batteries for the electric vehicles being produced in other countries with an unreliable system that is improvable for this production; natural gas vehicles have the benefit of more resources and less of a chance of failure.

     Natural gas energy companies and producers have become more of a sensible system such as the production of natural gas pipelines that lose less energy than high tension electric transmission lines rather than electric power plants along with foreign made batteries and electric transmission lines. Also, there is a growing oversupply of natural gas from pipelines while there has not been much of a large oversupply of transmission capacity.

For More Information:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/175831-electric-vehicles-vs-natural-gas-vehicles

Performance and emission characteristics of a turbocharged spark-ignition hydrogen-enriched compressed natural gas engine under wide open throttle operating conditions

This article discusses the effects of hydrogen-enriched compressed natural gas on engines performance. The new auto industry has shifted to use these kids of fuel because it can be obtained from electrolysis of water and the electricity used can be generated by solar energy, which means hydrogen is a kind of real renewable energy. Although, it is a new and reliable kind of energy, it has issues in production, storage and distribution if hydrogen is used as energy. An online mixing system was developed in order to mix together desired amount of hydrogen with natural gas entering the engine. The tank was divided into two rooms with a damping line. The flow rate of CNG and H2 were measured by a Micro Motion flow meter that uses the principle of Coriolis force for a direct measure of mass flow. Moreover, hydrogen-enriched compressed natural gas was tested on a six cylinder engine. The record length of pressure data in this study is 250 K (about 347 cycles) which is enough for CCV analysis. The test was perform under different WOT operating circumstances including different spark timings, excess air ratio in order to evaluate performance and emission characteristics with the various hydrogen volumetric ratios 0%, 30%, 55% HCNG fuels. In order to avoid knocking and to avoid exceeding the limit of maximum cylinder pressure, the experimental strategy was to optimize the spark timing at lean burn conditions. Hydrogen-Enriched Compressed Natural Gas is much more efficient and cheaper than other forms of gas. It is also of less pollution to the environment. We should start using it from now on to be green people in the environment.

Why an Electric Fleet Might be Better

There is no doubt that our society is moving toward a radical shift in the way we fuel our private automotive fleet.  Petroleum reserves cannot keep pace with our growing demand for energy.  In fact, our demand for energy is growing while our oil reserves are shrinking.  The end result is inevitably a world where there just isn’t enough gas to go around.  This may happen sooner, or it may happen later; but rest assured it will happen.  When gasoline is no longer an economical option to supply our energy needs, what will we turn to?

Combined Cycle Power Plants

Producing power is by nature a wasteful enterprise.  Whenever you convert one energy source into another there is inevitably some energy lost to the process.  Typical power generation plants use a stable yet highly energy dense fuel to supply the process.  With all fuel types there is an initial energy investment in processing the fuel into a state that is unstable and therefore capable of releasing its stored energy.  With combined cycle power plants this initial energy investment is reduced by the capture of waste energy from the process.

Natural Gas Can Power Vehicles OR Electric Power Plants

The importance of having one of the CNG vehicle have been increasing in the recent years because of the high numbers of drivers in the world. According to many studies, the natural gas nowadays is costing about half as much per unit energy as gasoline and has greater cost over diesel fuel. CNG vehicles has many advantages which may affect our environment positively. It has a good track records for safety and cleanliness, and have growing pool of satisfied customers.