Natural Gas 101

[Curtis]

This document will give you the basics about natural gas and cng.

[durf1]

Re: Natural Gas 101

Thank you Curtis, I like the part that NG is not "Oil" but the ng companies are raising prices saying they are paying higher prices for imports? T Boone are you not suppling NG to these companies? I drive a Lincoln and Ford will do nothing to help America get off the "OIL". My lease is up in June 09.... so here I come HONDA GX. California has the stations for what is the real usages - going to and from work. 99% of the drivers DO NOT DRIVE across America. I think the only way to really get this going is to start in California and get the state to only allow new non gas autos/trucks to be sold and registered by Jan 2010. They all have to be some type of Hybrids. I believe Californis sells more new auto/trucks than anyother state. Just my idea and I will start in Jan 09 to get something going. This is a great site.

[Curtis]

Re: Natural Gas 101

Welcome to the site Durf1, and welcome to the future of American transit... CNG. There is a new buzzword getting around out there, its sustainability. Imagine that you had to walk across a desert. You had only one canteen, and it had to last you all the way across. You have to figure out how to make it last... but you know it won't. That's our oil situation, and it's nearly as dire.

Now imagine that the sparse vegetation that was in the desert could produce enough water for your needs upon demand. You dig a hole, throw some weeds in the bottom, put a cup in the center on the hole and cover the hole with plastic. Then drop a stone in the center of the plastic to make the moisture drip off the center into your cup. Now you can produce as much water as you need, whenever you need it... that's sustainability.

We need to start thinking about sustainability in every aspect of our lives. Americans are wasteful. We no longer fix anything, we throw it away and get another... immediate gratification is our way of life.

If our children's children are going to have a decent life on this planet, we need to start thinking about how we can sustain the things we do indefinitely. If we don't, we'll find ourselves at the dead end of a one way street.

We got ourselves where we are, and the world in the state it's in, by doing lots of little unsustainable behaviors. I think we can reverse the situation by a small shift in our behavior. Just start making changes toward small "sustainable" habits. Things like compact florescent lights, recycling our junk mail and plastic grocery bags instead of dropping them into the trash. Just little habits that will grow into a sustainable future for our kids.

If our oil was cut-off tomorrow... our society would collapse... totally. We need to work toward a future where we no longer rely on others with interests that are not our own to maintain our way of life. Reduce oil consumption in every way we can, and support every effort that leads us to a sustainable world, no matter how small.

[bwilson4web]

Re: Natural Gas 101

Hi Curtis,

I appreciate the 'factsheets_naturalgas.pdf' and have been wandering through many of the forums looking for specific details. Before switching to Google to do patent look-up and SAE to $earch for relevant papers, I thought I'd share what I'm looking for . . .

• Pressures downstream of regulator? - This site has a lot of important, quality information about the high-pressure side such as tanks and refueling stations. Yes, this is very important and very bad things can happen but is there a discussion of the pressure ranges and control systems found on the low-pressure side of the regulator?
• Integrated regulator and refueling assembly? - Given the risks of high pressure natural gas, would it make sense to have an integrated assembly that incorporates the regulator, refueling interface, and low pressure outlet? The PDF suggests a high-pressure line between the regulator and tank, an obvious risk.
• Injector versus fuel metering intake side? - Fuel air mixing, regardless of mechanism is a tricky problem. However, I've seen both CNG injector systems that mirror existing gasoline injectors as well as what appears to be an annular ring system that resembles the old venturi systems. Are there any recommended threads, papers or sources that discuss these two different technical approaches?
• Catalytic converter and O{2} sensors scaling? - My 1.5L and 1.8L Prius engine uses a pair of O{2} sensors to float around a stoichiometric ratio, ~14.7 to 1. I suspect the rich/lean cycles also enhance catalytic converter efficiency. What are the impacts of using CNG on these cycles and the CNG stoichiometric ratio?

Let me explain what drives my curiosity.

I am interested in co-generation, using a bi-fuel Prius to run on natural gas over night to provide electric power and heat to the home. In the morning, the natural gas, electrical and heat interfaces are disconnected and the car drives into work. This is why I am mostly interested in the low-pressure side of a CNG configuration. Co-generation should not require high pressure gas storage but just enough to meet the injector/annular ring system requirement to run the engine at modest power levels, 3.5-7 kW (~5-10 hp). For example, running my 1 kW inverter at 1 kW, the engine runs generating 10A @272 V, ~2.7 kW minimum and a little over 3 kW, net output due to vehicle overhead.

Now it may be that normal gas line service has too low of flow and pressure to run a gas engine at these power levels. But this is what I'm interested in researching.

Note that a nice enhancement would be a tank sized for 30 miles, my typical daily commute. By avoiding the engine warm-up cycling, an even smaller tank would meet the requirement. In effect, a 1 gallon gasoline equivalent would easily meet my 52 MPG Prius fuel requirement.

Thanks,
Bob Wilson