Liquefied Natural Gas For Fleet Vehicles

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ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
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Download or read book Issues Affecting Adoption of Natural Gas Fuel in Light- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report provides a preliminary examination of the incentives and barriers for adopting compressed natural gas (CNG) as the fuel for light-duty passenger cars, heavy duty combination trucks, and fleet vehicles of all types. In all cases the primary incentive to switch from gasoline or diesel fuel to natural gas is the potential savings in fuel costs. Additional benefits at a national level include a reduction in foreign oil imports and reduced vehicle emissions. Barriers to application of CNG to passenger vehicles include the cost premium for the vehicle, significant competition from hybrid vehicles, limited original equipment manufacturer vehicle selection, high cost and poor selection for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-approved vehicle conversions, and a limited public refueling infrastructure. The purchase and maintenance costs for operating a compressor at home to refuel from a residential gas source is less cost effective than using a public refueling station and provides fuel at a lower cost than gasoline only in regions of the country with the lowest natural gas prices. Heavy-duty vehicles using liquefied natural gas (LNG) with a high-pressure direct injection system (HPDI) engine have improved driving range, efficiency, and power compared to a similar vehicle using CNG with a spark-ignited engine. However, use of LNG makes the lack of a refueling infrastructure even more critical because CNG stations far outnumber LNG stations. Despite the fact that an LNG-equipped truck is much more expensive than a diesel truck, the payback in terms of fuel cost is more rapid than a passenger vehicle because of the higher number of miles travelled per year and the much lower fuel mileage, which increases the potential fuel cost savings. The most attractive opportunity for natural gas vehicles is for fleet vehicles operating in regions with low natural gas prices because of 1) the ability of the vehicles to return to a captive refueling infrastructure and 2) the relatively high number of miles driven per year. Displacing a major fraction of gasoline and diesel vehicles will require significant incremental investments in the natural gas infrastructure. Incremental investments to reach a 20-percent penetration of the vehicle fuel market (the point at which a market may become self-sustaining) assuming an LNG/CNG refueling station infrastructure are estimated to be ~$87 billion for production and distribution, ~$68 billion for refueling stations and ~$72 billion for liquefaction capacity. Cost would increase proportionally if 56-percent market penetration is assumed, which would be necessary to displace vehicle fuel attributable to imported oil. While investments in natural gas production will occur without additional incentives as demand increases, the same may not be true for public refueling stations, which require that a threshold number of CNG vehicles be on the road before the stations become profitable. Measures that may help develop the refueling infrastructure are incentivizing private refueling stations to provide public access, incentivizing public refueling station construction, and encouraging bi-fuel vehicles that can utilize a limited CNG refueling infrastructure where available but still operate in areas were CNG refueling stations are not available. The potential impact on oil imports is about 2.6 times greater for on-road gasoline vehicles than for on-road diesel vehicles. This is due to a combination of a larger fraction of a barrel of oil being converted to gasoline combined with a higher percentage of gasoline being used for on-road vehicles. However, the greatest impact is obtained by use of natural gas to displace both gasoline and diesel fuel.