Alt-fuel use revs up as gas prices skyrocket
by Larry Copenhaver on Apr. 20, 2006, under Local, Nation/World
Herb Kai puts compressed natural gas into his Chevy pickup. His custom conversion lets him run the truck on CNG and switch to gasoline from a spare tank as needed.
Gasoline prices got you bummed?
Feel like a chump at the pump, pouring all your cash into a black hole?
Vaguely concerned that you’re trashing the planet for your grandkids?
Maybe it’s time to find an alternative. It could save money while dramatically reducing pollution, said Herb Kai, who owns three pickup trucks and a large water-pump engine that run on compressed natural gas.
“The No. 1 reason for converting to CNG is economics,” said Kai, a Marana farmer and vice mayor of the town. “But it’s also good for the environment.”
As we prepare to celebrate Earth Day on Saturday, remember this: Your smog weighs more than your car. A Honda Accord weighs less than 2 tons, but puts out more than 6 tons in “greenhouse gases” each year. The U.S. is the biggest emitter of such gases, widely believed the cause of global warming that could have catastrophic consequences within decades.
You might not know you can produce a cleaner-burning fuel at home and that the government will pay for converting your car.
Kai uses a FuelMaker to compress gas from his domestic natural gas line into the trucks’ CNG tanks.
“I pay about $1.87 a gallon for the natural gas and I get about the same mileage that I would get if I were using gasoline,” he said.
A new FuelMaker device costs about $6,000 including installation. Used units are on the market for as low as $3,000 including installation.
The federal government will offer a tax credit next year of up to $1,000 for a filler unit. It will allow a tax credit of up to $4,000 if you buy a new CNG vehicle or convert your car for about $3,500. Buying a used filler unit and converting your car would cost $6,500, and you would get $4,000 of that back at tax time.
The only factory-made CNG car available in the U.S. is the 2006 Honda Civic GX, which retails for $24,990 and will be available in California and New York next month.
Upfront costs for CNG are offset by the $1-per-gallon fuel savings, Kai said.
Reducing air pollution also is important. It’s hard to put a price on that. One federal study indicated CNG vehicles produce 90 percent less carbon monoxide, 25 percent less carbon dioxide and fewer toxins than gasoline vehicles.
Kai said he drives 50,000 miles a year, so CNG is a great deal for him. At 20 miles per gallon, that would save $2,500 a year.
There are other rewards, Kai said: His CNG vehicles have license plates and stickers that identify them as alternative-fuel users, which saves him hundreds of dollars when he renews his registration.
The plates allow him to drive without a passenger in the carpool lane in Phoenix, he added.
Another cleaner-burning alternative fuel is E-85, which is 85 percent ethanol. Ethanol is alcohol and can be distilled from corn or anything else that ferments.
Most vehicles can burn a mixture of 15 percent gasoline and 85 percent ethanol.
E-85 yesterday was selling for $2.49 a gallon compared to $2.76 for regular gasoline at Arizona Petroleum Co., 1015 S. Cherry Ave. Mileage is typically up to 20 percent less than with gasoline, though.
A handful of stations in Tucson carry E-85 and none in Phoenix sells it.
Until last week, E-85 was banned in Phoenix due to a federally ordered clean-air plan that listed fuels that could be used.
E-85 was not on the list until a bill permitting E-85 was signed into law for all of Arizona.
E-85 is the only fuel that removes carbon dioxide, a prime greenhouse gas, from the air, albeit indirectly, through the massive cultivation of crops used to produce ethanol.
The government does not allow tax credits on E-85 because vehicles that use it also can burn gasoline, said Colleen Crowninshield, manager of Pima County’s Clean Cities program.
E-85 users will find that their car has more zip, runs quieter and puts out a fraction of the pollutants that gasoline fuels create, Crowninshield said.
Also, American motorists would be reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
“I love E-85,” Crowninshield said. “When I went to Phoenix, where you couldn’t get E-85, I couldn’t get the acceleration on gasoline as I get on E-85.”
Another alternative fuel becoming popular in Tucson, mainly in the fleet and heavy trucking business, is biodiesel, Crowninshield said.
Several school districts, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and Raytheon Missile Systems rely on biodiesel for their heavy cars and trucks.
Sun Tran recently bought 38 buses that burn biodiesel.
Biodiesel, made from vegetable oil, is no cheaper than petroleum diesel but is cleaner burning, Crowninshield said. Petroleum diesel’s particulate emissions can increase the risk of cancer, experts say.
Another way to burn less gas is with an electric-gas hybrid, said Carl Tomizuka, a retired physicist who is on his third Toyota Prius. The first one was given to his daughter and the second was traded in for his 2006 model. He figures a hybrid costs about 7 percent more than nonhybrid equivalents.
“The high price of gas right now about pays for the price difference,” he said. “I get about 51 miles to the gallon in the city, 63 miles to the gallon when driving outside the city.”
In March, he paid $18.56 for gasoline, he said. He estimates he drove 450 miles. The major criticism of hybrids is the replacement cost of batteries, but that is coming down, he said. Battery packs run $3,000 and are warrantied for seven years.
———
The United States lags behind some countries in adopting alternative fuels. Here are the top 10:
Country Number of CNG vehicles
Argentina 1.5 million
Brazil* 1.04 million
Pakistan 870,000
Italy 382,000
India 248,000
United States 130,000
China 97,000
Iran 91,314
Ukraine 67,000
Egypt 63,135
- Source: International Association of Natural Gas Vehicles
* In Brazil, an estimated 55 percent of vehicles run on E-85
———
- For data on natural gas fuels, go online to the International Association of Natural Gas Vehicles at: www.iangv.org/content/view/17/35.
- For more on the Honda’s natural gas vehicle, go online to: http://automobiles.honda.com. Click on Civic GX NGV.
- For more on E-85, go online to the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition at: www.e85fuel.com/index.php.
- For data from the US Department of Energy, go online to: www.energy.gov.
- For information on home-fueling for CNG, go to www.CNGaz.com.
- To contact Pima County’s Clean Cities program, call 792-1093.
