Natural Gas As a Way to Fill Up Cars

[erpowers]

I saw a story this morning on the Today Show that discussed the idea of filling up cars with natural gas. Is this an actually good way to fill up cars? What, if any are the downsides of filling up cars with natural gas. Is natural gas less stable than oil or gasoline? A part of the story did mention the fact that Venezula's government had mandated a switch from gasoline to natural gas to break away from dependence on oil from OPEC. Did oil and gas companies and automobile companies prevent our government from doing the same thing?

[sam sarrha]

1. not a solution.. it works, if unregulatedit will all end up the same

[liberal N proud]

2. Then the price of heating homes can skyrocket

Far more than it already has.

[sabbat hunter]

3. Venezuela

is PART of OPEC.....

Natural gas burns cleaner than gasoline, but requires special tanks and engines. There are a lot of public transportation buses that run on natural gas here in NYC metro area.

However it is not a replacement for gasoline run engines, as it is still a limited resources.

[gasperc]

4. Except it would send home heating bills through the roof

there's not that much natural gas out there.

[EOTE]

5. That was a fairly poorly done segment.

I do think that natural gas has a lot of potential, but the talk of natural gas being so much more cost efficient (at least as of now) was ridiculous. They mentioned how natural gas is half the cost of gasoline at $2 a gallon, but failed to mention that natural gas has far less potential energy than gasoline does, so I believe in terms of actual miles per dollar, natural gas is around the same. That's a pretty damn big omission.

[LiberalEsto]

6. We've had natural gas buses for years

here in Montgomery County, Maryland

But I believe it would require some changes to a car's engine and fuel tank.

[meow2u3]

7. Save gas--fart in the tank n/t

[chascarrillo]

8. I can't forsee a problem changing from one non-renewable resource to another non-renewable resource.