Ron Wagner

Why Natural Gas Should Be the Prefered Fuel for the Foreseeable Future

1. The world is facing increasing problems with air pollution in many highly populated areas throughout the world. Natural gas has about half the harmful emissions of gasoline or diesel. 

2. Natural gas is about half the price of gasoline or diesel. It is superabundant and is found in all many areas throughout the world and in depleted oil wells or coal mines. It is even more abundant along coastlines of the oceans. 

3. Natural gas can be used to power any internal combustion engine and the technology is already well established throughout the world. Natural gas powers cars, buses, trucks, ships, generators, turbines, power cells, etc.

4. Natural gas can replace coal which is the most polluting of fuels. America has decreased air pollution by switching a lot of usage from coal to natural gas. Other nations can easily follow our example but will pay more for it unless they produce their own. 

5. Our existing vehicles can be converted from diesel or gasoline to natural gas vehicles. The cost of conversion is much lower in nations that use a higher percentage of natural gas vehicles. 

The first steps to using more natural gas should be to convert more large trucks to natural gas as CNG or LNG. CNG is compressed natural gas. LNG is liquified natural gas. Many fleets of buses and waste management trucks now use natural gas. Local haul trucks can be easily refueled overnight at their home base. Long haul trucks can fuel at locations available through all states except Montana and North Dakota. More stations are being built every year. See station location and prices here http://www.cngprices.com/station_map.php

Wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, etc. will all play an important role. Electric vehicles will also, but the electricity will come primarily from natural gas turbines.