Gazprom purchasing 24 LNG locomotives

[ronwagn + 6,290]

http://www.ngvglobal.com/blog/sinara-to-supply-24-lng-powered-locomotives-to-gazprom-0527 

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

17 hours ago, ronwagn said:

http://www.ngvglobal.com/blog/sinara-to-supply-24-lng-powered-locomotives-to-gazprom-0527 

Trains are a fantastic application for LNG, aren't they?  Large engines, near 24/7 operation, effectively zero weight/volume constraints, known routes and depots, and operated entirely by commercial customers. 

I see you post a lot about LNG. Out of curiosity, have you broken oil demand down by application, figured out which applications are best for LNG, and used that to estimate how much oil LNG could displace? 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

LNG, CNG, and piped natural gas can replace all oil except for some chemical usage. CNG is cheaper and could be used for virtually all land transport. It would take time to do all the conversions. Aircraft would stick with jet fuel but they could burn LNG eventually. The airframe would have to be redesigned to incorporate larger fuel tanks. The flying V would perhaps be the best. It would certainly be cheaper to use LNG. The logical progression would be trucks, ships, locomotives, large cars, small cars then possibly aircraft.

Converting trucks and autos is a well known technology and just about all the wrinkles are out of it. Tradition is really what is holding things up. Once the bean counters see the potential savings it should replace diesel more rapidly. CNG tanks can provide the distance needed depending on the routes. There is sufficient CNG infrastructure in most areas of the United States and Canada. Italy is the leader in Europe. LNG infrastructure is not as well built up yet. I don't think land vehicles need to go to LNG. 

CNG and LNG tanks use up more space so the vehicles would ideally be designed with the larger tanks in mind. 

Environmentalists are usually not open to "fossil" fuels. That is holding up the best answer to improving air pollution. 

CNG can be concentrated from any industrial or home gas line. The equipment is coming down in price. The gas gallon equivalency would probably be as low as one dollar per gallon! 

Here is a map for CNG stations. http://www.cngprices.com/station_map.php It is a little slow but very good. California and Oklahoma have two of the best networks. Underpopulated areas have the worst. 

Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

11 hours ago, ronwagn said:

LNG, CNG, and piped natural gas can replace all oil except for some chemical usage. CNG is cheaper and could be used for virtually all land transport. It would take time to do all the conversions. Aircraft would stick with jet fuel but they could burn LNG eventually. The airframe would have to be redesigned to incorporate larger fuel tanks. The flying V would perhaps be the best. It would certainly be cheaper to use LNG. The logical progression would be trucks, ships, locomotives, large cars, small cars then possibly aircraft.

Converting trucks and autos is a well known technology and just about all the wrinkles are out of it. Tradition is really what is holding things up. Once the bean counters see the potential savings it should replace diesel more rapidly. CNG tanks can provide the distance needed depending on the routes. There is sufficient CNG infrastructure in most areas of the United States and Canada. Italy is the leader in Europe. LNG infrastructure is not as well built up yet. I don't think land vehicles need to go to LNG. 

CNG and LNG tanks use up more space so the vehicles would ideally be designed with the larger tanks in mind. 

Environmentalists are usually not open to "fossil" fuels. That is holding up the best answer to improving air pollution. 

CNG can be concentrated from any industrial or home gas line. The equipment is coming down in price. The gas gallon equivalency would probably be as low as one dollar per gallon! 

Here is a map for CNG stations. http://www.cngprices.com/station_map.php It is a little slow but very good. California and Oklahoma have two of the best networks. Underpopulated areas have the worst. 

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks for the information; that's half of what I was thinking.

NG can replace oil in all transportation uses.  I think the question is whether it will.  That question is part regulatory.  E.g. aircraft must meet rigorous regulations, and regulatory agencies don't handle change well.  The question is also part financial.  E.g. NG consumer vehicles make sense in Italy, but do the numbers work out in the US?  If we want to characterize the decline of oil, we'll need to look at those details.  I'm still looking for an analysis that includes the following:
1)  A list of every oil end-use, in great detail.  Which vehicles, exactly, are being used?  Who is using them?  Where?  E.g. "Offroad equipment for mining in the US" might be one line, but we might also have to break it down by region of the US or type of mining. 
2)  Each end-use's percentage of world oil consumption.
3)  The economics of using oil, NG, and electrification for each of those end uses. 
4)  Current progress in alternative fuels by end-use. 

If we had that information, we could rank end-uses by the likelihood that they adopt alternative fuels.  For end uses that are already ditching oil, we could also use those industry trends to predict how quickly they might do so.  That would give us a better idea what to expect in oil, NG, renewable fuel, and electricity markets. 

[Keith boyd + 178]

When I was a truck driver almost a decade ago bison transport had a natural gas semi truck pilot project. The natural gas trucks were beating diesel trucks in cost per mile even back then. But they were only used for city driving because their range was really low and had to be refueled twice a day. Even with extra tanks installed on the back of the cab where a sleeper would normally be they could barely do a 10 hour shift on one fill up. The gas was compressed, not LNG. 

The trucks were not mass adopted because of the inconvenience. And refuelling stations just dont exist  Possibly also safety concerns having giant compressed gas tanks right behind the driver. I dont know much about LNG other then its cooled to a liquid and doesnt have to be compressed. So is it possible to have a cooling system on trucks and cars to keep the gas liquified or is that only practical on large vehicles like ships? 

Bison did prove that natural gas is cheaper fuel then diesel, just harder to make practical. 

 

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

14 hours ago, Keith boyd said:

When I was a truck driver almost a decade ago bison transport had a natural gas semi truck pilot project. The natural gas trucks were beating diesel trucks in cost per mile even back then. But they were only used for city driving because their range was really low and had to be refueled twice a day. Even with extra tanks installed on the back of the cab where a sleeper would normally be they could barely do a 10 hour shift on one fill up. The gas was compressed, not LNG.  

The trucks were not mass adopted because of the inconvenience. And refuelling stations just dont exist  Possibly also safety concerns having giant compressed gas tanks right behind the driver. I dont know much about LNG other then its cooled to a liquid and doesnt have to be compressed. So is it possible to have a cooling system on trucks and cars to keep the gas liquified or is that only practical on large vehicles like ships?  

Bison did prove that natural gas is cheaper fuel then diesel, just harder to make practical.

LNG stays cold at ambient pressure by slowly evaporating.  On large ships, the evaporated NG could be used to run auxiliary power.  If there's still excess, one could theoretically install equipment to re-liquify it at the cost of burning some for power.  I'm not sure if that's done in practice though. 

On a truck, slowly evaporating LNG could be used to keep the engine running, the cab climate controlled, reefers cooled, etc.  There might be wasted fuel, but not much.

If you had a hybrid-electric truck, you'd design a system with an electric drive train and ICE range extender.  In that case, you'd just run all the evaporated NG through the range extender. Whatever electricity you didn't consume would trickle-charge the batteries.  If your range extender had GM's new dynamic skip-fire technology, you'd even get decent efficiency out of it. 

However, keeping it cold isn't the primary concern with LNG.  Bigger issues are:
1)  Cryogenic fluids are difficult/dangerous to handle.  It would be difficult to make it safe enough for every trucker.
2)  Liquifying natural gas costs a lot of energy.  Once you liquify, you lose much of your cost advantage over gas/diesel.  That's why we see municipal vehicles running CNG but no long-haul trucks running LNG.