Stupid is as stupid does
Following in the footsteps of the hated Bush, Obumpski has now come up with yet another way to subsidize an alternative to oil: natural gas for vehicles.
President Bush was an enthusiastic supporter of fuel cells, until he was an enthusiastic supporter of ethanol made from switchgrass. President Obama has come out strong for biofuels and electric cars, but he didn’t mention those in his State of the Union address this week. Now he wants researchers to invent new ways to use natural gas to power vehicles.
The hope is to create a market for natural gas, which is pouring from the ground in record amounts in the United States, and in turn driving down natural gas prices to levels not seen for 10 years.
It’s easy to use natural gas in internal combustion engines, but it’s hard to store much of it on board a car, so natural gas vehicles typically have a much shorter range than gasoline powered ones. The White House announced today that the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) will announce a research competition for either improving natural gas powered vehicles, or developing a cheaper way to turn the gas into an energy dense liquid fuel. (The announcement referred to ARPA-E’s previous funding rounds as “competitions,” so it’s likely this will just be another funding round, not something like the DARPA challenge competition to develop autonomous vehicles.)
Notice anything funny about both these morons’ plans, other than the billions of dollars they’ve wasted on them? (and the humor in that depends on whether you’re rich as Warren Buffet’s secretary or a regular working slob). Everything they propose involves the government (erroneously) picking a new technology winner and then flooding that choice with tax payer’s money. And when one idea goes bust they don’t pause to reflect on whether there might be something wrong with the federal government attempting to guess what might work, but instead just move onto another boondoggle.
I think that one’s been tried before, back in the Seventies, I think. I remember a lot of pick-up trucks driving around with propane, or was it butane, tanks back in the rear. Looks like a good way to attend a barbeque where you’re the char-broiled meat.
Natural gas for vehicles is a great idea. Didn’t the Exxon by the Gr. Library have a pump for it before they became a Chase Bank site?
In Peru, many vehicles are dual fuel to use natural gas or ethylene (what you call gas now.)
Once Halliburton and the boys frack the daylights out of PA & NY, we’ll have plenty of natural gas. And we can sell them our well water to drink in return, which they’ll need.
My new company Fartyndra just received a grant for 2 billion. This would be a good time to invest in beans.
VT Legislature now wants to put in a 3 yr mortaorium on hydrofracking. They are a bunch of loony left wackos living in lala land.
Finally, a chance to produce $$$ saving energy and this crowd shuts it down. They just cost the state untold millions by losing an unwinnable lawsuit against VT Yankee.
Whatever they do costs Joe Vermontah more. When will the voters wake up?
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/10/honda-prices-next-tragically-ignored-natural-gas-civic/1
The car costs a lot more than a normal gasilone burning Civic and at present there are only two fueling stations in CT and the range is poor but overall it’s not as out there as many other alternate fuel vehicles. And so far Honda is not bankrupt.
John
There are many places internationally, including China, where natural gas cars are common—not here yet. Boone Pickens’ idea of replacing diesel trucks with natural gas ones makes a lot of sense, with our now massive gas supply. Over the short-term, fitting truck stops with natural gas pumps is much more practical than doing it in regular gas stations. It will sharply cut our need to import oil.
Over time, it is likely that natural gas pumps at regular gas stations will become as common as diesel ones. I do not see how we can do anything but benefit from developing domestic natural gas for our trucks and then our cars.
My point, Mr. Independent,is that if natural gas is the future then private industry will figure it our for itself, no government needed. The government didn’t build gas stations to fuel automobiles. Rail roads and their land grants? hell, the liberals are still howling about that 120 years later, and I think they’re right: the railroads would have been, should have been,built entirely with private money. But if the liberals can see that, why are they blind to these latest proposals? Because they want to control the process and enrich themselves and their friends. Friends like Warren Buffet. And Boone Pickins? He stands to make billions if he can get a higher price for all his gas. God may bless him, but why should I subsidize him?
That being said, at least LNG is substantially LESS stupid and more immediate than the previous ideas.
It’s a fossil fuel, it’s relatively energy-dense, it uses some existing infrastructure. Now a better way to use and store and generally mess with it, that’s worth pursuing, so offer prizes for some specific milestones.
(improvements in liquefaction tech, storage, etc..)
The joys of fracking. Dimcock, Pennsylvania reports wells spontaneously combusting, kitchen faucets spouting corrosive liquids, pets mysteriously shedding their hair, and morning showers resulting in skin lesions:
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/01/25/what-the-frack-its-damaging-water-supplies-and-causing-earthquakes-so-why-is-the-environmental-protection-agency-so-slow-to-act/