1.4.12

More stations on tap
Omaha World-Herald editorial

Natural gas makes gains

A hopeful crack is appearing in the chicken-or-egg dilemma faced by vehicles fueled by natural gas in this country. A major developer has announced plans to sharply increase the number of fueling stations offering natural gas, particularly to large trucks.

That has been a major sticking point — service stations understandably haven't wanted to offer the natural gas alternative, which involves a capital investment, until there were enough motorists driving cars using the fuel. And motorists, quite naturally, have been reluctant to buy natural gas-fueled cars if there weren't enough convenient fueling sites.

Omaha's Metropolitan Utilities District has pressed for natural gas-fueled cars, small trucks and buses in recent years, and M.U.D. has opened two public fueling stations. In addition, consumers can have compact fueling equipment installed in their homes. But progress toward use of the clean, efficient and cheaper fuel has been slow. Natural gas can run $1 to $2 less per gallon equivalent compared to gasoline.

M.U.D. has hopes for compressed natural gas (CNG) and for its liquefied natural gas production facility — it is talking with several LNG suppliers that are considering selling the liquefied fuel at truck stops along Interstate 80 between Chicago and Denver. CNG fueling stations are a natural extension of those big-truck facilities, says M.U.D. president Doug Clark, who thinks expanding the company's market for natural gas into CNG and LNG for vehicles will bring lower and more stable rates for ratepayers.

Natural gas is abundant and domestic — so much so that some producers are considering exporting the nation's excess. But if more drivers adopted the natural gas-fueled vehicles on the market, it would soak up the excess and the United States would become less dependent on imported oil for its vehicles.

Clean Energy Fuels Corp, backed by T. Boone Pickens, plans to add liquefied natural gas pumps at 150 truck stops nationwide in the next few years. Semi tractor-trailers are modified to use liquefied rather than compressed natural gas. The fueling pumps will be added primarily to truck stops along Interstates.

The chicken-or-egg dilemma has only cracked. While encouraging large trucks to use the fuel could cut into U.S. petroleum imports, cars use compressed natural gas. Nevertheless, as the natural gas alternative becomes more common and accepted for both cars and trucks and its benefits are better known, supplies of both the chicken and the egg will undoubtedly increase.

And that will be good news for car manufacturers such as Honda that make and retrofit natural gas-fueled cars as well as great news for the nation's goal of reducing imported oil supplies.

A significant portion of U.S. energy independence can come from domestically produced natural gas, and the effort is gaining momentum.

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