BIKE: Natural Gas Article

[rcbaker]

On 13 Feb 2004 at 19:13, Andrew Wimsatt wrote:

> Here is an article from the Fort Worth Star Telegram concerning
> natural gas:
> 
> 
> http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/business/7936208.htm
> 
> 
> Another similar article can be found from the Houston Chronice:
> 
> 
> http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2399179
> 
> 
> Andrew
> 

I suppose the implication of the links that Andrew posted above is that 
natural gas could be an alternative fuel for vehicles. The fact is that 
domestic US gas supplies are falling rapidly, Canada is falling. And 
Mexico imports gas from the US, and is now peaking in oil production 
as well. 

The problem is that gas costs TEN TIMES as much to transport as oil. 
Therefore, the domestic cost to import gas (which is still plentiful 
worldwide) in terms of LNG tankers and terminals and pipelines is 
enormous. And most of this will must go to maintain electricity 
production to make up the current rapid domestic gas decline. 

Thus most imported natural gas will have to be used for power 
generation. Whatever gas is left that could be used for fuel for motor 
vehicles will be expensive because of lack of infrastructure. Plus 
natural gas is bulky and hard to transport and is an inferior fuel 
compared to gasoline, even assuming the cars on the road could use it. 
There are very good reasons that we burn gasoline rather than natural 
gas now. 

All these factors will doom the cash return of toll roads that depend on 
revenues from natural gas supplied vehicles. The toll roads are being 
planned on the basis of fuel use patterns and economic and growth 
trends from the 1990's high tech boom. 

TxDOT is a corrupted political bureaucracy in denial of the fact that fuel 
prices will almost surely rise sharply enough in the coming years to kill 
the economics of its toll roads. Underlining this situation is that TxDOT 
refuses to even try to factually deny the problem. 

-- Roger