Natural gas good for EVs, but not cars and trucks?

Natural gas is a good coal replacement, but not foreign oil?

Time to look at the big picture

Because electric cars are three times more efficient than conventional vehicles, their excess CO2 emissions from coal-generated electricity are balanced out compared to gasoline powered vehicles. Likewise, any new power generation required by electric cars will produce less CO2 than gasoline-powered cars because it will be “either natural gas or renewable,” according to Mark Duval of the Electric Power Research Institute.

So why is natural gas good for electric cars, but not for conventional vehicles?

Today, light duty trucks account for more than 50 percent of US car sales, and coupled with medium and heavy duty trucks, such vehicles suck up the majority of petroleum consumed by the US transportation sector.

Unfortunately, when it comes to plug-in vehicles, the focus is compact cars because the extra costs of the batteries needed for large vehicles wouldn’t just cause sticker shock, but a heart attack. Thus, it will be decades before batteries wipe out US foreign oil dependence if batteries are the key to trucks as well.

Yet, if more and more natural gas is going to be used to power electric cars, why not also use it to power conventional vehicles as an interim solution to foreign oil dependence and more cost-effective battery technologies? Might not the savings and job creation, for instance, help the US fund tax credits and other subsidies for electric cars and the US battery industry?

Because of the legacy effect, America can be certain that US dependence upon foreign oil will last for decades if batteries are the solution.

Ironically, however, some South American countries have begun countering the legacy effects of gasoline technologies in their countries with cost-effective after-market natural gas conversions.

Why can’t the same be done in the US? Is it that dangerous and dirty? Why is natural gas OK for EVs as a coal replacement, but not for gasoline cars as a foreign oil replacement? Is it just politics and money?

Moreover, Toyota has demonstrated that natural gas can be coupled with hybrid technology with far less consumer concessions than what electric cars demand today. And, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, today’s hybrid cars do more to fight CO2 emissions than do today’s electric cars. Add natural gas to these hybrids and even far greater emission’s reductions are possible – today – all while also developing and investing in battery technologies. Furthermore, full hybrids such as Toyota’s natural gas hybrid vehicles could be converted into natural gas plug-in hybrid vehicles as battery technologies become cost-effective.

Talk about a legacy effect killer.

Without any doubt natural gas has drawbacks and cleaner renewables need to be the long term focus, but significant amounts of research suggest that most drawbacks can be mitigated along the long and winding road to these renewables. Likewise, not only can natural gas be used as an instant legacy effect killer, while advancing batteries via natural gas hybrids, but it could also help kick start a hydrogen infrastructure for fuel cell vehicles.

Wouldn’t such diversity, such competition, be good?

What? Is that too quickly disruptive to the status quo? Ensuring the viability of the conventional, gas-guzzling US auto industry is more important than rebuilding a new US auto industry around clean foreign oil independence and a long term plan to a domestic, renewable energy paradigm? Is a comprehensive plan to fight foreign oil dependence anti-American?

If we step back and look at the big picture, shouldn’t the goal – and America’s best plan forward – be the quickest, cleanest path to foreign oil independence and CO2 emission reductions, period?

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