| Author |
Message |
ChuckSpeed (24.70.95.206)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 5:06 pm: | |
Maybe I'm alone on this one, but I hate to think that the diesel engine is slowly being replaced with these natural gas units. I sort of like smell and sound of the real deal. Anyone see these in their area? |
TomNPat (68.137.169.120)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 7:12 pm: | |
Guess I'm old enough to be disappointed in a lot of things! Yes, the fact that diesel was very clean unitl very few years ago and is now carcinogenic is one that I doubt. Yes, CNG is supposed to be great, but how long ago did the government insist on MTBE in gasoline? Now it kills fish, etc.
Was told by a transit driver in San Benito county that their CNG bus couldn't make the runs that the diesel one did because it took all night to fuel. They just bought a second CNG bus with the help of the federal government.
If you are disappointed to see the environmental special interest groups getting the government to fund their experiments, speculations, and damage, then, yes, you are not alone.
TomNPat |
gary Stadler (68.7.217.217)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 7:24 pm: | |
Oh well... I guess it's give and take. I certainly don't mind NOT being caught in a cloud of black smoke at every stoplight anymore... diesels are clean only IF the mechanics set them up right, which at least around here they usually didn't. CNG busses have made things in San Diego a lot cleaner and they are MUCH more pleasant to follow than the old diesels used to be.
Another bonus, you get to see a lot more engine fires nowadays... for some reason the CNG busses here seem to catch on fire a LOT. It's actually kind of a running joke amongst the local truck centers!! No one gets hurt but the bus, which is usually totalled in the engine compartment...
That said, I LOVE my Cummins 220!!! |
Voodoo Lounge (66.159.217.167)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 23, 2004 - 8:04 pm: | |
We diesel fanatics can get on the "green" wagon by using biodiesel, though I haven't found a convenient local source here in the Mojave desert.
The fun part about CNG is carrying 200 cu.ft. of highly explosive gas at 3000 psi. While the tanks are supposed to be bullet proof those fires Gary mentions can get real exciting...BOOM! |
David & Lorna Schinske (Davidschinske) (67.216.140.238)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 9:10 am: | |
We have a company here in the Chattanooga Valley that makes the Hybrid Diesel engines (they don't sell to private folks). Some Chattanooga Transit buses are hybrid engines (diesel/nat gas?). The hybrid ones that are say it on the back but I try to avoid getting behind one!:D I've not gotten behind one climbing a mountain but Schwan's Frozen Foods trucks are LP gas and the driver's all complain they have no power to climb up the mountain we live on. For "alternative" fuels to catch on, the vehicles will have to be able to travel on roads that are not flat! They did a study in Europe and it turned out that the smokey, smelly diesel exhaust isn't what causes the "polution" that is always referred to (that's just "nose polution"). The stuff you don't see from the gas powered cars is what is so dangerous. The newer "efficent" gas trucks & cars generated far more "polution" than the older diesel trucks & cars. The solution would be to develop a fuel that is renewable and not dependent on a decreasing supply of fossel fuel (LP is a fossel fuel by-product). Super efficent engines would be a start. Did you hear that Oregon is placing an extra tax on those Hybrid-electric cars? They claim they will lose too much revenue from gas it they catch on! |
BrianMCI96A3 (65.40.154.171)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 10:00 am: | |
Working for an entity that has employed alternate fuel vehicles for some time now, I can safely say that CNG is NOT the wave of the future EXCEPT for municipalities.
CNG and Propane both have less energy ounce for ounce than gasoline... which is itself has quite a bit less energy in comparison to diesel... AND is why those Schwann Trucks have no power to climb hills.
Diesel will be around for quite a while yet.
Having witnessed the change-over in the last 35 years, I can tell you without reservation that today's computer controlled cars & trucks are not only far more efficient but far LESS polluting than the carburated cars and non-computerized trucks of the past.
Brian |
Telestar (142.59.79.109)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 10:44 am: | |
Before I start, let me appologize for being a little negative in the use of a fraise (weapons of mass destruction.) These CNG vehicles as far as I am concerned are an accident waiting to happen and in the wrong hands maybe not an accident. Ever watch a 25 pound fully loaded LP tank explode? Devastating! especially inside a building (which I think in most States and provinces are illegal. What about insurance? while I believe that most large companies who manage and run fleets are self insured (collision, not public liability) what will it cost to insure these time bombs? What really gets to me is that all this modern stuff that makes things run better (not!) and last longer (not!) look prettier (I think so) Safer well yes to a point. If you want to drive a 1953 bus and follow the rules of the road it is pretty safe and has been for many years just as safe as lets say a 1980 transit bus. Major manufacturing companies are designing vehicles with mega sensors that control this and control that for you! the driver. However, they forget to put a sensor in every vehicle that is built that tells you a light bulb in the brake system (a warning to others that in bad weather or at night you are stopping), but they will put one in there that tells you it's time for expensive servicing. Where do most vehicles get hit or hit with? the front! having said that why would manufacturere put everythig up there? Batteries, sensors, computers,transmissions, and final drive. I wonder if some of these manufactuers own insurance companies. My point is this, not much thought goes into the general safety of the working public when these CNG things hit the road. They are just as vulnerable to an accident as any other vehicle, but at the same time if an explosion occures during that accident your chances are very good for being burried on the moon,along with others. Who pays for all of this high tech novelty stuff and gadgetry which is forced into our vehicles? You! and Me! the high insurance rate payers! Oh and Yes! I am dissapointed in the conversions to CNG at least untill they convice me that it is safer, cleaner and more economical for the consumer and not the manufacturers |
Richard Bowyer (Drivingmisslazy) (24.196.191.70)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 12:16 pm: | |
Several years ago I was at Valley Detroit Diesel in the LA area. They had literally dozens of LA transit busses that they were converting to Diesel from either LPG or CNG. (don't remember which). Anyhow the President told me that LPG/CNG was an idea whose time had not come and the whole fleet was being converted back to diesel.
Richard |
John Feld (Deacon) (150.199.209.34)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 1:51 pm: | |
While in Tampa, FL a few weeks ago, the local news was doing a piece on the city converting some of its fleet of trucks and buses to Bio-Diesel, using the french fry oil. They clained that it would only cost about 7 cents per gallon more than diesel! Also claimed was that it was a new technology!
Bottom line, there's grant money to be made with these 'experiments', not in the long term use of such. Most grants are good for 5-10 years, then abandoned for 'new' ideas, and then started all over again. LPG/CNG is just another scam on the taxpayer (you), not intended to really replace anything in the long run.
Thants my belief and I'm sticking to it. There are still too many 'caped' gas/oil wells to rigg the prices of energy in this country. Its all about money, and power, those with the money have the power.
John 4104 & 4106 |
Henry R. Bergman, Jr. (Henryofcj) (63.224.197.10)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, January 24, 2004 - 2:58 pm: | |
Bakerfield CA has the third worse air in the country. Thus they also have a lot of CNG transit buses.
My brother showed me a couple that had blown up and burned to the axles. No one hurt. Zero to fireball in thirty seconds.
He also said the next batch of fire engines the fire departments gets MAY be CNG fueled. A weird looking pumper to say the least.
Progress is progress I guess. Wonder what we will have in the next 20 years or soosss. Any diesels at all? CROWNS FOREVER!!! |
Phil Dumpster (24.16.189.48)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 4:06 am: | |
CNG engines also only last 50,000 miles in city transit service. Then you have to replace pistons, liners and rings. Valves and valve seats have to be ground down, and replaced every two or three engine teardown cycles.
LPG works great in fleets and is much safer than CNG, but they don't have the power a modern diesel engine has.
Those "hybrid" diesel engines are known as PING engines - Pilot Injection Natural Gas. They run on a combination of CNG and diesel. Detroit made a version of the 6V92TA that used that crazy idea.
There is a renewable energy source which doesn't depend on fossil fuels, and it is compatible with the current installed base of diesel engines - it's called Biodiesel. All fossil fuel is composed of (pardon the coming pun) is the remaining hydrocarbons of decomposed life.
Consider this cycle - long before humans roamed the planet, there was life here. Things grow, live, die and decompose. The decomposed stuff sinks father into the planet and new life grows on top of it. This goes on for millions of years.
Along come us humans, we create technology to extract these hydrocarbons from deep within the planet. At first, it's done without concern for conservation (methane, ethane, propane and butane used to be considered waste products and were burned at the wellheads) but as demand goes up and new uses are found, less is wasted.
It's a finite resource, and the debate is out as to whether the end is within this century or the next.
However, you can extract hydrocarbons from vegetation and burn it directly in a larger diesel engine. In the smaller ones, you have to separate out the light esters through a process called transesterification, which yields biodiesel for the product and glycerine as a byproduct. Either way, you are still running on hydrocarbons, just not those that were part of the life cycle millions of years ago.
Oh, by the way, in a very loose sense of the word, anything that burns is technically solar power, in that the energy to form these hydrocarbons came from the sun. It's just stored in that form until you release it by burning it.
Since it is easy to make oil from vegetation, most likely when the planet runs out of fossil petroleum alcohol will replace gasoline, vegetable oils will be used in heavier diesel engines and lighter ones will use biodiesel. It isn't being down now because it is cheaper to import crude oil, but it remains an option for the future. |
Doug Dickinson (Dougd470) (24.207.240.13)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 9:20 am: | |
NJ Transit tried CNG many years ago and it was not very successful. I understand they are using it again and having better results.
I would not worry about diesel fuel going away very soon. The OTR truckers need the BTU content of diesel to get the HP necessary to haul 80,000 lbs at breakneck speed. It takes HP to get over the rockies!
I don't have a problem with the government sponsoring these "learning experiences" in mass transit. That's how we test alternative fuels and find out what does and does not work. When folks like us get the retired coaches, we may have to do an engine swap, or re-fit it to conventional diesel, but that's all part of the fun, right?
Doug
St Louis MC9 |
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