[Terrapreta] charcoal and natural gas - new auto fueling setup

[Kelpie Wilson]

Here is another great thing that charcoal can do.
I wonder if it is possible that syngas produced by pyrolisis can be 
cleaned up, compressed, and stored back in the charcoal it came from? 
Or more likely in other charcoal that is formulated to the correct 
specs. Either way, this points to a possibly much more efficient use 
of biomass for transport than ethanol.

-Kelpie


<http://www.enn.com/top_stories/commentary/27757>http://www.enn.com/top_stories/commentary/27757 


<b>Adsorbed Natural Gas: Fuel Storage Solution?</b>
Environmental News Network

Wednesday 19 December 2007

Here's a quiz to test your green car knowledge. Which is considered 
the greenest, most environmentally friendly, highway capable car sold 
by a major manufacturer in the US?

If you thought Toyota Prius you'd be wrong. According to the American 
Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE), as well as the US 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it's actually Honda's Civic GX 
NGV, or Natural Gas Vehicle. The EPA has given the car that 
distinction since 1998 when it was first introduced, at that time to 
fleets only. (The ACEEE has done the same but only since 2000 when it 
was first offered to consumers.)

Why the Civic and not the Prius? Greenness is not just about CO2 
emissions and fuel economy, it's also about smog-producing 
pollutants. As a fuel, natural gas just burns cleaner than gasoline. 
(Which is why you can boil your potatoes on your gas-fired kitchen 
range without dying.)

In cars and trucks, noxious pollutants from natural gas are 60-90 
percent less than petrol. And there is a greenhouse gas emission 
benefit as well, natural gas has 30-40 percent less carbon dioxide in 
its exhaust stream.

So between low smog-producing pollutants and low greenhouse gas 
emissions, natural gas used in vehicles, mostly in its compressed 
form - CNG (compressed natural gas) - is pretty green stuff.

If it's so wonderful, why hasn't natural gas taken off as a green 
fuel? For a time, along with propane (aka LPG), it was the darling of 
the green car community. Then hybrids came along giving better fuel 
economy than natural gas.

Further, at least for consumers, there are other concerns. Not 
everyone is enthusiastic about filling a vehicle with pressurized gas 
which requires slightly more expertise to pump safely than gasoline. 
 From an engineering standpoint, too, there are challenges. The 
robustly-built pressurized cylinders are hard to squeeze into the 
confines of an automobile body, There's a physical limit as how many 
can be squeezed into the trunk of car, like the Civic.

And there are cost, weight and safety considerations as well for 
those tanks which hold the gas under high pressure. The list price of 
a Civic GX NGV is about two thousand more than the Civic hybrid 
which, in part, may reflect the cost of the CNG storage tanks.

Now there's an emerging storage technology that should make natural 
gas aficionados perk up. It's called Adsorbed Natural Gas (ANG), and 
it's surprising simple.

It goes something like this. If you fill a standard high pressure CNG 
cylinder with nanoporous material such as activated charcoal (the 
same stuff used in fish tank filters) the cylinder will hold MORE 
natural gas at high pressure than a tank would hold without being 
filled with the material.

Or, in more interesting and game-changing scenarios, the standard 
high pressure tank can hold the SAME amount of natural gas at LESS 
pressure, making filling the tank much easier, or ANG tanks can be 
free-shape containers since the pressures are a lot less and the 
cylindrical shape is not necessary.

To recap the ANG technology, with nanoporous material (that fish tank 
activated charcoal) more natural gas can be stored at high pressure, 
the same amount stored at less pressure, and or tanks can be designed 
with a free form shape.

It's the last part of story that should perk up ears like a dog 
listening to a strange noise. Less pressure for adequate storage 
means high pressure cylinders are no longer needed. A lightly 
pressurized natural gas tank can look like just about anything and be 
fitted into the same location as a standard gasoline tank in a car. 
Tanks can be bigger, have greater volume and hold more gas, thus 
giving more driving range. Further, the low pressure tanks, being 
easier to fill make fueling infrastructure less costly. (High 
pressure pumps are expensive.)

One company working with the technology is Energtek of Valley Stream 
New York. That company has announced it is working with the 
Department of Energy of the Republic of the Philippines, along with 
the Philippines National Oil Company Exploration Corporation, to 
build an ANG three-wheeler in the hopes of commercializing the 
technology for two and three wheeled vehicles throughout Asia to help 
clean the air.

There's more to the simple technology than just better tanks in cars. 
It can also be used to store natural gas at filling stations reducing 
the cost of these facilities.

Dreaming a bit, too; fuel cell vehicles could use ANG technology to 
store natural gas, not hydrogen. Some think that fueling a fuel cell 
vehicle with natural gas reformed on board into hydrogen would be 
easier than storing hydrogen itself. If ANG made it simpler, easier, 
and cheaper to store natural gas then it would also help move fuel 
cell vehicles forward.

A few other good points about natural gas. There's more of it 
worldwide than oil. The US produces about 87 percent of its own 
natural gas. Much of the world's natural gas is flared off and 
wasted. Further, the main component of natural gas - methane - is 
being made all the time. Check your local landfill site, sewage 
treatment plant, or the septic tank in your yard for sources. And 
while natural gas filling stations are rare, Honda offers its Phill 
home refueling station.

There's a downside to natural gas, of course. If we suddenly started 
using it in cars and trucks on a wide scale the demand would 
increase, along with imports. But it is feasible that the greater 
efficiency of fuel cells would lessen that demand, at least for a while.

Still, there's lots of natural gas on the planet, we're making more 
all the time, and now there may be a really simple and cheap way to store it.

<b>Links:</b>

Energtek
<http://www.energtek.com>http://www.energtek.com

Honda Civic GX NGV
<http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-gx>http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-gx

Kelpie Wilson
PO Box 1444
Cave Junction, OR 97523

home office phone: 541-592-3083
cell (used only when traveling) 213-925-1517

For an archive of my writing and reviews of my novel Primal Tears, 
visit www.kelpiewilson.com

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