Will CNG ever be mainstream?

[hollywood]

I actually think that if CNG vehicles will survive, we will move away from refueling at a public station, and move to CNG refueling on demand at home.

We already have natural gas plumbed to most houses, and air conditioners units are gas compressors. So fundamentally we have the technology for residential on demand CNG generation.

I think that’s the way it will go, if it does go mainstream, it will be with on-demand CNG generation.

I used to think that was the future for CNG powered vehicles.

This was back when PHILL was being introduced by Honda. You had a simple CNG compressor set up in your home to refuel your vehicle overnight. However, the PHILL system never caught on and the company went bankrupt. When you've got Honda motors backing your play and you get nowhere, that says a lot about your potential future.

(Just checking, but it appears that Honda intentionally killed the company behind the compressor and abandoned the CNG market. I knew the attorney that was running the program in California, trying to build consumer knowledge and demand and I was kind of shocked to see how Honda killed it, after spending years building it up.)

BTW, for those slamming San Francisco for banning natural gas, you may want to check out what happens to NG infrastructure during earthquakes. From a safety standpoint, having gas lines erupting and exploding during earthquakes is not exactly something that makes a lot of sense in that city.

 

[gipraw]

Earthquakes have zero to do with why they banned it. The decision was based on lowering greenhouse emissions and lowering costs. The lowering costs reason is laughable.