LPG opinions - What's stopping people converting?

wayneL said:

Depends where you live. If you can get LPG 70% cheaper, it's worth it. I haven't seen it 70% cheaper for years... more like 40-50% cheaper last place I lived in Oz, making it only marginal and not worth the hassle.

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At the moment in sydney LPG is steady at 69.9 cents,.... where petrol is hiting highs of $1.72...

tech/a said:

Dont know about that.
I have had diesel trucks with over 1 mill km on them and never pulled down.
Never seen an LPG run motor come near to that.

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Next time you jump in a taxi check how many km's are on the clock,... alot are not far off a million k's,... But even if you did have to do so work on the engine the fact that the fuel savings are so big you will still be way ahead.

If LPG didn't stack up then the taxi's wouldn't use it.

The ford e-gas 6 cyl motor has the same peak torgue as petrol but a few less kilowatts power, the station wagon holds enough LPG to drive in city traffic for over 700km per fill, it makes good business sense to use LPG, what else can I say?

Tysonboss1 said:

Next time you jump in a taxi check how many km's are on the clock,... alot are not far off a million k's,... But even if you did have to do so work on the engine the fact that the fuel savings are so big you will still be way ahead.

If LPG didn't stack up then the taxi's wouldn't use it.

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I guess a lot depends on the use of the vehicle too. The taxi example at the fuel prices quoted is a no-brainer.

But step up into say a 4 tonne delivery vehicle... you'll never see petrol/LPG use in that instance. Diesel is the no-brainer there.

Somewhere in between the equation intersects.

wayneL said:

I guess a lot depends on the use of the vehicle too. The taxi example at the fuel prices quoted is a no-brainer.

But step up into say a 4 tonne delivery vehicle... you'll never see petrol/LPG use in that instance. Diesel is the no-brainer there.

Somewhere in between the equation intersects.

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yeah,.. horses for courses I guess

Bloveld said:

I could never see the point of buying a fuel injected vehicle and then basically putting a carby on it to use gas.
Steve

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You don't need to wait for DGI Bloveld, as the gas is piped just upstream of your throttle body (EFI car) and a servo motor in the gas line will be operated by the gas ECU depending on your oxygen sensors feedback.

EFI and LPG are made for each other.

Wouldn't have anything else on my work car (>800k's a week).

Also, as Tyson mentioned LPG doesn't break your oil down, foul your plugs, wipe your cylinder walls on cold starts etc etc- hence taxi's (falcons anyway) have regularly seen a million k's prior to requiring a rebuild.

Love it.

jtb said:

hence taxi's (falcons anyway) have regularly seen a million k's prior to requiring a rebuild.Love it.

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and because their falcons of course

It looks like diesels benefit from having a little lpg injected into the air intake. Better power and economy being reported by some users.
Steve

wayneL said:

But step up into say a 4 tonne delivery vehicle... you'll never see petrol/LPG use in that instance. Diesel is the no-brainer there.

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No So, what of the 10-20 tonne buses running on natural gas, using converted diesels engines

TechA you may have ridden in one of them as these are local 2 you.
http://www.transport.sa.gov.au/environment/air_greenhouse/bus_greening.asp


Advantages of using natural gas are

• lower cost compared to diesel
• lower emissions compared to equivalent diesel buses (especially particulates, NOx, CO and HC when using catalytic converter)
• lower engine noise levels
• use of local fuel resulting in less reliance on imported oil
• reduction in Australia’s trade deficit

80% less carbon monoxide
59% less hydrocarbons
89% less nitrogen oxide
95% less particulate matter
with 50% less noise

wayneL, you are not correct about using gas in a "4 tonne delivery vehicle".

In fact, Wesfarmers are conducting trials on using LNG in their heavy duty transport fleet, and other heavy duty transport companies are also considering it. As for being a no brainer, I think you will find that LNG becomes part of the heavy duty transport fleet in Australia within a matter of years, if not now as in the case of Wesfarmers.

You might also want to think about buying shares in Wesfarmers, as their ideas on heavy duty transport have the potential to make Wesfarmers larger than some of the multi-national oil companies. You might find in the future, that Wesfarmers will have the entire supply chain for gas powered vehicles within their reach. If I worked for Wesfarmers, that would be my goal, anyway.

But back on the topic about converting to LNG; I know a lot of people have converted to LNG but my view is that I think I will sidestep the LPG route. I believe the near term future should be to go straight to CNG powered vehicles. If I could buy one now, I probably would. Let me put the arguments in point fashion because there are lots of things to consider when using CNG:-

1) As I said above, heavy duty vehicles are already using natural gas, albeit in the higher energy density form of LNG. But it's still the same stuff. Why use gas? Because it is much cheaper than diesel, much cleaner (from an environmental view), provides less engine wear, and in the form on LNG can allow large distance travel. Wesfarmers are have already commissioned a small scale LNG plant at Kwinana, and are looking to install mini LNG plants all over the country.

2) As for motor vehicles, they way to go here is purchase factory made CNG vehicles rather than do the conversion. It willl be cheaper to buy the factory made vehicle, and besides it is a totally engineered and integrated vehicle. Problem in Australia is, where to buy one? As far as I know it is not possible at the moment. Honda make one (Civic GX) as does Toyota (Camry) but they are not available in Australia yet. This is where we need to get those dumb politicans such as krudd a parret, er garret, off there fat ar.....s, and do something real. Instead of of swanning around at talkfests, or taxing the blood out of people with this stupid ETS, they should be pressuring and motivating car companies to introduce this technology into Australia. The polies really are dumb people, but dont get me going, I digress.

3) Yes, OK CNG cars do not have the same range as petrol (its about 1/3 to 1/2 currently. But when you look at it, CNG is a perfect short term solution to city driving. And when Wesfarmers, or a company like that, set up a distribution hub, CNG will be viable for a most country (except remote) travel as well.

4) Now for the big advantage with CNG. For city drivers where there is a town gas distribution network, you can fill up at home overnight. There is a home fill up unit (Phill) available in the USA and Canada right now that can fill up your tank overnight. I understand this unit is going to be introduced into Australia very shortly. A bit expensive to install (maybe around $3-4K) and will need government assistance/rebates to get going. Plus may need some upgrade to town gas distribution networks, especially if everyone takes it up - more government help required. But that's what the're supposed to be there for.

So the jigsaw is almost there. We need the car companies to be prodded into supplying CNG cars to the Australian market. Why didn't krudd push this instead of giving away $35mill to Toyota for a technology that will probably not be viable long term? I cannot see hybrid cars as being the solution short term, let alone long term. And the money should have gone to component vehicle infrastructure and smart ideas rather then a component assembler (ie Toyota). The other thing krudd and parret should do is introduce rebates for CNG home fill up units, and remember to unshackle yourself from ALP dogma of envy and punishment of the wealthy ($150K per year is rich???? and those filthy rich people dont work either, and they obviously dont pollute). Yeah, I know the great unwashed Australia think krudd, parret, swan, giblet, etc, are really nice people. But really they are proving that they couldnt organise a p...up in a pub, let alone solve the fuel crisis/waste of materials/sustainability/greenhouse gas issue thing. Show some leadership you dicks, introduce CNG vehicle technology into Australia. Off me soapbox now.

Yes, until hydrogen powered vehicles (either internal combustion, or fuel cell) are available, using hydrogen generated by nuclear or fusion reactors situated in integrated chlor alkali & petrochemical industrial centres is available, I reckon CNG is the way to go.

So guys, there is a window of opportunity here. Go CNG, and you will get really cheap fuel for a few years until the parasite polies jack up the fuel tax on natural gas. And that is going to be really interesting to see how they do it, because they will also be taxing fuel used to cook the evening meal. That should go down well.

Buddy, isn`t LNG only for transporting/moving the gas (it`s cooled) and then has to be changed back to natural gas for use.
It is only liquefied for transporting.

I wonder if they'll want to convert these??

Ford seems fairly proud of the fuel economy on it's new V8.

http://www.fpv.com.au/fpv-range/gt/overview.aspx

The GT is powered by the upgraded 5.4-litre Boss V8 engine, producing 315kW of power at 6,500rpm and 551Nm of torque at 4,750rpm. Most importantly, the increased power does not compromise on fuel economy and in automatic guise; the GT boasts fuel economy figures of 14L/100km (ADR 81/01) a decrease in fuel consumption of 4.8 percent over the previous BF MKII model.

:knightrid

Wysiwyg said:

Buddy, isn`t LNG only for transporting/moving the gas (it`s frozen) and then has to be changed back to natural gas for use.
It is only liquefied for transporting.

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W, yes you are correct, although the gas is not "frozen", it's in a liquid state. Wesfarmers are building these mini LNG plants, to enable the gas to be transported to other sites (without using a pipeline). Those sites are currently power stations (what a waste of gas, anyway............) and hubs for gas powered trucks, and maybe even trains. My understanding of the heavy vehicles is that they actually have LNG on board as the fuel source. I think they are using the Cummins Westport ISL G engine.

This country has an abundance of natural gas but not much oil. If we are going to be a smart country (now where have I heard that before?), we can move to a gas driven economy relatively easily and quickly. It can be a combination of LPG (although that cannot be the overall solution), LNG & CNG (and of course oil based fuels will still be around for quite some time). At least in the short term, until the science and technology catches up with other long term viable solutions. But above all, it will need leadership from government, and quite frankly the current one has demonstrated that they are not the one.

The major reason I havnt yet converted is that it voids my manufactorer warranty ....... and I dont currently do enough klms to benefit from voiding this warrantly and save enough on LPG price .....


Seems my equation has the potential to change rapidly so we will see !

tysonboss1 said:

At the moment in sydney LPG is steady at 69.9 cents,.... where petrol is hiting highs of $1.72...

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Similar for Brisbane.. ULP $1.519 L .. LPG steady 68.9c. Massive difference.

So the jigsaw is almost there. We need the car companies to be prodded into supplying CNG cars to the Australian market. Why didn't krudd push this instead of giving away $35mill to Toyota for a technology that will probably not be viable long term? I cannot see hybrid cars as being the solution short term, let alone long term.

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Not many major manufacturers are doing it for passenger vehicles, and god forbid our manufacturers to do anything innovative! Most of the cars "made" here are really just parted from the overseas parts bin and assembled here, so I can see the reluctance on their side.

CNG has some problems, in terms of efficiency it's energy per mass is a fair bit lower than LPG. It goes something like Diesel > Petrol > LPG > CNG... CNG is methane, whereas LPG is propane & butane, so there are some differences.

Ideally you'd have CNG/electric hybrid.. perfectly possible, and could result in costs of literally $10 a week for many hundreds of kilometers. Of course gumbyment wouldn't collect many taxes then - can't see them being that keen (this is the very sad thing about the western economies these days).

There is some hope though, I read something over in the US the other day regarding CNG being considered over there. So no doubt if they lead, we'll follow CNG is also utilised heavily in South America - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_natural_gas

Korea is also big on LPG apparently, and a hybrid LPG/electric will be released over there soon, and talk is that it will be sold here. That may be the best for the moment unless CNG is pushed.

jtb said:

hence taxi's (falcons anyway) have regularly seen a million k's prior to requiring a rebuild.

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If it were compared to any piece of industrial machinery we'd routinely see 6 million km for the vehicle life before a major rebuild and the standard servie (ie check the oil, not necessarily replace it) would be 100,000 km.

Diesel engines in power stations, ships, locomotives etc routinely last for decades, often running thousands of hours per year or even 24/7.

That's not an argument against LPG, I'm just saying that car engines (and for that matter the entire car) are in general mass produced throw away items not built to last. 20 years old and that's about it usually. Given that it spends most of that time sitting there doing nothing, that's not really a very long lifespan.

gfresh said:

Korea is also big on LPG apparently, and a hybrid LPG/electric will be released over there soon, and talk is that it will be sold here. That may be the best for the moment unless CNG is pushed.

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Im in Korea at the moment and have to say that diesel is probably the fuel of choice, especially where i am as there are so many trucks.

LPG is slowly coming into vougue, but i wouldnt say anymore so than in Aus

Bloveld said:

It looks like diesels benefit from having a little lpg injected into the air intake. Better power and economy being reported by some users.
Steve

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Dual fuel engine. Run up to 93% gas and the remainder diesel - both fuels used at the same time. Acheives efficiency higher than a straight gas engine but the downside is needing two fuels at once. Usually used for stationary applications - power generation etc.

Buddy said:

W, yes you are correct, although the gas is not "frozen", it's in a liquid state. Wesfarmers are building these mini LNG plants, to enable the gas to be transported to other sites (without using a pipeline). Those sites are currently power stations (what a waste of gas, anyway............)

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The great problem with gas is that we're so busy burning it all for power generation that there won't be enough left to use it to replace petrol and diesel as well.

Industry may well talk of 100 years of reserves etc. But look at how much they're planning to export plus the boom in gas-fired power generation and it's nowhere near such an abundant resource relative to proposed extraction rates.

Depending on which study you look at, we're somewhere around 20 years from peak gas in Australia. Quite a few others have already peaked - for example US, Canada, UK, NZ.

I think we'll see the future of gas pricing as that of a petrol substitute rather than the coal substitute that many see it as today. That'll give us another energy price crisis - gas and electricity for home and business use as well as transport fuels.

Smurf1976 said:

Dual fuel engine. Run up to 93% gas and the remainder diesel - both fuels used at the same time. Acheives efficiency higher than a straight gas engine but the downside is needing two fuels at once. Usually used for stationary applications - power generation etc.

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Plenty of diesel vehicles are getting LPG injection. Mostly 4X4 but some commercial trials. And its primarily diesel with a small amount of LPG injected.