The U.S. is facing a new era in natural gas. This is a golden opportunity to reverse the dependency on foreign oil. In a few years, the country will exceed Russia and Saudi Arabia, and become the biggest gas producer in the world. This expansion in the global market is due to the shale gas – a new, abundant, cheap and national resource.
The challenge of natural gas in the U.S. is not only the production, but the development of infrastructure needed to supply the market. In the future, the U.S. will feature more domestic heating with natural gas, more industries producing goods thanks to natural gas, more electricity generated by natural gas and more vehicles fueled with natural gas.

NATURAL GAS

Trasportation Compressed Natural Gas To provide adequate driving range for a vehicle, CNG is stored in cylinders at a pressure of 3,000 to 3,600 pounds per square inch. A CNGpowered vehicle gets about the same fuel economy as a conventional gasoline vehicle on a gasoline gallon equivalent basis. A GGE equals about 5.66 pounds of CNG. CNG is used in light, medium, and heavy-duty applications. Liquefied Natural Gas LNG is produced by purifying natural gas and super-cooling it to -260°F to turn it into a liquid. Because it must be kept at cold temperatures, LNG is stored in double-walled, vacuum-insulated pressure vessels. LNG is good for trucks needing a longer range because liquid is more dense than gas (CNG) and therefore more energy can be stored by volume in a given tank. LNG is typically used in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles; a GGE equals about 1.5 gallons of LNG.

Vehicles There are an increasing number of manufacturers that produce natural gas vehicles. This includes cars and heavy vehicles. Today many companies that have fleets have decided to convert to, Natural Gas due to the evolution of storage tanks. Heavy duty trucks can now range over 400 miles. The incremental cost for a Natural Gas engine can be paid back in 1.5 years. The increasing number of NG Natural Gas stations is making Natural Gas more available to the trucking market nationwide.

Summary   In theUnited States there are about 140,000 natural gas vehicles fueled by about 1,000 public Natural Gas stations. Compare this figure to 180,000 for the conventional stations, it is forecasted in that heavy and light duty vehicles can have a large advantage due to the cheap price of Natural Gas. The US holds several incentive programs to the develop Natural Gas stations and vehicle conversions to accelerate the adoption of this fuel. Other countries have more developed natural gas vehicle markets. In the European Union, Italy is the leader with over 700,000 vehicles. Other leaders are in South America. Both Argentina and Brazil hold have more than 1,500,000 vehicles each.