Unit

 1.  CNG  Vehicles  in  History  

Objectives  :  

After completing this unit the students should be able to

1- Define the term "CNG" and describe its sources.

2- Describe the process of CNG extraction.

3- Describe how is CNG stored?

4- Identify natural gas uses in the United States and across the globe.

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1.1  Introduction.  

CNG is the abbreviation for Compressed Natural Gas, which is natural gas that has been compressed in
such a way that it is lighter than air. CNG is a fossil fuel that is comprised of hydrocarbon gases and
vapor, which contains mostly methane. It is a by-product of coal mining, or comes from crude oil
production.

Fig.1.1  

The conventional method of natural gas distribution would require fuel to be transported via pipelines but
the compression of natural gas allows CNG to be carried through pressure vessels instead. CNG being one
of the two forms of natural gases (the other being Liquefied Natural Gas which is used mostly for heavy
duty vehicles and fleet) and is becoming the alternative energy to fuel cars, buses, pick-up trucks and
other vehicles. CNG is safe and clean, non-toxic and non-corrosive. It is also tasteless, colorless and
odorless.

Fig  1.2  Natural  Gas  (Extraction-­Distribution)

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Natural gas is a widely used, relatively clean, and readily available fuel. It is all around us, heating our
homes, generating electricity, and being used in everything from the manufacture of chemical fertilizer to
plastics. It has been said that it is “our second most important energy source after oil” (Darley 2005). But
despite its many advantages as a transportation fuel, natural gas has largely failed to develop a strong
niche in motor vehicle production. Though it has been used to fuel cars for decades, it still remains
amongst the relatively cheap alternatives to petroleum.

Natural gas reserves could serve as a bridge to future energy technologies.

 1.2  Where  does  CNG  come  from?  

According to the CNG briefing on local governments and energy independence by the National
Association of Counties, CNG is produced from 3 types of wells and renewable sources. These wells are
natural gas-and-condensate wells, oil wells and coal bed methane wells. However, water or sewerage
treatment and landfill gas produce fossil fuel in lesser quantity, which makes up the most of the available
natural gas.

Fig  1.3  Methane  Extraction  

CNG is a fossil fuel; meaning it is produced when oil and gas deposits that have been trapped under soil
are placed under the transforming power of temperature. These oil and gas deposits are actually the
remains of animals and plants millions of years old, buried deep beneath seas and lakes, that have

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undergone extreme pressure over the of passing of time. So, it is no surprise that CNG actually comes
from the ground.  

 1.3  How  is  CNG  stored?  

Natural gas is able to be stored for an imprecise period of time. The natural gas storage activity such as
the exploration, production, and transportation takes time. The natural gas that reaches its destination
however is not always needed immediately; therefore it is injected into underground storage facilities.
These storage facilities are known to be located near market centers, which do not have a ready supply of
locally, produced natural gas.

Fig  1.4  CNG  Storage  Tank  

Basically, natural gas is known to be a seasonal fuel as the demand for natural gas is usually higher during
the winter; this may be partly because it is used for heating residential and commercial settings. Stored
natural gas plays a major role in ensuring that any excess supply delivered during the summer months is
able to meet the increased demand during the winter months. However, it can’t be denied that the demand
for natural gas during the summer months had also been increasing due to electric generation via gas fired
power plants. Stored natural gas also plays a role in ensuring against any unforeseen circumstances such
as accidents or natural disasters that may affect the production or delivery of natural gas.

Besides that, natural gas storage plays a vital role in maintaining the reliability of meeting regulatory
obligations, which is in turn important in meeting the demands of the consumers. Historically, natural gas
storage was just a part of the bundled product sold by the pipelines to distribution utilities. However, this
changed in 1992 prior to the introduction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) Order
636, which opened up the natural gas market to deregulation. Therefore, natural gas is now available to
anyone who is seeking to store it for commercial purposes or operational requirements. Storage was once
known to serve only as a buffer between transportation and distribution to ensure that an adequate supply
of natural gas was available for seasonal demand shifts, and unexpected demand surges. But now, natural
gas storage is also used by producers and marketers as a speculative tool where they store gas when they
believe prices will rise in the future and then sell it when it reaches those levels.

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 Fig  1.5  Natural  Gas  Spherical  Storage  Tanks  

The most important type of gas storage is known to be in the underground reservoirs. There are basically
three main types of underground natural gas storage facilities, which consist of depleted gas reservoirs,
salt cavern reservoirs and aquifer reservoirs. Each of these types posses a different physical and economic
characteristic, which determines the suitability of a particular type of storage for a given application.
Depleted gas reservoirs are the most well-known form of underground storage which consist the
formations of natural gas fields which have produced all their economically recoverable gas. The
exhausted reservoir formation has the capability of holding injected natural gas. Facilities such as these
are economically attractive as it allows the re-use of an already developed reservoir, which means it
allows the use of the extraction, and distribution equipment, which was left over when the field was
productive and hence is able to reduce the cost of converting a depleted reservoir into a storage facility.
Consequently, depleted reservoirs are known to be cheap, easy to develop and operate among these three
types of underground storage.

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 Fig1.6  NG  is  simply  injected  into  underground  

The suitability of a depleted reservoir as an economically viable storage facility is determined by the
geographical and geological factors. Geographically, depleted reservoirs have to be relatively close to
consuming regions as they must also be close to transportation infrastructure, which includes trunk
pipelines and distribution systems. As for the geological factor, it is preferred that depleted reservoir
formations have high porosity and permeability. The porosity of the formation determines the amount of
natural gas that it may hold, while its permeability measures the rate at which natural gas flows through
the formation and ultimately determines the rate of injection and withdrawal of gas from storage. In order
to maintain working pressures in a depleted reservoir, about 50 percent of the natural gas in the formation
has to be kept as cushion gas. However, depleted reservoirs that had already been filled with natural gas
and hydrocarbons do not require the injection of gas, which would become physically unrecoverable as
this is already present in the formation. This facility is believed to provide a future economic boost when
the cost of gas tends to be higher.

Besides that, an underground salt formation also offers another option for the storage of natural gas. Salt
caverns allow a very small amount of injected natural gas to escape from the storage unless it’s
specifically extracted. The wall of a salt cavern has been structural strengthen by steel, which makes it
resilient against reservoir degradation. Once a suitable salt dome is discovered and found to be suitable
for the development of a gas storage facility, it is a necessity to develop a ’salt cavern’ within the
formation. Essentially, this is done by the process of “cavern leaching”, where fresh water is pumped
down a borehole into the salt. This water tends to dissolve some of the salt in the deposit, where it is then
cycled back up the well hence leaving a large empty space where the salt used to occupy. This process is
continued until the cavern reaches the desired size. Once created, a salt cavern offers an underground
natural gas storage vessel with very high deliverability. Cushion gas requirements are known to be the
lowest of all the three storage types, as salts caverns only requires typically about 33 percent of total gas
capacity to be used as cushion gas. Salt caverns are usually much smaller compared to depleted gas
reservoir and aquifer storage facilities. A salt cavern facility usually takes up about one one-hundredth of
the acreage taken up by a depleted gas reservoir. Consequently, a salt cavern is not able to hold the large
volumes of gas necessary to meet base load storage requirements. However, deliverability from salt

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caverns is typically much higher than for either aquifers or depleted reservoirs. Therefore, this allows the
gas stored in a salt cavern to be withdrawn and replenished more readily and quickly compared to the
other types of storage facilities which is useful during emergency situations or during short terms of
unexpected demand surges.

Fig1.7 Types  of Underground  Natural  Gas  Storage Facilities  

Furthermore, aquifers are also known as natural gas storage. Aquifers can be defined as layers of
permeable rock, sand, or gravel through which ground water flows, containing enough water to supply
wells and springs. However, these water containing formations that may be reconditioned and used as
natural gas storage facilities in certain situation. These facilities are usually operated on a single annual
cycle as with depleted reservoirs. The aquifer formation has always been known for its good geological
and physical characteristic. However, it can’t be denied that considerable investment is needed for
investigating these and determining the aquifer’s suitability for natural gas storage. Once an aquifer is
determined to be suitable, the entire associated infrastructure has to be developed from scratch. This
increases the development costs. The development cost includes installation of wells, dehydration
facilities, extraction equipment, pipelines and possibly compression equipment. Aquifer storage requires
more cushion gas than depleted reservoirs, which takes up to 80% of the total gas volume. Most aquifer
storage facilities are usually developed when the price of natural gas is low as aquifer storage becomes
more expensive to develop when the price of natural gas begins to increase. Based on the fact that
developing aquifer storage requires a high cost and time consumption, it is therefore generally the least
desirable and most expensive type of natural gas storage facility.

Plenty of research is being conducted on many fronts in the gas storage field to help identify new and
improved ways to store gas. For instance, research conducted by the US Energy Department shows that
salt formations could be chilled to allow more gas to be stored and hence reduce the size of the formation
needed to be treated, and have salt extracted from it. This would help to lower the development costs of
salt formation storage facilities. Another aspect being looked at, are other formations that may hold gas.
Therefore, it’s just a matter of time before enhanced, more developed and greater economical ways to
store gas are found.

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1.4  CNG  History  in  the  World  

Some Historians believe that the Chinese may have recognized the energy potential for natural gas as
early as 900 B.C., but their first known natural gas well was drilled in 211 B.C. In later centuries, the
Chinese adapted bamboo pipelines to transport the natural gas in order to provide fuel for boiling water,
heating, and the first known instances of lighting. The Japanese dug gas wells as early as A.D. 615. More
recently, by 1626, French explorers observed indigenous people in North America igniting seeping gases
near Lake Erie. Meanwhile, natural gas was manufactured as a byproduct of coal. It was used to light
houses and streetlights in Great Britain by the late eighteenth century. In 1816, this same technology was
first implemented in the U.S. in Baltimore, but William Hart—sometimes deemed the father of natural
gas in America—dug the first shallow well to extract naturally occurring natural gas in 1821 (Speight
2007).

The history of Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs) technology is old and inconsistent. The environmental
conditions and fuel consumption issues were a focal point in recent years and natural gas has gained a
new position in the arena as a substitute for fossil fuels.

Fig1.8  Old  CNG  Vehicles  

In 1930, the US was the first country to use NGVs. Subsequently, NGV’s was prevalent in the Europe
during the world war, and the interest to use NGV rose in the early 1950s.

Fig  1.9  CNG  in  the  fifties  

In 1982, during the Canada Energy Exhibition held in Vancouver, July 1986, a body of 35 NGV
supporters formed the International Association for Natural Gas Vehicles (IANGV). In the early 1990s,

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NGV supporters set up guidelines for international commercialization of NGV (tank, Reducer, Pressure
Regulator.

Regional and national NGV associations such as Japan NGV Association (1991), Europe Natural Gas
Vehicle Association (1994), Asia Pacific Natural Gas Vehicles Association (2002) and further similar
associations in England, France, Australia, and Russia were formed.

As it can be seen in the following diagram, European plans to use CNG and have predicted that more than
27 million vehicles will be using CNG as their main fuel by 2020.

Fig1.10  CNG  forecast  

Today there are over 12 million NGVs on the road worldwide. Argentina (165,0000 NGVs), Pakistan
(155,0000 NGVs), and Brazil (142,5000 NGVs) have the largest number of NGVs in the world.

CNG is the fuel choice for drivers in Argentine, Italy, Brazil, Pakistan, India,
U. S., China, Venezuela, New Zealand, Egypt, Canada, Colombia and Germany.

The samples of advanced NGVs are shown in the following pictures.

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 Fig1.11  Modern  CNG  Vehicles  
 

1.5  The  Possibility  of  Natural  Gas-­Powered  Vehicles  

While the nascent automobile industry showed great promise around the turn of the century, large crude
oil fields had been discovered under the United States and the Middle East. Largely as a consequence of
having unearthed this vast supply of cheap, readily available fuel, the oil and automotive industries have
become inseparable. Had crude oil (petroleum fuels such as gasoline and diesel) not become the standard,
what is now commonly referred to as “alternative fuels” (including ethanol and biodiesel) may have been
the fuel of choice for the automotive industry (as, indeed, ethanol was in the earliest days, due to its being
derived from widely available fermented sugars and starches). Instead, they are relegated (and officially
categorized) to small-niche production, even as the price of crude oil has risen (Ingersoll 1996).

Today, while many alternative fuels are expensive and intensive to manufacture or are otherwise in short
supply, one widely available alternative fuel for vehicles (though also a nonrenewable fossil fuel) is
natural gas, which has been used for transportation energy needs for decades. But the fuel first gained
added attention as a result of the energy crisis and oil shortages of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and as a
feedstock or bridge to future technologies.

1.6  CNG  in  USA  

There has been much talk about the future of alternative fuel vehicles, particularly in the United States,
whose modern energy crisis has sparked renewed interest in the pursuit of new technologies for energy
independence. Natural gas may play a significant role in America’s energy future. Not only does 97
percent of the natural gas used in the United States come from North America (85 percent U.S. and 12
percent Canadian), but the Natural Gas Supply Association says there is at least a 60-year reserve
available. Natural gas could never replace standard gasoline engines—it can only stand in for a
percentage, perhaps as much as 20-30 percent, and only for a time (Woodyard 2007).

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Natural gas powers more than 12 million vehicles on the road today. Unfortunately, only 112,000 of these
are being used in the U.S today. The average growth rate in the U.S. shows a 3.7% increase per year since
2000, in contrast with a booming global growth rate of 30.6% per year.

Fig1.12  CNG  Fueling  

Expanding numbers of CNG fueling stations would allow for the increase of CNG vehicles on U.S. roads.
There are 12,000 around the world, yet the U.S. claims about 1,100. More stations will continue to be
built in America in the coming years.

However, as gasoline prices continue to rise, America’s interest in CNG is rising, and with good reason –
CNG costs about 50% less than gasoline or diesel, emits up to 90% fewer emissions than gasoline and*
there’s an abundant supply right here in America. So it’s clean, affordable abundant and found in
America.

Perhaps most interestingly, natural gas currently plays a key role in other future alternative energies, from
CNG-powered plug-in hybrids to fuel cells to hydrogen. Presently, natural gas is the largest feedstock for
natural gas production, which means that most of the hydrogen used to fill hydrogen-powered vehicles
hitting the market is a byproduct of natural gas. Incidentally, though natural gas is a nonrenewable
resource, its primary component, methane, can be derived from biomass such as sewage and landfills.

While it is possible that technologies will be developed to better acquire hydrogen from other, renewable
sources, the Natural Gas Vehicles for America organization points out that the next era of alternative fuels
has being jumpstarted by natural gas. Natural gas “represents a compelling continuum towards sustainable
energy systems in American” by bridging the gap between existing technology and future technology, and
by helping people develop the tools for working with the technology. Natural gas technology is
establishing new infrastructures for fueling, including home refueling, and advocates are developing
campaigns to encourage broader acceptance of new technologies and for training people to prepare for
them (ngvamerica.org). *Emissions reductions may vary by pollutant and make/model of vehicle.

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