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Florida has no green options for motorists

Sunday Jun 15th 2008

When one is faced with the ridiculously high prices of gasoline, one looks into other options for fueling a car.

These are the options:

Hybrid-electric

Too expensive, too slow and still relies primarily on gasoline for fuel. And you have to buy a new car to get it.

Propane

Green motorists have been running hybrid gasoline/propane cars and trucks for years. My grandfather used to fuel an old van via a system like this years ago. The advantage is that your engine will run at least twice as long on propane. The disadvantage is that the cost is similar to gasoline and burns quicker.

You don’t have to buy a new car to get this, but as said above the savings really don’t add up.

Ethanol

This is available right now. Many GM vehicles have “Flex Fuel” badges on them indicating that yes, the car can run on ethanol easily. As a matter of fact, it’s more or less a guarantee that the fuel you use to put in your car now has 10% ethanol in it already.

Check out how many ethanol stations Florida has. Yeah, very disappointing, eh?

Even if you have the option there’s nowhere to buy ethanol.

Compressed Natural Gas

This is the fuel option that will save us all and I’m not kidding. It is available just about anywhere. The problem is that not enough cars are made that run on it.

Honda makes a Civic right now that runs on CNG. And - God bless them - they even provide a kit with the car that will hook up TO YOUR HOUSE so you can fuel the car AT HOME using your existing natural gas service (many Floridians use natural gas already for heat). If I had the cash I would buy this car RIGHT NOW.

The answer IS ALREADY HERE. Many cars can be converted to CNG easily using a kit. The cost is about $1000 to $2000 to have it done properly. If you have a truck or a large car, you can use the same tank that’s used in forklifts.

Who the frig wants to invest in hydrogen cell when CNG is already here, is used every day and has a proven track record of working flawlessly?

Where can you find a CNG station in Florida?

Heh. Good luck finding one. Yeah, if you have the tank conversion you can exchange tanks once you run out - and it’s cheap - but what a pain in the ass that is to do. It’s extremely inconvenient to say the least.

There is nowhere where you can pull up in a CNG-powered car, put the nozzle to the tank and fill up. It basically doesn’t exist.

If 7-Eleven put just 20 CNG or ethanol pumps in the Tampa Bay area, they’d have cars lined around the corner waiting to fill up

7-Eleven is a staple of Tampa Bay; they’re everywhere. And the fuel they use is from CITGO.

If 7-Eleven as a test bed put just one pump at 20 different locations they’d have so much business they couldn’t keep up. It doesn’t matter if it’s CNG or ethanol, because when people see a per-gallon price of under 2 dollars they’d flock to it like geese.

People want green. They want the lower prices that green can offer. BUT THE FUEL STATIONS ARE NOT GIVING US OPTIONS.

The crazy part about the whole thing is that they would make BOATLOADS of cash doing this while giving savings to the consumer at the same time. It’s a win-win situation. Yet nothing is happening.

Hybrid-electric is a complete waste of time

This is not the godsend we were looking for. The cars are too expensive and don’t bring any significant benefit over time.

The answer is alternative fuel.

We’ve got ethanol (E-85). We’ve got CNG.

The automakers are making cars now that run on either.

But we can’t fuel up.

Who’s fault is that?

Not ours.

Hey, TECO People’s Gas!

Are you ready to make some serious cash? E-Mail me. I will happily have my 2005 GMC Canyon converted over to CNG and use your natural gas exclusively just to prove to people that CNG is the way to go. You guys should seriously invest in some property, build some filler stations and OFFER SERVICES to convert cars over to CNG and be the fuel provider. You will make MILLIONS in record time.

And yes I’m serious. You guys got the goods to do it with. It’s a goldmine just waiting to be harvested. Be the company that shows America that CNG really works. I’ll be your first customer.

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