As you know the opposing battle cries of the two most prominent political parties are “Drill Baby Drill” and the other to eliminate fossil fuels entirely for use in vehicles and force a rapid transition to battery powered electric vehicles.
Neither of these, as a national policy, is simultaneously compatible with a sustainable clean environment, energy independence, economic feasibility, and acceptability to the American People. Energy independence is vital to the national security and economic wellbeing of America.
In my opinion, as an automotive engineer, at this time we should be looking towards some percentage of natural gas fueled internal combustion engine vehicles as a bridge to future fuel cell powered electric vehicles preferably hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells. The fuel cell would eliminate the very much non-green batteries as the sole power source of electric vehicles. The production and disposal of today’s batteries requires dealing with highly toxic substances. Also currently the electrical grid is not even close to being able to support charging the batteries for an American fleet of all electric vehicles. Further, the U.S. has the most abundant natural gas reserves in the world.
Note: Fuel cells are not new technology. In the 1960’s hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells powered the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space capsules to “Land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth”. Of course, more research and engineering will be required for consumer vehicles.
I propose that the new President direct his Team to offer a plan, to the American People, for a real energy policy, that other politicians have promised for decades without ever developing one. A natural gas bridging strategy should be integral to this plan. Another thought is that American gas & oil should stay in our country for American use first, prior to putting it on the global market which raises the price and availability to Americans.
In 2008 Honda sold the Civic GX NGV car in California that only ran on natural gas. In 2015 GM offered CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) powered Impala cars and Silverado pick-up’s. In 2016 Ford offered a F-150 prepped to run on CNG. Many other vehicle, over the years, including delivery and municipal vehicles were and some still are powered by natural gas.
Natural gas vehicles, although not perfect, are much cleaner than gasoline and diesel vehicles.
The sad thing is that all of this effort was pushed out of the way when our government coerced our auto manufactures to transition to all battery/electric vehicles in a relatively short period of time.
The late T. Boone Pickens did an excellent TED Talk and I suggest watching this from start to finish. Unlike T. Boone, I am concerned with fracking and feel that it should only be allowed, at each proposed location, after an extensive geological study is completed showing no danger to aquifers or disturbing fault lines in order to avoid possible mini-earthquakes in the surrounding area.
T. Boone Pickens: Let’s transform energy – with natural gas
