This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has his hydrogen-powered Hummer.
Within the next couple of weeks, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. will be driving his own own alternative-fuel vehicle - a 2005 Chevrolet Suburban he will be able to fill up for as little as 73 cents a gallon.
Instead of gasoline or electricity, Huntsman's automobile will be powered by compressed natural gas, a readily available fuel that generates the same miles per gallon as gasoline with little pollution.
Huntsman said his decision to convert the automobile to run on natural gas is a protest vote against high gasoline prices and a small contribution to help improve the air quality in the Salt Lake Valley.
"If I'm not willing to lead out by doing something significant like converting the Suburban, then I have no right to the moral high ground," he said.
Huntsman's decision to convert the black, state-owned vehicle he drives to natural gas - a $10,000 to $15,000 expense he is paying for out of his own pocket - comes in the wake of his meeting two weeks ago with Schwarzenegger in which he pledged to find ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of a multistate effort.
It also raises the prospect that the state soon may consider converting more of its substantial fleet of automobiles and trucks to run on the clean-burning fuel. Only about 123 of the state's 7,300 vehicles run on natural gas.
"Natural gas and other alternative fuels are things we're always looking at," said Sam Lee, deputy director of fleet operations for the state. "And the governor has made it very clear expanding the use of alternative fuels [ethanol, biodiesel or natural gas] is one of his priorities."
Although compressed natural gas, or CNG, hasn't received the same attention in recent years as E-85 ethanol or the hybrid automobiles that run on electricity and gasoline, advocates of natural gas as a vehicle fuel are hoping the governor's action will bring new attention to their cause.
"If we could get a significant portion of the state's fleet converted to natural gas it would be a revolution for this state," said Beverly Miller, the former director of Utah Clean Cities who drives a 1997 Ford Contour that can run on either natural gas or gasoline. "There really is nothing like it as an automobile fuel."
One of the mantras of the natural gas industry is that a driver could spill a pint of unleaded gasoline on the driveway and it would produce more pollution than one of the newer factory-made, natural-gas engines would generate running more than 100,000 miles.
"It really is a case of garbage [gasoline] in and garbage [emissions] out," said Gordon Larson, supervisor of natural gas vehicle operations at Questar Gas.
An estimated 4,500 to 5,000 natural-gas vehicles operate on Utah's highways, which are counted among the 150,000 on roads nationwide and more than 5 million worldwide.
Primarily through the efforts of Questar Gas, Utah has one of the best CNG filling station infrastructures in the nation - 25 public refueling sites from St. George to Logan. Two more facilities, one in Bountiful and another in Brigham City, are due to go on line by the end of the year. There are another 75 privately operated refueling stations.
Most of the natural-gas-powered vehicles in Utah are operated by businesses as part of their automobile and truck fleets. And it is in that business arena where natural-gas vehicles make the most sense, said Richard Kolodziej, president of the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition in Washington, D.C.
"If you are someone who drives 12,000 miles a year and your car gets 20 miles to the gallon, you're using about 600 gallons of fuel," he said. "Depending on the price of gasoline, switching to natural gas may save you $1 to $2 a gallon, or $600 to $1,200 a year."
Although that would represent a substantial savings to some, it pales in comparison to the savings available to businesses whose vehicles are driven long distances. The more a natural-gas vehicle is driven, the faster the payback, he said.
"A business owner who operates a commercial truck that travels 120,000 miles a year and gets 6 miles per gallon uses about 20,000 gallons of fuel a year," Kolodziej said. Converting that truck to run on natural gas could save that business owner upward of $20,000 a year - or more than enough to pay back the cost of converting the truck to run on natural gas.
Yet, like other alternative fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, there are big hurdles to overcome before natural gas becomes more widely accepted as a vehicle fuel.
The relatively low price of gasoline prior to 2006 did not help to generate much interest in natural gas among the driving public. And that produced some tough times for the companies that built their businesses around converting automobiles to run on natural gas.
Four years ago, there were a handful of companies in Utah doing the work, said Larson at Questar Gas. Now there is a single shop, SNO-Motion Solutions in Salt Lake City, which is converting the governor's Suburban.
"We're real busy now," said SNO-Motion's Rick Oliver. "The problem is that there is a shortage of the fuel tanks. It is really hard to get them at a reasonable price. Fortunately we've got a bit of an inventory that we've been drawing on."
Kolodziej at the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition said the tank shortage is the result of excess demand for carbon fiber, used to wrap the high-pressure tanks. "It seems that a lot of carbon fiber is being used in the war effort."
HyPerComp Engineering, a Brigham City company founded by several former Thiokol rocket scientists, is busy developing its own high-pressure fuel tanks that can be used for hydrogen or CNG.
"Our goal is to have our tanks certified and on the market by the end of the year, which should go a long way to easing the shortage," said HyPerComp director Thomas Hannum. He noted that Huntsman asked HyPerComp to arrange the conversion of his Suburban to natural gas after visiting the company two weeks ago. HyPerComp subcontracted the work to SNO-Motion.
Only one major automobile manufacturer, Honda, is selling a factory-produced CNG vehicle in the United States. In the recent past a number of manufacturers, including Ford, also were selling CNG vehicles.
"Most of the major automobile manufacturers produce natural-gas vehicles, but they're sold outside the U.S.," Kolodziej said. "Since there are only a few places in the country, such as Utah, where there is a good refueling infrastructure, it just doesn't make a lot of sense for them to try to sell their natural-gas cars in only a few select markets."
Still, Ron Brown of Ken Garff Honda said that dealership has a hard time keeping its natural-gas Honda Civics in stock.
A Civic that runs entirely on natural gas costs $24,697, compared with $18,000 for a gas-powered model, but Brown noted there are up to $7,000 in state and federal tax credits available.
Natural gas vehicle facts
* Over 150,000 NGVs are on U.S. roads today, and over 5 million worldwide.
* IN UTAH, there are an estimated 4,500 to 5,000 NGVs.
* Over 1,500 NGV fueling stations are in the U.S. - over half are available for public use.
* IN UTAH, there are 25 NGV fueling stations available for public use and 75 that are operated by private companies.
* GGEs, or gasoline gallon equivalents, is the way natural gas is sold. A GGE has the same energy content (124,800 BTUs) as a gallon of gasoline.
* Natural gas costs, on average, one-third less than conventional gasoline at the pump.
* IN UTAH, natural gas is now selling as 73 cents a GGE.
* Roughly 22 percent of all new transit bus orders are for natural gas.
Source: Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition