natural gas home station

[submarinesailor]

Al,

I was hoping that this technology was going to come to market sooner than later.  But, it looks like they had a setback.  The technology is using charred corn cob to store natural gas at lower pressures.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/aug/16/mu-tries-again-with-corncob-idea/

Bruce

[Kansas]

People have a herd mentality. What else could explain the pet rock's popularity some years ago? Once a few people go with natural gas, and they start talking about the money they are saving, that will spread quickly. I don't think I would be more scared of natural gas than gasoline. However, I think the real wave of the future will be high speed refueling stations, rather than home refueling stations. Economically, it makes more sense. A bunch of people using one station as opposed to someone filling up once every few days to a week, makes more sense. I would think personal refueling stations would be more like it is with business and farms. It would make sense to have a refueling station on a farm or business, especially one that has equipment like loaders, skid steers and such, than having a home one, unless the savings from avoiding road tax will pay for the station.

I do think plug in hybrids for passenger vehicles will be the wave of the future. Either the price of gas will spike up, or they will get the cost down on the vehicles.  They have slowly released the Chevrolet Volt and there is a lot more demand than cars. A lot more models are in the works. Combine that with natural gas, you can have some pretty cheap driving. The problem is the initial cost of the vehicle. But with volume, that cost should come down.

Wonder when one of the major tractor companies will come out with a natural gas option for new tractors.

[LOGDOG]

Cha-Cha Cha-Chia!!!!! ;)

[Al_Smith]

Al,

  The technology is used charred corn cob to store natural gas at lower pressures.

Bruce

Now therein lies another problem, world wide shortage of corn cobs .For the last 40 years the cobs got spit out the back of the combines and scattered on the fields along with the corn fodder .The haven't used row pickers since the mid 60's . On the other hand John -Deere could make another fortune designing and selling corn cob picker uppers I suppose .

[Kansas]

If I'm not mistaken, the move to make ethanol out of corn cobs has already moved that direction. POET is putting in a plant in Iowa, that will use them. Whether the cobs are harvested after the corn is shelled, or at the same time,  I am not sure. I can't imagine after, unless they were just baling all of the leaves and everything with it.  A friend of mine puts up what he calls earlage, which uses both the cob and the corn,and packed in a pit silo. That is harvested with a silage chopper,but I believe they just harvest the ears. They harvest at around 35% moisture. Its ground at the silo. With the cobs for roughage, and high moisture corn, he is getting great results on feeding out cattle. 

The question is, is it economically feasible for ethanol? Intuition to me says no. The cost of harvesting, hauling, and what you get out of them, as opposed to putting organic material and a little bit of fertilizer value back in the ground doesn't strike me as balancing out. But, someone must have done the math and figured it would work.

[beenthere]

Cob collection has been shown by Deere and others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhKhlOxOVic

(a lot of talk in this video)

Another link

http://www.no-tillfarmer.com/pages/News---Deere,-Hillco-Design-Corn-Cob-Collector.php

[Norm]

The one I saw shot out of the back of the combine into a modified baler. I've yet to be convinced this is anything that will survive without a bunch of subsidized money behind it.

[sandhills]

Norm, I agree completely.  One of our neighbors tried one last fall, I believe it was made by Vermeer, not only looked like a pain in the but, but also cost a lot of money.  The cob piles were still at the end of the fields months later, not sure if they're still there or not.  We have a few folks around here that still pick a little ear corn and they still have the cobs, think it costs more to get rid of them than they're worth.
On a different note, why does the natural gas have to be pumped at such high pressures?  We have a couple tractors that burn propane and just fill those by bleeding off vapor, which I understand wastes some fuel, but I've never been around natural gas,just wondering.

[beenthere]

Here is some info from Wikipedia about the natural gas as LNG and CNG (liquefied vs. compressed). Also mentions the adsorbed natural gas possibilities. Interesting that CNG is heavily used in Brazil, Pakistan, and India.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_natural_gas#CNG_compared_to_LNG

[LOGDOG]

I snapped this picture at a stop light yesterday. It was about half a block from the CNG filling station in Bossier City. Lot of these running around. This is a Chesapeake Energy fleet truck. I tried to get a picture of the side door but didn't have enough zoom and angle to get it.

[Al_Smith]

 :D Was that lettering on the back of that intended to be a warning sign ?

[LOGDOG]

Ha! More like advertising. 8) The future is now.

[Al_Smith]

Quite possibley this use of natural gas will be applied to just such certain things ,namely fleet users .That's the way propane went  or at least in this area .

In that case and in my opinion it should work well for them .I don't however see it becoming the fuel of choice for the average auto user .Then again not everybody burns firewood either if you want to look at it like that .

People in general will use what is most conveniant for them ,supply and cost of course factored into the equation .