Getting a consumer cost for Natural Gas Vehicles

I’ll have more to say about T. Boone Pickens’ plan on moving the US from an oil-based transportation infrastructure to natural gas based in a little bit.  But I first wanted to get the cost of Natural Gas to power consumers vehicles first.

In South Carolina, the gas cost for one million BTUs (MMBTU) of natural gas is $12.9787.  The only production natural gas vehicle is the Honda Civic, which has a fuel tank of 8.03 gallons of gas equivalent (GGE).  GGE is the standard unit for natural gas powered vehicles.  One GGE is 115,000 BTU so a fill up of a Honda Civic will involve 923450 BTUs of energy or .923450 MMBTUs.  So a fill up would be $11.95.  But that’s for 8 gallons equivalent, or a gallon of gas at $1.492.  Which puts us at where we were in late 2003/early 2004.

Keep in mind that this based on the local natural gas monopoly’s price for a vastly different market (primarily industrial use and consumer heating).  Very little is currently used for transport (other than the local bus system).  Moving to a mass consumption pattern like gasoline would be a very different animal indeed.