On Feb 1, 2:10*pm, iBoaterer wrote:
In article ,
says...











On Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:25:59 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

Is There a Natural Gas Powered Boat In Our Future?

If someone had asked me that question a year ago, I would have said:
"Nonsense, can't possibly happen." * Now I'm a little less sure of
that.

Some interesting things have been going on. * The supply of natural
gas in the US and Canada has dramatically increased as a result of
improved drilling and exploration technology. *We now have more
natural gas than we can readily use or transport, and as a result, at
least in the short term, *prices for natural gas have decreased. *As
an example, the historic price multiple between a barrel of oil and a
thousand cubic feet of natural gas has been approximately 10 to 1.
It is now at 40 to 1, a huge reduction. *This has resulted in a number
of efforts *to leverage natural gas as a transportation fuel, i.e.,
trucks, trains, ships, taxi fleets, busses, etc.

Obviously a lot of new infrastructure needs to be built to provide for
compression, transportation and end user filling stations. *A lot of
work has already been done in the area of diesel to natural gas
conversion engines. *Once a few more of these pieces come together,
natural gas as a transportation fuel will become much more common than
it is now.

In the meanwhile there are some interesting investment opportunities.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/326572-2-energy-markets-and-their-imp....

In the interest of full disclosure, I own some of the stocks mentioned
in that article.

I suppose it might be possible for big boats but I am not sure how it
works on small outboard boats. (you need a huge tank). In that regard
propane is better, higher energy density.

I did do a little research into propane and decided the change to an
EFI outboard might be minimal tho. It might not be more than a
software tweak and a gas regulator where the VST is now.

I have some T Boone stock myself. *

In my city, they are changing buses over to natural gas.

The school district in Louisville IL was the first in the state to
purchase a propane powered school bus. fuel costs between it and the
same compatible diesel bus is considerably cheaper. like 40-45.c fuel
cost per mile on propane, to 8-90.c per mile diesel.