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On Thu, 2 Feb 2012 09:07:38 -0500, iBoaterer wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:43:07 -0500, wrote:

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-implications-for-investors

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.

===

We had a family friend back in the 60s who worked in the oil fields of
western Kansas. Propane for him was free for the asking since a lot
of it just got flared off as a nuisance. He and is friends did a lot
of shade tree gasoline to propane conversions.

Look at the thousands of fork trucks that were easily converted to use
propane. Would be virtually the same for natural gas.

The big difference is propane is stored at around 100 PSI, CNG is more
like 2600-3000 PSI (both temperature dependent).
You also have a much higher energy density on propane. My guess is the
gas would be transported at the normal distribution pressures and
compressed to liquid at the fueling site.


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The major problem with LNG is the liquidfication is by reducing the
temperature to about -160C degrees. So trying to make is a liquid for
vehicle use is not going to happen. You have to store is under HIGH
pressure in Bus tanks etc, to get a decent distance range. Any small boat
is not going to be able to carry a heavy tank for the NG and still be able
to perform decently.