|
December 12, 2008 ·I took a trip up to Howdy Honda off Ben White Road in Austin to learn more about the Honda Civic GX, one of the few vehicles available to consumers that runs specifically on compressed natural gas. Kevin Childers is the dealership’s expert on the car.
"People think that it’s going to be such different thing. It’s not like a hybrid where you have all kinds of technology; it’s actually less technology than a normal Civic. You have fewer emissions, fewer electronics in it. You just get to enjoy the fact that it is a cleaner, and more importantly, cheaper gas," said Childers.
He’s right. It looks just like any other Honda Civic, but upon closer examination, Kevin points out a few features that are different. He opens the trunk to reveal a large box-like tank that takes up most of the cargo space.
"So, this tank is actually quite large. It’s four inches thick of aluminum and carbon fiber. It is significantly thicker than the gas tank you have in your car, and it just takes up more room. Since it’s under so much pressure it can’t be in flat tank hidden under the back seat This is the biggest limitation to a natural gas car," Childers said.
The benefits far outweigh the lack of trunk space. Kevin takes me on a test drive over to the city’s public filling station, near an industrial yard where city vehicles that run on compressed natural gas fuel up.
“All it does is connect right on. That’s all you do. Here, I’ll top it off. Probably won’t put much in it – two dollars and thirty-eight cents today,” said Childers.
Austin has a three way partnership between the city, the public gas utility and Howdy Honda to offer incentives for consumers to make the jump to using CNG. Teri Green is with Texas Gas Service in Austin.
“If you purchase a natural gas vehicle, we offer a two thousand dollar rebate for the purchase, or if you convert an existing vehicle to natural gas we offer a three thousand dollar rebate,” said Green.
The federal government also kicks in a large rebate, which ends up defraying the cost of the Civic GX, bringing the sticker price close to what it costs to buy a Civic that runs on gasoline. But the rebates don’t stop there.
“If someone got a car, and they got a Phil, which is a home refueling unit, (it fits inside your garage, off of your natural gas line) it’s considered a natural gas appliance. You can refuel, at our rates – our residential rates - for about a $1.50 per gallon of gas equivalent,” Green said.
To convince a Honda dealership to sell the Civic GX here in San Antonio, there has to be a local rebate program and a public filling station. Pat Kotara of CPS Energy says consumer rebates are on the way.
“We plan to extend our programs to include an incentive rebate toward the purchase of natural gas vehicles and fueling devices for fueling at home. The incentive rebates should be available as early as February 1, 2009,” said Kotara.
Kotara wouldn’t go into detail about how much those rebates would be, or it they would be comparable to those offered by other gas utilities in Texas. The public filling station in Austin also fuels vehicles used by the city. In San Antonio, the city’s solid waste division was interested in converting its fleet to CNG. To help them with the effort they turned to Andrew Hudgins who runs the Clean City Program at the Alamo Area Council of Governments.
“We held a series of workshops and meetings with the city of San Antonio. I brought in experts in the field – and back in May, the city council passed an ordinance to begin implementing natural gas into the refuse fleet,” said Hudgins.
About 30 garbage trucks that run on CNG will soon be introduced into the fleet. They’ll be fueled at the northeast service center, also known as the tool yard, but the city has decided not to open this fueling station to the public. Rose Ryan was interim director of the solid waste division and played a significant role in the fleet’s conversion. She now works for the city of Leon Valley.
“And one of my plans while I was there was to continue to apply for funding to increase the compressor size – so that we could pump additional fuel and some future point open it up to the public,” Ryan said.
Enter private industry. The company that may ultimately give San Antonio its first public compressed natural gas fueling station delivers beer. Silver Eagle Distributors delivers Budweiser products with its large fleet of trucks. The company is converting some of those to natural gas and building a fueling station that will be accessible to the public. Ed Pritchard is the company’s Vice President of fleet management.
“We’re looking at putting two dispensers that would be high speed, high fill. If everything goes as planned, we’re hoping to have this thing operational late 2009,” Pritchard.
Both the city and Silver Eagle received grant money from an emissions reduction program offered by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. That’s important, because in 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency will tighten the nation’s clear air standards. If the San Antonio stays on its current course, it will fail to meet the new regulations.
Dr. Neal Carman is a clean air expert with the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.
“And that means that San Antonio will need to come up with a clean air plan to bring the air pollution that contribute to ozone to safer levels,” Carmen said.
Since compressed natural gas produces hardly any harmful emissions, it may soon be a larger part of the city’s energy portfolio. Hopefully soon, consumers in San Antonio will have access to CNG vehicles and fuel giving them the opportunity to do their part to help clean up the city’s air.
|
MP3 Download
