Good fuel mileage should be available on all cars made today but my 2010 F150 only gets about 15.5 mpg. My 2005 Ex gets about 15mpg highway and about 11 mpg city. I dont understand what good mileage is! It seems no matter what truck you drive if it gets 15-18 mpg it is good? Its not that hard to get 30mpg in a vehicle that doesnt haul or tow or even carry a large family.
But if we had an alternate fuel source and a vehicle built for that fuel from the beginning we could achive independence.

 

What would be more practical is using LPG. Liquid propane is widely available at some gas stations, U-haul centers, hardware stores. You can grill a steak while on the road. LOL.

Edit: Wait, LPG is refined from petroleum so that defeats the purpose of the original post. Nevermind. Still, it would be a great concept when you attached a hitch mounted tailgating grill. No need to carry that extra ball of LPG.

 

Did you say STEAK I think thats a great idea I think I will load up the fam and have one!

 

Another idea I saw was using compressed air. When you run low on air, just pull up to the air compressor and drop in a quarter. This only works on small compact vehicles. Range would be limited. Decompression of the tanks could provide free air conditioning in the summer.

No direct fossil fuel used. Air compressor can run on electricity from nuclear, wind, hydro, geothermal, solar, etc. Can also be generated from NG or coal.

 

An Excursion could potentially be a good candidate for a CNG conversion, especially if you're near a CNG station run by a gas utility. Even though a CNG conversion is fairly expensive, the fuel savings on this type of vehicle add up quickly. In PA, CNG appears to be only readily available in the PECO service area where it was selling for about $2.00/GGE (old prices). In Chester, CNG is selling for $1.00/GGE so the other PECO stations might now be at this price too.

The problem with CNG is that, even though it's stored at 3600 psi, a CNG cylinder only holds the equivalent of a few gallons of gasoline. If you installed a couple of V074 cylinders (15.2" dia x 35.4" L), you could travel about as far as you would on a 13 gallons of gasoline. If there's a CNG station along your commute, this could work reasonably well. Otherwise, you would have to put in your own VRA (see CNG Fueling). Running out of fuel isn't a problem because all modern CNG conversions are bi-fuel so it's easy to switch back and forth.

Propane is much more available but it's often too expensive to have a reasonably quick payback. On an energy basis, 1.35 gallons propane has about the same energy as a gallon of gasoline. If gasoline is costing around $3.45/gal in Harrisburg, propane would have to cost less than $2.56/gal to be cheaper. The U-Haul station there is selling propane for $2.69/gal so it's not really a bargain. You would need to get an account with a propane supplier to get bulk propane pricing.

 

Agreed, I saw a documentary where people were lighting the water that was coming out of thier faucet. Another person walked down to a river, and literally set started a fire on top of the water. I am completely against these natural wells.

 

People who have lived in pennsylvania for years say when they were kids they used to light streams on fire just from the methane that was coming out of the ground, probably from the coal mines that have been burning underground for generations, the natural gas that is going to be extracted out of Pennsylvania is going to benefit everyone in the area and is going to be great for this country, period.

 

There is also a documentary out there that says global warming is happening! If I believe everything the media says I should have beach front property real soon. Nat gas is one of the cleanest resources we have if we want our country to be as strong as it used to be we need to start thinking for ourselves.

 

Well, I'm 35 and I have no kids, so what do I care. If I can make it another 35 years I'll be happy. We should still have some clean drinking water, here in Michigan until I die. Global warning? I won't notice it for the next 30 years or so, I guess it's not my problem. I don't live in the Gulf of Mexico, so keep drilling. I like shrimp, but who cares, I can live with out it.

I hope when the natural gas company is done raping the countryside in PA, you're personally not affected.

 

If anyone is affected it will be people in the Appalachian Mtns. As far as the Gulf of Mexico I was there last year and it is in great shape. I hope that in the next 35 years we have an alternate source of energy but until then we need to use what we have. Most companies are doing a good job of taking care of the enviroment and working safely to provide jobs for people willing to work. Without these jobs what would the US economy be.

 

I'll be affected, my family has owned property in Pennsylvania since 1972 and I bought the property 2 years ago and my father has a gas lease on it. It's beautiful country and already there are wells visible and it will disturb the country side and after the wells are in people say you don't even see the wells on the property after it grows over, and I hope they do start drilling in the gulf of Mexico and everywhere there is oil in this country so America can take care of it's own people and not rely on other countries for oil, and when gas prices could drop to reasonable prices and get some better quality of life for some people who can't afford anything except barely getting by, but like Dennis miller says, don't let me get on a rant here.

 

I hope we get an alternative source soon...gas prices jumped $0.20 per gallon in town here today...what gives?

 

The documentary is called Gasland, it was on HBO. They state that the problem with frakking is that the companies use proprietary chemical solutions to do the frakking and nobody knows what is actually in the frakking solutions because it is a company secret. Pretty sad what the video exposed, wouldn't want them frakking in my neighborhood.

 

Fracking solutions aren't secrets there printed on the Internet you just have to know where to look, you have to break a few eggs to make omelets,people in this country have to wake up and smell the coffee.

 

except we had earthquakes before they started fracing.