fossil fuel

I am firmly convinced that we must move away from fossil fuels but it has to be done in an organized manner that does not disrupt the current economy. We need an intermediary step and natural gas is that step. If all semi’s were converted to natural gas it would reduce our usage of oil by 1.2 million barrels per day which is the amount we import from Saudi Arabia. Conversion kits are available to change a semi from diesel to natural gas and these kits cost about $10,000. The present cost of using natural gas would be less than half the cost of diesel since it would save the driver $2 per gallon. A semi uses 20,000 gallons of diesel per year. If the government offered an interest free loan of $10,000 to the driver to convert and asked him to pay it back using fuel cost savings he could pay back the loan in 3 months. All new trucks would be factory designed to run on natural gas. There are currently 5 million semi’s on the road today. There are 10,000 truck stops that would have to be converted to natural gas at an estimated cost of $50,000 each. T. Boone Pickens has a company that is installing natural gas at stations for cars and that will be step two in the transition. There are currently 150,000 vehicles using natural gas in the US and another 5 million around the world. Rather than convert existing cars it would be more cost effective just to make all new cars to run on natural gas. If all US cars ran on natural gas we would not have to import any oil and with current reserves there is enough natural gas to last 50 years. We may discover more, find better ways to collect more and in addition natural gas can be a renewable energy source using organic materials. I think this would be an excellent means to transition away from fossil fuels. Natural gas is cleaner and cheaper. In fifty years we may have solar and wind but in the interim natural gas is the answer. In the far future we may have microbes that make hydrogen and this is pollution free.