The Clinton Administration has committed itself to a program for developing a cleaner automobile in partnership with auto makers. The goal of a cleaner car utilizing natural gas has been depicted as undercutting efforts already under way to produce a viable electric car. In fact, both types of car are seen as potential alternatives to the current gasoline-powered vehicles and so to the continued production of air pollution and other environmental problems as well as to our dependence on oil.
A recent advance is seen in several new filling stations with pumps to dispense natural gas. By 2010, two million vehicles could be running on compressed natural gas, which would still only be a fraction of the 196 million registered vehicles now on the road. Converting vehicles to run on natural gas costs about $4,000 and is a relatively simple procedure. Interest in doing so is being fueled by the 1990 Clean Air Act which requires cities with high pollution rates to cut emissions. Natural gas burns more completely and cleanly than gasoline and so serves this purpose. Another reason for the change is the 1992 Energy Policy Act requiring government-owned fleets of cars to contain vehicles powered by alternative fuels, with the goal of lowering dependence on foreign oil. Some 93 percent of the natural gas used in the United States is produced domestically, compared with about 50 percent of oil products (Curley, 1995).
Natural gas is a flammable gas within the earth's crust and is a form of petroleum second only to crude oil in importance as a fuel. Natural gas consists mostly (88 to 95 percent) of the hydrocarbon methane, but other gases are also present. Carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and helium detract slightly from the heating value of natural gas, but helium and carbon dioxide are valuable in their own right, and in certain natural gases where their concentrations are relatively high, they can be extracted commercially. At one ti...