LNG, diesel, and ethanol

Bob from your article

Stations need to pay for equipment for lng, and that goes with the price.

CNG is less expensive, its $2.20/gge locally at the station, but big trucks don't like to fill up that often, and lng is a better fuel.

Methanol is at $1.13 a gallon, but would cost $3/gge for the amount to go as far as gasoline if all taxes were added.

There are no technical challenges to using methanol, it would take about $100-$200 more per vehicle to use materials for its corrosive properties. California found that M85 get rid of the problem of methanols invisible flame.

 

What about the safety aspects of a compressed tank of LNG on a truck? If the tank ruptures from a crash, whats the risk of a violent explosion compared to Diesel? Considering where the tanks are carried, they would be exposed to a side impact.

 

What comes to mind was a propane explosion that I saw one day on Mega Disasters,

Toronto propane explosion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have also seen what happens when a tanker has a crash on a confined roadway such as the interstate running through Kalamazoo MI. Back in 88-89 there was a tanker explosion on this road that killed several people, and the aftermath left the walls scorched for at least a 1/4 mile. Granted the LNG would be in a smaller container, but that doesn't mean its going to be less deadly a boom if something does rupture it.

This would be my only concern about using a compressed gas on an OTR rig.

 

some folks near Houston are going production scale with NG --> Propane.

 

acdii, lng in properly designed tanks should be safer than diesel. Its been on the road a long time now. Its less likely to boom because the spark point is higher and the fuel is colder. Like any high powered substance it can explode. We have a great deal of gasoline and diesel fires every year, and I would expect lng fires if our fleet of 18 wheelers is converted.

We do have some trucks carrying some really nasty stuff though, hazzardous material. Those are the ones to worry about.

 

Fracking Revolutionizes Truck Market - Episode 1098 - YouTube

 

if I may pitch in, lng stands for liquified natural gas, it is a practice designed mostly for transporting considerable amounts to remote areas where pipelines don't reach, there is plenty of good materials on this, start with wikipedia, in short several components must be removed and the gas cooled to something like -140f, and kept that way, compared to cng compressed natural gas, same stuff ambient temp, much larger volumetric density can be achieved with lng, compressed has been arround as alternative fuel for some time, liquified, nope, its unrealistic, you need serious refrigeration units, that are on all the time, not something for your average housewife to haul arround and refuel with.
LPG also known as propane ( I have a thread on it under modifications ) to me its a bit more atractive, unlike natural gas it can be liquiefied at about 140 psi/ambient temp, mind you that varies depending on temp, so considerable volumetric densities can be achieved easily, ex 2 tanks of simmilar size lpg gge 8gal, cng 2 gal, also the 2 galons of cng are at 3000 psi, I'm not too confortable carying that arround, and it would require multiple fill ups its ok for a daily driver if you have a fill up along the way.
I'm not an authority and some of the stuff I wrote may be a bit off, but the ideea is the same.
and the prices posted are way off