NATURAL GAS
What is natural gas?
Natural gas is a domestically produced gaseous fuel that is readily available through the existing natural gas distribution system. Natural gas can be produced by conventional and renewable methods to make clean-burning alternative fuel that can be compressed or liquefied for use in vehicles
Natural gas is a better alternative to conventional petroleum-based fuels because it produces significantly fewer tailpipe emissions. When burned, methane produces fewer hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter. Renewable natural gas (RNG) offers even more environmental benefit by having a net-negative carbon intensity.
NATURAL GAS VARIETIES
Domestically-produced, relatively low priced, and commercially available
Renewable natural gas (RNG): This fuel is the gaseous product of purifying biogas that is generated from anaerobic digestion of organic materials, such as from landfills or livestock, or through thermochemical processes. RNG is a pipeline-quality vehicle fuel that is chemically identical to fossil-derived conventional natural gas.
Compressed natural gas (CNG): CNG is produced by compressing natural gas and is stored onboard a vehicle in a compressed gaseous state at a pressure of up to 3,600 pounds per square inch. CNG is used in light-, medium-, and heavy-duty applications. A CNG vehicle gets about the same fuel economy as a conventional vehicle on a gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE) basis.
Liquefied natural gas (LNG): LNG is natural gas in a liquefied form. LNG is produced by purifying natural gas and supercooling it to turn it into a liquid. LNG must be kept in cold temperatures and stored in double-walled, vacuum-insulated pressure vessels.
NATURAL GAS VEHICLES (NGVs)
Dedicated: These vehicles are designed to run only on natural gas and are spark-ignited (SI) engines.
Bi-fuel: These vehicles have two separate fueling systems that enable them to run on either natural gas or gasoline,
Dual-fuel: These vehicles are traditionally limited to heavy-duty applications, and have fuel systems that run on natural gas and diesel at the same time. They are compression-ignition (CI) engines and use diesel as the “spark” for ignition, and typically burn on the order of 50% natural gas and 50% diesel.
MEMBERS THAT USE COMPRESSED NATURAL GAS
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City of Clearwater
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Clearwater Gas
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City of Tampa
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Hillsborough County
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Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (HART)
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Tampa International Airport
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TECO Peoples Gas