Right now, if you want your car, truck, SUV, or other vehicle to run, you need to make sure that you put enough gasoline into its tank. Frequently, there is speculation about how high the gas prices will go, some of which is tied into the potential effect that the current political situations, around the world, will have on the price of a gallon of gasoline. There have been quite a few ideas about what fuel could be used to power vehicles instead of gasoline. Is natural gas a viable solution to use as fuel for our transportation needs?

Gasoline and natural gas are not exactly the same thing. Gasoline is produced from the fractional distillation of crude oil. In other words, it is made from crude oil that has been pumped out of the ground. It can also be called refined petroleum, (which is why some countries call it “petrol”). It is a highly flammable liquid that can be either pale brown or pink in color, and that has a strong odor. There are around 150 different chemicals that make up gasoline, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene. Those, together, are known as BTEX compounds.

Natural gas is a colorless, odorless, and shapeless mixture of hydrocarbon gasses. It also must be pumped out of the ground, and it is found near deposits of petroleum. Natural gas is mostly made up of methane, but can also contain ethane, propane, butane, and nitrogen. Like gasoline, natural gas must be pumped out of the ground. It is also highly flammable.

Some people feel that since oil reserves will, eventually, become depleted, it is time to search for a different fuel that can be used to power vehicles. There are some automobile manufacturers who must feel the same way, because they have started producing hybrid cars. Many hybrid vehicles run on a lithium-ion battery, (or a nickel-metal hydride battery), and also use either electricity or natural gas as a fuel as well.

There are plenty of advantages to switching over to natural gas as the fuel that runs our cars. There is a lot of natural gas available, in comparison to the amount of crude oil that remains. Natural gas would be cheaper than gasoline. Natural gas burns cleanly, making it one of the “greenest” alternative fuels that exist.

There are also some problems that would need to be solved before the United States could realistically switch over, entirely, to cars that run on natural gas. First of all, there would need to be a lot more fueling stations built. In 2008, there were only around 1,500 natural gas fueling stations in the United States. There are gas stations on nearly every corner. This means that until an appropriate amount of fueling stations are created, it will be extremely difficult for owners of natural gas vehicles to refuel when they need to. We could, potentially, shift from gasoline to natural gas, but much work must be done before that can happen.