Summary
Developing countries around the world are increasingly turning to natural gas as their alternative transportation fuel of choice. But official embrace in industrialized nations has waned. After ten years of double digit growth more than 10 million vehicles worldwide are powered by natural gas.Pakistan is the global leader with more than 2 million vehicles. Argentina is in second place with1.75 million. Iran, with the world's second largest gas reserves has 1.5 million.
Analysis
While developed nations may be reluctant to fully embrace compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for transportation usage, the facts are that it is far less expensive than gasoline and diesel and appears to be an inexhaustible supply. Under these circumstances, with full consideration of the financial crisis, compressed natural gas looks to be a sure winner both short term and long term. Honda Motors is already manufacturing an inexpensive and reliable natural gas powered vehicle with reasonably good mileage. Vehicle costs will come down as more and more are built. Demand in both the U.S.A. and Europe is growing. In Asia it is growing rapidly. All of the international majors are producing LNG as fast as they can and shale gas is becoming well established in the U.S. with development starting in Europe. Even the environmentalist have to admit that natural gas is less polluting than liquid fuels. The ten million vehicles on the road today speak to their growing popularity. The city of Beijing, China has already converted nearly a fourth of its vehicles to natural gas as part of its pollution control effort and intends to continue indefinitely. Centers of concentrated usage are developing in the U.S in Utah, southern California and Oklahoma. This can only expand all the more so in view of the fact that forthcoming federal legislation appears to be supportive. An important question for U.S. automakers is whether it makes sense to continue development of electric vehicles.
