It is a truism that understanding the basic elements to any subject is the key to understanding it. We decided to do a brief primer in today’s blog about the math behind our “inevitability calculations” of the increased speed now at which the country will convert to “alt” (whether CNG or not). Since we have done the calculations with CNG however, we will stick with that for today’s blog.
The first standard to set is to rethink your energy calculations in “scientific geek speak.” In that world, a gallon of petroleum equals 124,000 BTUs (or British Thermal Units) of energy.
The cost, in other words of 124,000 petroleum-fueled BTUs is now hovering around, well, let’s just bite the bullet for the sake of a few week’s relativity, $4.00. We know what we are about to tell you is shocking so in the interests of apples-to-apples comparisons, remember that this is “retail” price. The next one is “wholesale” price, which is usually about ½ to 1/3 of what consumers pay at point of purchase. It’s a bit harder (for us at least) to give readers a better benchmark for petroleum but let’s just assume for appreciably equal comparisons, we are actually talking about $1.00 a gallon “wholesale” petroleum costs.
Now, to this end, consider an entry in a recent MarketWatch report that came out a day after the Natural Gas Bill was introduced in the House of Representatives last week (H.R. 1380).
That story, which appeared on April 7, 2011, discussed that the price for natural gas fell $0.07 for supplies to be delivered in May to a number that should sound quite familiar to most motorists these days of $4.07. Of this year we hasten to add. We also must note here that this price decrease for natural gas (amidst a month of a $0.25 cent retail price at the pump at least – increase per (approximately) $1.00+ a-gallon of petroleum or 124K of petroleum BTUs) is for a whopping 1 million BTUs of natural gas powered energy.
To think of it this way, there are approximately 8 “gallons” of petroleum-fueled energy in a million gas powered BTUs. Now, if you compared the approximate price of “BTUs” fueled by different kinds of energy, the price of a BTU fueled by natural gas is approximately half that of petroleum.
And that is where the first real analysis should, we think be made. It is for that reason we hope that our cars at least open the doors to new innovation in the continued alteration of the combustion engine to another “hybrid dot one” version if not a whole other “dot oh” upgrade.
We do want to note with some humor that apparently the market had bet against natural gas, specifically that there was a smaller than expected decline in weekly supplies. We note this merely because we know the market, along with apparently many policymakers, does not understand what the every-person at the pump does.
As the perfect segue to end today’s blog, we were out for our morning dog walk this morning and happened upon a neighbor fixing his car. It turns out he is an employee at one of the largest cab companies in Charlotte. He does not look or sound like he was born in this country, in one of the long, proud, traditions of many immigrants to establish a (legal) foothold on these shores by working as a taxi driver (in many cities across this country). When we told him what we are doing, he looked at us for a minute, translating semi-unfamiliar words.
“Green taxis?” he said. “No gas?” We didn’t have the heart to say, well, sort of, but the point, we think should speak volumes.
He gave us the thumbs up at our affirmative, and may in fact be one of our earliest “poach” hires to the extent that we do much of that (and we don’t intend to do much). However having someone in the neighborhood who can walk to work and is enthusiastic about the core premise of our company in any language is something that is clean, green music to our ears.
Freedom Riders 