There was an interesting article in today's West Australian, about
car gas conversions. At one point, both State and Federal subsidies
just about paid for the cost and converters were run off their
feet with applications. (a bit like the free insulation people are
right now)

Now that the State subsidy has been chopped and the Federal subsidy
reduced by 250 $, they have had to fire staff and close down.

It makes my point that consumers are fickle creatures, many with
a vision no longer then their noses. If its just going to cost
them a few bob, they lose interest.

These will be the same people complaining about the price of
petroleum or claiming that the Govt should do something, when the
price of petrol rockets.

"We should" indeed.

If people don't get off their own little arses, they should stop
blaming the system.

Yabby, wrong gas. Liquid Petroleum Gas is not Natural Gas.
Never the twain shall mix.
I would not be surprised if the service stations are unhappy with the
idea of CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) because you could buy a compressor
and fill your tank at home if you have the gas on.
They can do this in the US.

I read on an industry web site that LPG is made from the refineries
while processing crude oil into petrol and diesel.
I am no chemist so I don't know exactly what the difference is, but
they are quite different.
Natural gas just comes out of the ground as gas.

Yabby & Others;
In another thread that discussed hydrogen I mentioned my son's
father in law who is an expert (a real expert) on these things.
Here is his comment on natural gas.

The main problem we found with CNG when I was involved with it was
that Natural Gas is, of course, not 100% Methane. In UK it is about
89% methane and when you liquify it the the longer chain hydrocarbon
molecule impurities tend to separate out, and having a higher
molecular weight are heavier than liquid methane.
Thus they sink to the bottom of the fuel tank and accumulate over
time. If you run low on fuel they tend to get sucked through into the
motor and b....r it up.

I am sure there are technical solutions to this but Natural Gas was
never very reliable for us, or anyone else, in buses.
The other problem of course is that Methane is lighter than air and
if the vehicle is stored under cover Methane can escape and form an
explosive mixture in the roof space, so you need a roof venting
mechanism of some sort. Same problem with Hydrogen I guess.
end quote

So you can see that these alternatives have numerous problems.
Perhaps when refuelling a CNG car you would need to purge the tank.
This would vent a considerable amount of methane which I believe is a
worse green house gas than CO2.

Oh dear, one catch 22 after another.