Did you know that the carbon intensity (the ratio of carbon dioxide to energy) of natural gas is lower than the average intensity of Brazilian and American soy biodiesel? And that is without counting land displacement impacts (carbon put into the atmosphere by burning a forest to plant soy).
A common argument I hear from biodiesel enthusiasts is that heavy machinery must use diesel engines because of the high torque required. Take a look at that garbage truck above. It is about as heavy as you get and it runs on natural gas. Not only is it producing less GHG than biodiesel, it is producing a tiny fraction of the local air pollution (especially soot, which also contributes to global warming) at the tailpipe. It's also a lot quieter.
Fleets of vehicles with known routes (like buses and garbage trucks) where range is accounted for and where they can all be fueled at their depots are ideally suited for using natural gas. Combine this idea for fleets with today's gasoline hybrid technology for personal transport (that is achieving gas mileage improvements in excess of 100% over average mileage) and one can see how the rush to food-based biofuels is over-hyped.
A recent post by Robert Rapier suggests that America could in theory, replace all gasoline with domestically produced natural gas for roughly the next half-century.
(Photo credit Jeff Youngstrom via the Flickr Creative Commons license).
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