A $10 fill-up at a compressed natural gas station buys about 145 miles on the road in one of Jim Nardulli and Donna Shields’ Chevy Cavaliers.

The Cheswick couple bought both of their 2004 model “bifuel” cars on eBay about a year ago. When the six-gallon natural gas tanks run out, the cars burn regular gasoline.

Compressed natural gas costs about the same as paying $1.84 per gallon of gasoline. “So it’s costing us about half, at today’s (gasoline) prices to drive these cars. That’s a pretty good deal,” said Jim Nardulli, adding the Cavaliers perform as well and run cleaner than gasoline-powered cars.

The couple fill up at a compressed natural gas, or CNG, station that Equitable Gas opened in July in the Strip District. Usually, their cars stand out among the trucks that roll into the 24-hour, unmanned station. That won’t change anytime soon, but natural gas is getting more attention as a viable fuel for a range of vehicles — from sedans to fleet trucks and mass-transit vehicles.

Gas utilities and other businesses are working to build a nationwide network of locations — including home garages — where CNG vehicles can fill up.

For now, consumers looking for a car built to run strictly on natural gas are limited to a version of Honda’s Civic — although major automakers will provide “engine mapping” computer settings to aid companies that convert some models to run on CNG. Conversions start at around $5,000, said John O’Dell, senior editor at auto research firm Edmunds.com.

The Civic sedan that runs on CNG debuted 12 years ago and has been sold to consumers only in New York, California, Oklahoma and Utah. Now, after a redesign for the 2012 model year, Honda is expanding availability to 200 dealers, including four in Pennsylvania, but none in the Pittsburgh area.

The newly renamed Civic Natural Gas goes on sale Tuesday for $26,155, compared with $20,505 for a comparable, gasoline-fueled Civic, Honda spokesman Chuck Schifsky said. Honda estimates the payback time in fuel savings at 3.5 years.

Smail Auto Group in Hempfield looked into selling the Civic Natural Gas, but couldn’t meet Honda’s requirement that a CNG station open for public use be located within 20 miles. “There is some interest on our part in the car,” said Rebecca Septak, Smail’s marketing manager, “but we just don’t have the infrastructure here yet.”

A $4,000 federal tax credit to buy a natural gas Civic expired, although a bill pending in the House of Representatives would create five years of tax credits to buy and make natural vehicles or build fueling stations.

Electric vehicles are getting heavy promotion — the Chevy Volt, which runs on electricity with a gasoline backup engine, and the all-electric Nissan Leaf — but CNG vehicles for consumers eventually will come out, experts say.

“We will see more of them,” said O’Dell of Santa Monica, Calif.-based Edmunds.com, who drives a Civic GX, Honda’s earlier natural gas model. The car accelerates a little slower than a gasoline-fed sedan, but has a longer range between fuelings than electric vehicles and needs fewer oil changes, he said.

“There will be more emphasis for the next couple years on commercial vehicles” that use CNG, he said, “but within three to five years, Ford or GM or Chrysler will come out with some sedan that is factory built to challenge the Civic Natural Gas.”

Equitable’s Strip District station and a station near a Giant Eagle distribution center in Crafton are the only two publicly available CNG stations in Western Pennsylvania.

Giant Eagle’s station, which opened in July, draws a “small but growing number of customers each week” spokesman Dick Roberts said.

More fueling spots are planned, and the region could have 20 to 30 within the next year or so, said Rick Price, executive director of Pittsburgh Region Clean Cities, a nonprofit that promotes alternative fuel use.

Peoples Natural Gas Co. is talking with a convenience store chain about supplying gas for a pilot fueling site, spokesman Barry Kukovich said. The North Shore-based utility may open one of its eight private stations for public use.

Chesapeake Energy Corp., one of the biggest Marcellus shale gas producers in Western Pennsylvania, plans to spend $1 billion over the next decade to 10 years to push natural gas as a vehicle fuel. Chesapeake said it will open its first Pennsylvania station next year near Towanda, Bradford County.

Large, free-standing natural gas filling complexes aren’t likely to be the norm.

“The worst thing we can do is to create a bunch of beautiful trophy stations that are sitting there, empty,” Rahim Charinia, CEO of Atlanta-based American Fueling Systems, told an audience at a Pittsburgh Region Clean Cities event last week.

Instead, CNG equipment likely will be added to filling stations that sell gasoline, diesel and other fuels and feature charging points for electric vehicles, he said. American Fueling, which builds stations that dispense all types of fuel, installed equipment for six CNG stations in North Carolina, Florida and Georgia.

Car owners can fill up overnight, from the gas lines that run to their homes.

Paul Gianakas started his Eco Friendly LLC business to sell CNG compressors three years ago with a $100,000 investment. He sold a 1965 El Camino and two other classic cars to help raise the cash.

FuelMaker Corp., a Canadian company that made the compressors, went bankrupt soon after, he said. But Italian manufacturer BRC bought the technology and restarted production, and Gianakas — who owns a small construction company — has sold and installed eight systems in Western Pennsylvania.

Most of his customers have been landowners with gas wells, who fuel personal vehicles or farm tractors. The smaller of two BRC FuelMaker units available is about the size of a pay phone, and costs $6,000 to $7,500 installed.

Retired EQT Corp. CEO Murry Gerber has one of Eco Friendly’s compressors, outside his garage. Last spring, Gerber, his wife, Cindy, and family dog Seamus traveled 4,500 miles from Santa Monica, Calif., to New York City in a Hummer converted for natural gas, making stops to promote the fuel along the way.

Gerber said he is focused on building a network of stations, including encouraging natural gas companies to open fueling points to the public. A “utility type” approach similar to the early days of electric or phone service could work, in which small bill surcharges go toward building the infrastructure, he said.

“The electric car does nothing more than trade oil dependency for lithium dependency,” Gerber said, and the battery material must be acquired from outside the United States.

Article source: http://www.cngnow.com/News/Post.aspx?ID=499