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To: wpckr who wrote (3559)	12/29/1998 11:26:00 PM
From: gsun	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5827

wpckr My perspective is that there does not seem to be any constraints regarding finding new natural gas supply. The pipeline delivery is a current constraint which is likely to take a few years to fully resolve. However the ability of the natural gas pipeline companies to construct and deliver has been very good. The spread between the return on natural gas pipelines/discovery vs oil pipelines/discovery suggests that bottlenecks should be only short term events (less than 18 months??). gsun

To: wpckr who wrote (3559)	12/30/1998 8:10:00 AM
From: Sid Turtlman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5827

wpckr: What does natural gas have to do with hybrid cars? Hybrids run on plain ol' gasoline. Hybrids are cars with a small internal combustion or diesel engine and a powerful battery. There are various hybrid designs, but typically the battery handles low speeds and acceleration, and the i.c. engine handles higher speeds, recharging the battery as it does so. The attraction of this approach is that i.c. engines are quite clean and efficient when cruising, but dirty and inefficient the rest of the time. Let the battery handle the dirty work, and you have a vehicle capable of meeting ultra low pollution standards and showing extremely high gas mileage using as fuel something already available at every gas station. FC vehicles running on hydrogen would show lower emissions, but vastly higher fuel operating costs because of how expensive it is to make, transport, and store hydrogen. Even the emission claims of a hydrogen fc vehicle are disingenuous, because until people figure out how to harness solar power to split water economically, hydrogen will be made from natural gas, a process that creates emissions. FC vehicles running on methanol won't have emissions much lower than a hybrid, because they are generated in the process of extracting the hydrogen that the fc needs from the methanol. And someone is going to have to spend billions to outfit many gas stations with methanol tanks and dispensing equipment before many people would even consider a fc car. On the negative side, hybrid vehicles are complex and haven't been on the road long enough for people to judge longer term reliability. But at least they are on the road now, not in six years at best. Most car companies now have serious hybrid programs, including Daimler which is planning to market one in 2003, a year ahead of its hoped for introduction of a fc car.