Natural gas home refuelling soon to be available in Australia
Posted by Nathan on January 1, 2008
Luke at Envirofuel made the discovery that FuelMaker Corporation is planning to soon release their Phill natural gas home refilling unit in a much larger number of countries, including our own. The unit is currently being sold in the US and various parts of Europe, and in some cases is being offered with compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles to help promote sales. CNG-powered vehicles burn cleaner than petrol or diesel and are available in a variety of models overseas, including the Honda Civic and the Ford Focus.
It’s good to see someone trying to break the chicken-and-egg dilemma that faces many alternative fuels, but the question is, will we see cars to support it? The last manufacturer to seriously consider CNG was Ford, who has since chosen LPG as its alternative fuel of choice after producing a limited run of CNG Falcons a decade ago. CNG makes good sense as a short-term solution for increasing fuel prices, in the same league as LPG and ethanol, but despite Australia’s abundant natural supplies we have not taken advantage of it the same way other regions without our resources have. Perhaps this will help change things?
(On a side note, it’s interesting to see that the article about the CNG Falcon’s emissions focused mainly on ozone-forming pollutants, with not a mention of greenhouse gases. It’s interesting to see how far we’ve come in terms of fixing one environmental problem to facing another.)
February 1, 2008 at 9:06 am
hi
i am just about to import to australia a 2003 honda civic gx (nat gas) from japan.i will try then to buy the canadian Phill refuelling station separately .Do somebody knows if the gas refuelling inlet on the japanese civic gx is the same as the usa one?
many tks
d schmidt
June 15, 2008 at 10:24 am
Nathan can you please tell me the rrp for the home phill system. American sites are quoting 3400 us. Made contact with a guy in adelaide who is going to import them with a rrp $5000.00. This blows the whole issue out of the water if you consider the electricity consumed plus the cost of car and gas.
June 17, 2008 at 6:22 am
That seems reasonable, though I don’t have any information on how much Phill was planning on selling them here for (or even on whether it is still going ahead, six months later). Running a car on natural gas can cost as low as a third of what it would on petrol, particularly given the recent increases in petrol prices, so it’s up to you as to whether you think the investment would be worth it. Hopefully there might soon be some vehicles available that can utilise this cheap fuel.