The Dominican Republic recently inaugurated its first natural gas plant in Boca Chica, which the government hopes will supply fuel to 143,000 vehicles over the next three years.
While one half of the island Hispaniola struggles to rebuild in the wake of last year’s devastating earthquake, the Dominican Republic is moving forward with a plan to convert from LPG (propane/butane) to CNG (methane). The less-refined fuel is on average 23% cheaper than the LPG that most of the country currently runs on.
The government will issue conversion kits to the public at a cost of $700 kits, and spent $10 million to build the plant which will still use imported gas from AES Andrés, the same company that already provides the LPG for much of the country. The natural gas will be distributed to 140 stations around the small country. It’s a neat little project they’ve got going on, especially as fuel prices continue to climb. America has huge natural gas reserves, and since it delivers the most energy with the fewest CO2 emissions per joule, and it only stays in the atmosphere for about 12 years as opposed to CO2, which hangs around for 100-150 years.
It could be a cleaner alternative to oil, but natural gas has it own drawbacks, like trapping 20 times the radiation of CO2. Maybe we should wait and see how the Dominican experiment goes first.
Source: Gas2.0
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