OK, most of this story would be best discussed in FHOP but I found one part interesting for another reason. Could it be foreshadowing issues the US will have to address in its transportation future? The problem was, according to SIGAR, is that there was "no indication" the Task Force studied the viability of the project — or considered the significant obstacles it faced — before construction began. A feasibility study "might have noted" that Afghanistan lacks the distribution infrastructure to make such a market viable — and that converting cars from gasoline to CNG would be cost-prohibitive for most Afghans, SIGAR said. U.S. Spent $43 Million on Afghanistan Gas Station: Watchdog Report - NBC News
Someone got paid. Its government. out of the 6 trillion spent on the afghan and Iraq wars so far, I can't get upset on the incompeance or the fraud having to do with a natural gas filling station that should have never been built, but if built should have cost at most $1M. Wasting a million here and a million there was not the problem. The True Cost of the Afghanistan War May Surprise You
I see what you did there. I wasn't trying to send it to FHOP. I just think i the 6 trillion dollars and a lot of blood, some one (or a big group) screwed up. The misunderstandings began long before the towers fell. Deciding that you need a $500,000 cng station is a minor little thing compared to other screw ups. Paying $43 Million for building that station, even though you can do it in the region for so much less, is just par for the course. Maybe it was a bribe hidden to a tribal leader that help the US forces, or maybe it just went into a terrorist pocket, I don't know.
Sorry, my bad. It might be better to address domestic CNG and leave non-CONUS nonsense to FHOP. If this is just war profiteering, it needs to go to FHOP. Still pissed about Afghanistan. Now T. Boone Pickens proposed CNG for transportation and we've only seen the Civic CNG . . . recently dropped. Now CNG might have made more progress with fleets but if so, fairly silently. At one time, I looked at natural gas to run our Prius for co-generation. It turned out to be impractical because the gas line feeds from the other side of the house and I have no fondness for a gas line through the crawl space. I found an Aussi based, gas injector system that could be adapted. Bob Wilson
This is a military spending issue, unrelated to energy or cars. I was at Home Depot last night and I heard several employees talking about this. Lots of times CNG makes sense for cars overseas as (except in USA due to safety regulations) it is cheap to convert cars to CNG.
Yes the link is about (yet) another military spending boondoggle but it is NOT the subject of this thread. Rather it's about introducing a fuel standard on a country that has neither the infrastructure nor the majority of drivers having the personal means to buy the vehicles. Discuss.....
Pakistan's government deflates dream of gas-powered cars | World news | The Guardian It sounds like bifuel would work in Pakistan if they built a pipeline to iran. The pakistani government promoted cng knowing it didn't have the natural gas reserves, but did not build infratructure to import. The alternative is the trans afghan pipeline that should be started soon, and complete estimates around 2020. If construction works, then afghanistan and pakistan should have access to plenty of natural gas. Then again ISIL, Taliban, whoever may blow up the pipeline. CNG stations are a lot cheper than gas stations to build, and can offer lowr fuel prices and lower unhealthy tailpipe pollution from cars without proper pollution controls. The station may have just been early. The other problem is the conversion kits and used cars. These would probably need to come from pakistan, iran, or china, which gets you further into politics.
In times of high gaso prices, countries with nat gas can keep tons of money in the country by switching to domestic nat gas for vehicles. I saw this in New Zealand in the early 1980's. I do not know at what point it does not make sense to do this. I would think the balance of payments in Afghanistan probably argued strongly for a trying to make CNG work. Believe we have one Pakistani here on Prius Chat with CNG tanks in his Prius hatchback. Therefore the premise that CNG makes zero sense once one crosses the border is shot down, I believe. Sorry to use the military pun.
China is Planing to use the natural gas in transportation in the form of methanol and electricity (plug-in). Pakistan seems to be killing off its natural gas vehicles. Afghanistan does not have the infrastructure, although it may in 2020. If Afghanistan wants to use natural gas/bio gas its easiest way forward is flex fuel methanol (M0-M100). They could do some cng busses and trucks like the US, but its doubtful that they could build meaningful cng infrastructure fast. Only half of afghans have electricity at home, which seems like a bigger need than building natural gas infrastructure, which takes longer and more money. I don't think the militaries idea to pop up a cng station was necessarily a bad one to test the waters, but the program was managed horibly. You could have flown in a pakistani crew of experts on private jets, and fed them with gormet chefs, and for less money than this boon doggle cost.
