Earth Equity News

As More Convert Cars to Natural Gas, Utah Tightens Safety Rules. By Brandon Loomis, Salt Lake Tribune, August 26, 2008. "The number of natural-gas tanks powering Utah vehicles has exploded this year. Now state officials and clean-car advocates want to ensure the tanks don't blow up, too, and that they pollute as little as intended. The dozens [of Utah residents] who claimed clean-fuel tax credits by switching from gasoline earlier this decade mushroomed into the hundreds last year, but... the real number... might have grown to 20,000 in the past year alone, [says] the... Utah Clean Cities Coalition... Since January of 2007, [Questar, the Utah utility that sells the natural gas for vehicles, has seen sales shoot] up 401%... Many of the vehicles -- including the nearly 700 that earned one-time tax breaks last year -- are professionally equipped, safe and [EPA-]certified. [But] others are backyard jobs with worn tanks and faulty exhaust systems [that endanger] both motorists and the... air... Motorists are flocking to compressed natural gas because in Utah it costs just 87 cents to equal the energy in a gallon of gasoline that now runs $4. Compressed gas is unusually cheap here because Questar owns both the gas and the pipes and is a publicly regulated utility... [However,] the Weber-Morgan Health Department last month announced that it will start rejecting compressed-gas vehicles whose emissions have been altered without proof of EPA-certification... There is no statewide rule restricting home conversions... [Still,] many switch without certification anyway, to reap the fuel savings."