During these are economic times in the United States, inventors are trying to find ways to make everyday things that are used more efficient and cheaper for citizens to use. They focused on the car when fuel prices were sky high but when the prices dropped many of them lost their focus on developments of alternative fuel. The problem is they need to continue this focus because natural resources are growing more limited everyday. The thing is that other countries are already using an alternative fuel that is cheaper and found in things we throw out everyday. Methane is a fueling gas that other countries and ours have known for some time that can fuel a car and other operating systems. Methane is a natural combustible gas. There is two ways that it can be made. We can get it from the Earth’s crust like we do for other natural gases or we can get it from waste sludge and biological waste like chicken and pig manure or from landfills. Using methane to operate machinery or a car would reduce the greenhouse gases by 25 percent because it uses less carbon dioxide. Methane is a dry gas so it does not dilute the engine oil making the engine oil last almost for the life of the car. This is because the combustion of methane is around 97 percent compared to gasoline being 27 percent. The rest of the gasoline (73 percent) goes out the exhaust and pollutes the air and releases carbon dioxide. With methane the exhaust will contain a little of water and the rest carbon dioxide. Methane gas is growing alternative fuel in other countries like Germany, Sweden, and Italy. Volvo came out with a car in 1995 that had both a methane tank and gasoline tank for back up. The bio-fuel cars have a five-cylinder engine and the maximum power output is 140 hp with both fuels. The price on the car is a little higher then regular cars but using methane means less operating costs. Using this car will pay for itself because methane gas is cheaper then regular gasoline gas. It is roughly 20 to 60 percent lower then gasoline and 20 to 40 percent lower then diesel. With a full tank of methane and a full tank of petrol you can drive about 156-186 miles on the methane and then 186-217 miles on the petrol. So a drive can drive up to 403 miles before it runs empty. They have modified the car where the gas tank is no longer in the luggage compartment; it is now under the floor so the compartment has the same amount of space as other cars. Methane is so easy to make that consumers can make it in the luxury of their own garage. All you would need two hot water tanks, chicken or pig manure, straw, some items to drain the methane, a pressure bottle, and a hook-up of the methane bottle to your car’s carburetor. After making something like this a consumer can get 62 gallons of methane from one load of manure.

www.truehealth.org/methane.html www.naturalgas.org/overview/background.asp www.truehealth.org/volvomethanecars.html