Comment by fuzzfactor
5 hours ago
Without cryogenics, methane has such low energy density that a low-pressure fuel tank would still have to be as big as a bus for your compact methane-powered vehicle to go as far as you could on a few gallons of gasoline.
Why?
CNG ICE vehicles exist, especially in parts of the world that have cheap natural gas and expensive gasoline - often as dual fuel retrofits.
They have to deal with high pressure tanks, but compared to the woes of hydrogen storage, that's downright benign.
Good question.
It's just the physical properties of methane.
That's why they use high-pressure tanks because with low-pressure gas storage, the tank needs to be bigger than the car.
Energy density of methane is still lower than any other hydrocarbons.
Again: current day CNG ICEs don't actually have "fuel tanks bigger than the car".