Hefner on the Transition to Natural Gas (CNG) Use in the Transportation Sector
(Hefner has been writing and speaking to the importance of the development of compressed natural gas and natural gas vehicles for many years)
- 1989, November 16, KKNG Radio, Max Nichols Report featuring Hefner: “The Detroit of natural gas fueled vehicles in the future should be located in Oklahoma…Natural gas will be the principal energy to fuel the U.S. and global economies into the 21st century.”
- 1990, November 29, Paper “A National Energy Policy Initiated by the States”: “Let’s double, triple – no, let’s multiply by an order of magnitude our efforts on CNG…We should begin with the buses, trucks and fleets of automobiles. We should immediately jump into the program of conversion to CNG vehicles at home, because you must remember that each vehicle at home doubles the use of natural gas in that home.”
- 1991, January 14, FNN “Marketwrap with Bob Metz” on Hefner: “Robert Hefner says the nation has enough natural gas to last 100 years even without imports…We can convert a third of our cars and trucks to natural gas.”
- 1991, February, Oklahoma Forum magazine: “The natural gas industry is searching for the logical place to begin mass conversion of autos, trucks and buses from oil-fueled gasoline and diesel to natural gas. Oklahoma is that place…Over the past 50 years natural gas in automobiles has proven to be a clean and safe technology.”
- 1991, March 12, Speech, New Mexico State University: “Opportunities abound for the natural gas industry…in the commercial sector: the conversion of fleet vehicles to CNG and natural gas cooling.”
- 1991, September 21, Speech, Colorado’s Energy Initiatives of the 1990s: “A major shift away from oil in transportation fuel [is needed] – about half our vehicle fleet needs to be converted to oil alternatives. Although the conversion of half the nation’s cars and trucks to compressed natural gas is a big order, America has ample economic power and ample natural gas resources to do the job…Much of the infrastructure for natural gas vehicles is in place…Natural gas vehicle technology is proven and safe.”
- 1992, Paper “An Econergenic Policy for 21st Century America”: “Gasoline used in America’s automobile and truck fleet must be replaced by natural gas in order to regenerate America’s economy internally.”
- 1992, November 9, Natural Gas Week: Hefner says the United States could convert all its cars, all its service stations and all its gas connected homes for natural gas vehicle (NGV) fueling for no more than the cost of importing oil for the rest of this decade.
- 1995, Paper, “Fuels in Transition – Toward Sustainable Economic Growth: The Age of Energy Gases”: “We have now entered the early years of a wave of exponential growth in natural gas technological innovation…to use natural gas in clean driving automobiles that can be refueled at home if you cook or heat with natural gas.”
- 2009, January 29, Paper “An Energy & Industrial Recovery Plan”: “America’s vastly abundant, clean, affordable natural gas is the only scalable alternative to gasoline and diesel that can make a big energy and environmental difference in the near-term.”
- 2009, from Hefner’s book The Grand Energy Transition published by John Wiley & Sons: “I recommend a plan for tax credits and government guaranteed loans so that owners can retrofit their vehicles to run on 130 octane, clean CNG that usually costs less than gasoline and is produced at home and not subject to the real possibility of pocketbook-busting [gasoline] price increases.”
- 2010, January 8, The Business Times, Singapore: Hefner says Singapore needs to set about converting its vehicle population to use natural gas if it wants to speed up the Grand Energy Transition. He predicts that natural gas will increasingly displace solid and liquids fuels.
- 2012, April 9, Harvard University: “Let me say something about the United States’ infrastructure for natural gas that isn’t fully recognized. We have 2.5 million miles of natural gas pipelines in America and they connect 65 million American homes. And at those homes, about a 130 million – a little over half our automobile fleet – stays at those homes, comes back probably every night, or most every night. And the infrastructure isn’t too hard to develop…I think you’ll see the chicken and egg infrastructure problem beginning to break down and more and more and more conversion going on every single day.”