Festival City Rotary Newsletter June 11
The Rotary Club Of Festival City
President: Dianne Yundt
Minutes of the meeting of June 11, 2013
Club email: festivalcityrotary@gmail.com
Club website: www.festivalcityrotary.ca
Guests: Marcia Matsui and Clark Mitchell are from the Stratford Rotary Club. Leticia Figueiredo is our exchange student. John Wilkinson from CNG Canada is our guest speaker.
Door Prize: Wayne Young donated a hanging basket of flowers won by Vincent Hill.
Announcements:
1. Board Meeting: The last board meeting to be chaired by President Dianne will be on June 20 at 6 PM. She will be providing the “Last Supper”. Final committee reports will be due then.
2. Rotary Dues: Make cheques payable to The Rotary Club of Festival City and give them to the treasurer Etienne Leushuis.
3. Coin Boxes: Return coin boxes to treasurer Etienne.
4. The G.S.E. Team from South Korea: The team will be in Grand Bend on June 18 and Rotarians are welcome to meet them. Contact Dianne Yundt if you are interested in attending.
5. Proposed 2013-2014 Budget: Treasurer Etienne has emailed the proposed budget to the membership. The budget will be discussed and voted on later this month.
6. Thank You Letter: The club received a letter from the Music and Opera organization thanking us for our donation.
7. Magnetic Rotary Pins: please pay treasurer Etienne $5 for pins ordered.
Guest Speaker: Bill Helmuth introduced John Wilkinson from CNG Canada. He is not John Wilkinson the politician but the other John Wilkinson. He spoke to us about compressed natural gas (CNG) as an efficient and affordable alternative fuel for vehicles. CNG Canada operates out of London Ontario and manufactures conversion kits for vehicles so that they can operate on both diesel or gasoline and compressed natural gas.
Although various alternative fuels for vehicles are beginning to appear in the marketplace, fuels such as electricity, vegetable oil, ethanol, hydrogen cells, they have disadvantages which CNG does not have.
CNG is abundant, affordable, and safe. It costs about 20 cents per cubic metre which is equivalent in energy to a litre of gasoline at $1.20/L. It burns cleaner than conventional fuels producing less smog and a 30-40% fewer greenhouse gases.
Currently CNG vehicles are found in taxis and transport fleets. The Thames Valley School Board vehicles use CNG. Some postal vehicles also use CNG. These companies have compressor stations which draw from the natural gas lines and compress the gas into the vehicle’s fuel tank.
A disadvantage of CNG is the lack of fueling stations. Until the fueling infrastructure improves CNG will be at a disadvantage.
Similar to CNG is LNG (Liquified Natural Gas). This is just natural gas which is compressed until it reaches a temperature of -259oF where it is a liquid. Special insulated tanks are required to keep the LNG cool for up to 8 days before refueling is required. It is commonly used in transport fleets. There is no road tax on LNG making it very cost effective for truck fleets.
John expects in the near future that more vehicles such as farm equipment will start to use CNG. Any farm with a biofuel digester or a natural gas well could produce their own CNG using an onsite compressor.
Propane is also a fuel being used in vehicles. It is processed out of natural gas making it more expensive.
A family car can be converted to run on CNG and gasoline for a cost of about $5000 +/- $500 depending upon the vehicle. Storage tanks are installed where the spare tire is located. A small computer is attached to seamlessly switch the engine between fuels.
For more information about CNG visit www.cngva.ca
John was thanked by Carol Rock