natural gas taxi

I just returned from a four-day trip to northern Peru and I have many things to report. But, first things first...

Last night, I rode in a station wagon style taxi with a gas tank stored in the trunk. Carlos had told me, just earlier the same day, that because the price of oil is so expensive in Peru, taxi drivers use natural gas to fuel their cars. I was intrigued and voluntarily made conversation with a stranger.

The taxi driver explained that a tank of natural gas can fuel a car for about 200 km (124 miles) and cost about s/ 22 ($7); to go the same distance by using regular oil, it would cost about s/ 60 ($19). That makes oil almost three times more expensive than natural gas.

Our driver drives about 300 km each day, seven days a week. Over the course of a year, he saves about s/ 20,805 ($6,605) by using natural gas. Apparently, natural gas is also cleaner for the environment.

When I think of natural gas, my mind immediately jumps to gas stoves. Our driver explained that it wasn't the case. The natural gas used for cars is very different from the gas used for cooking. There is a pipeline connecting the source of the gas to the gas station. At the station, a special machine is used to deliver pressurized gas into the car.

I don't know how safe it is having pressurized gas in a moving vehicle, especially in Lima where the traffic is relentless and the driving is aggressive and unpredictable, but having mini explosions in your engine (which is how oil-fueled cars work) seems equally dangerous to imagine.

Two things struck me when I spoke to the driver. One is how hard he works. He drives 16 hours each day, seven days a week. On and off, driving a taxi has been his career for 34 years. Though he rarely gets to spend time with this family, which includes a wife and three sons (three tigers he calls them for their ravenous appetite), he works hard in order to support them. (He jokes that each night he returns home, it's like being in a stickup. He holds up his hands as his wife frisks him for his earnings. And if the money doesn't leave him, then his woman will.)

The second thing is that developing affordable, renewable alternative fuels makes sense economically and environmentally. The Incas worshipped the sun–the ultimate renewable and free fuel. Therefore, as I am scribbling this post, I am puzzled at the notion of an energy crisis. It seems to me this is more a crisis of will. The sun is still shining and is not going away for another few billion years.