SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) – Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Governor Gary Herbert, CH4 Energy and Utah Clean Cities celebrated the grand opening of a new L/CNG (Liquefied and Compressed Natural Gas) Station on Tuesday, March 22nd. This marked the first time that LNG (natural gas supercooled to -260 degrees Fahrenheit) was sold in the State of Utah.
The L/CNG fueling pumps are at the Flying J Travel Plaza at 2025 South 900 West in Salt Lake City. Drivers with LNG vehicles can fill up at the station for $1.89 a gallon with enough gas to travel all the way to Las Vegas.
Over the past several years Utah’s CH4 Energy has been working with the Utah Clean Energy Coalition and the US Department of Energy. These relationships earned CH4 enough grant money to pay for 30% of the $3 million filling station. This is something CH4 President Merritt Norton says is a win-win for the entire State of Utah.
“We think people are going to love it. It's going to help us clean the air in Utah...help us get off of foreign oil and use a domestically abundant fuel,” said Norton.
LNG is a clean burning fuel. If it spills on the ground it evaporates into the air without polluting it. It’s clean enough that a human can even drink it without harmful side effects.
Senator Hatch says Utah has tripled its natural gas use over the past three years and even has more natural gas vehicles per capita than any other state in the country. The senator hopes that this station will have even more Utahs jumping on board.
“And if we use this properly we should be able to transfer a lot of cars and other trucks to natural gas,” said Senator Hatch.
There are plans to open two more L/CNG stations this summer. One station will be in Ogden and the other in Southern Utah. This is in an effort to make a corridor for truck drivers from Salt Lake City to Southern California that will provide a seamless trip for 100% LNG fill-ups.
If you don’t have a vehicle that runs on natural gas you can have an LNG conversion kit installed.
