“Fill ‘er up” for 87 cents a gallon in Utah

Fact-checkers who rated the vice presidential contenders’ truthfulness following the debate a week ago pointed out that Sara Palin stretched the truth a bit when she said a new, $40 billion natural-gas pipeline in Alaska was a done deal.

If Palin can come to an agreement with natural-gas producers to fill the pipeline, it will be good news for the Lower 48, but an exceptionally good deal for Utah.

That’s because, while the rest of us nervously eyeball yo-yo oil prices at the pumps, Utah residents are enjoying super-cheap natural-gas prices that are the equivalent of 87 cents a gallon.

According to a September 2 piece in the New York Times , the cheap prices have created something of a buzz in the Beehive State as residents there travel beyond state lines and gladly pay a premium to buy used natural-gas cars. Or they spend thousands to convert their conventional gas-powered vehicles to natural gas, often using illegal conversion kits to do so. Opportunists are quickly scooping up whatever natural gas cars they can find, then quickly reselling them for profit.

The only U.S. car company that produces natural-gas cars is Honda, with its Civic GX model. Elsewhere in the United States, most natural-gas vehicles are used in van or bus fleets.

But Utah is an unusually natural-gas-friendly state, for several reasons. It already has a pre-existing infrastructure of natural-gas fill-up stations. It has state-controlled natural-gas prices. And it has unusually high oil prices.

Do you see natural-gas-powered vehicles as part of the solution to our nation’s oil crisis?

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