I briefly pointed out the stimulus project for the $600,000.00 Crown Victoria police cruiser in Arizona.
Now, someone has the bright idea of asking for $1.4 million dollars to convert 50 police cars over to natural gas.
It is estimated that the project will create 12 jobs. What type of jobs? That remains to be seen. It could be mechanic jobs to fix the mechanical problems that happen with the conversion.
Here is an article on what happened when Dallas converted 100 police cars over to natural gas.
First, what stands out from the article is; the city of Dallas converted 100 police cars over to natural gas for about a million dollars. In Athens Georgia, they want to convert only 50 police cars for $1.4 million.
It has been a few years since the conversion in Dallas, but I would think that the cost hasn't risen that much.
Beside the cost of the conversion, some of the problems that plagued the Dallas police department were; the cars were not suited for police work and the cars were a maintenance headache.
According to reports, one third of the fleet was out of service due to mechanical problems.
Other problems were; police officers claimed that acceleration was not what was needed. So it must of been tough trying to catch a driver speeding in a Geo. And they had to fill up multiple times during a shift. So the mileage must have been lousy.
Even with these misgivings, Dallas City Manager Mary Schum stood behind the decision.
So I have to ask, why do we keep throwing good money at bad ideas? The answer is obvious.
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2 comments:
LNG has less energy than Propane, Propane has less than Gasoline.
This result was inevitable, the person responsible for the boondoggle should have to reimburse the taxpayers out of their own pocket.
By the way, I own a Propane fueled Chevy pick up, it works fine for the limited duties I ask of it.
I will never take it very far from home, I know it has reduced power so will not use it to tow,
Mileage is worse than a similar Gasoline fueled truck, and propane is nearly twice the price.
But the 100 gallon tank makes up for some of the deficiency.
I needed a 4x4 truck, and got this one CHEAP because no one else would touch it.
Interesting comment. I was curious as to T. Boone Pickett's desire to convert all of the DOT to natural gas. That would, of course, put a major dent in our oil usage.
I just wondered about the technology and am too lazy to research. :)
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