Hi! I'm planning a trip to Romania for this Christmas (we're a group of 8 people with 3 cars) and I am wondering if any of you have found a methane station if you've ever been there? It will be a lot cheaper for us to use methane instead of gas and our searches on the internet have negative results
Thank you so much!

Methane is the gas for your furnace and stove, not for your car. Impossible.

Hopscotch is incorrect. There are various places where methane is used for running internal combustion engines for busses, etc. I don't know how common it is in Romania but it is certainly not an impossibility.

Hopscotch should hav e googled "methane cars" before posting.

Volvo has had a production methane/gasoline engine for 10 years.

Dukey is correct. Methane can be used for specially configured automobiles, but I do think there is some confusion here.

Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) is actually the fuel, and it is primarily methane, but it must be used in a compressed form. You will see Autos running on CNG require a special pressurized tank - often at very high pressure. (several thousand psi). These are common in fleet vehicles in many places around the world - taxis, buses, etc.

Alcohol, in the form of ethanol (not to be confused with methanol), is a liquid fuel used much like regular gasoline. The two are NOT interchangable though. Gasoline sold in the US now typically has 10% ethanol (grain alcohol, or hooch) added for cleaner emissions. Anything higher than 15 or 20% ethanol requires engine and fuel system modification, as ethanol will degrade many normal engine parts, as it is a super solvent. It cannot be transported through normal gas pipelines and must be trucked from the source (that's one reason gas prices have gone up since the ethanol rule was implemented last summer).

So, Livvia will NOT be able to use methane (known as CNG) in a normal vehicle, and I've never seen a CNG vehicle for rent (never been to Romania though).

And if Livvia found an ethanol fueling station, she would not be able to use that in a regular gasoline vehicle. The auto would run, but she would risk damaging the fuel system.

Perhaps she is thinking of diesel, which is often cheaper than gasoline. Diesel is found at just about every normal fueling station in Europe.

Yes, Volvo and other manufacturers have dual fuel models, with separate fuel tanks for gasoline and CNG. One at atmospheric pressure for gasoline and the other at high pressure for CNG/methane.

You can't run a regular gasoline or diesel rental car on methane.

I was under the impression that Livvia already had a bi-fuel car and was looking for a fuel station that sold methane.

Gosh, I learn someting every time I come on the Fodor's forum.

Per ira's suggestion I googled "methane cars" and read about the Volvo on one of those clean green environmental sites. Interesting. But the car is simply a curiosity. Volvo has only produced 12,000 of these cars in ten years. Production of methane fueled cars is just a political statement from Volvo.

BTW, when googling for "methane cars" the first result that comes up is a site about using methane gas from chicken and pig poop to power your car. I guess I should never use the word "impossible" again.

Hi Hop,

Anything that can be fluidized and will burn (even powdered coal) can be used in an internal combustion engine.

I believe that Mercedes-Benz is working on a Diesel engine intended to run on rapeseed (canola) oil.

I stopped at petrol stations throughout Transylvania, Prahova, Molvania and Maramures areas. I recall seeing regular or diesel, but don't recall seeing any methane stations in Romania. They may exist, but they weren't coupled with the main brands that I saw.