Vista Gas Station Is the First to Go Natural : Pollution: It’s the first in the region to offer compressed natural gas as a low-pollution alternative to gasoline.

Southern California’s first public service station to offer motorists compressed natural gas opened Thursday in Vista amid predictions that it will hasten an era of cheaper, cleaner fuel.

Representatives of San Diego Gas & Electric and Unocal say they have undertaken the region’s first cooperative effort between a utility and an oil company to provide such an alternative fuel facility for vehicles.

SDG&E; and Unocal hope that installing the natural gas pump at Fred and Irene Tabor’s service station off California 78 will show the public and Detroit auto makers that the fuel can be made available to consumers.

Although there are 30,000 natural gas-powered vehicles in the United States, most are part of fleets rather than vehicles owned and driven by private citizens.

“We’ve just stood forward and want to be on the cutting edge,” said Alan Taylor, Unocal’s general sales manager.

Unocal also wants natural gas to secure its future in the marketplace by offering a product that meets the state’s demands for better fuel to lessen smog.

Oil companies like Unocal and makers of alternative fuels are vying to offer products that can meet stringent standards approved last September by the state Air Resources Board.

“There’s tremendous marketplace competition, which is what we’ve intended all along,” said board spokesman Bill Sessa.

SDG&E; has worked for five years to promote natural gas, the same kind used in home cooking, believing it is less expensive and will help comply with what Sessa called the state’s “ultra-clean emission standards.”

Natural gas “is a clean-fuel alternative that has the potential to eliminate much of Southern California’s air quality concerns,” said Don Felsinger, SD&E;’s vice president for marketing and resource development.

Proponents who attended a brief ceremony at the Tabors’ Unocal 76 station emphasized the abundance of natural gas, which is produced in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, and the potential of less reliance on foreign oil.

“We have supplies projected to last through our lifetime and beyond,” Felsinger said.

Taylor, referring to foreign oil producers, added, “we know it’s a very unstable world out there.”

Existing vehicles can’t use natural gas unless they undergo a $2,500 to $3,000 conversion that includes adding different fuel tanks and lines. Thus, the future of natural gas as an alternative fuel rests heavily on the production of factory-built vehicles that will run on natural gas.

According to Felsinger, General Motors has announced it will produce 1,000 small trucks equipped to run on natural gas. Other automobile manufactures, also feeling California’s pressure to make cleaner-running vehicles, are being urged to follow GM’s example.

Felsinger said natural gas vehicles get the same mileage as those operating on gasoline, but have “fewer maintenance problems.” He said some owners of vehicles converted to use natural gas complain of having less power but said that problem will be solved when natural gas vehicles are manufactured.

Natural gas advocates say the alternative fuel costs less than gasoline, and the pump at the Tabors’ Unocal 76 station offered one therm of natural gas--equal to a gallon of gas--for 68 cents.

However, Sessa cautioned, until rates are approved for natural gas, it’s hard to tell what it will actually cost motorists when use is more widespread.

SDG&E; and Unocal acknowledged Thursday that, until natural gas rates are set, the cost can only be estimated at 40% to 50% of other fuels on an equivalent basis.

Felsinger said this first service station to offer natural gas is one of several that are planned to make it a “viable alternative fuel for San Diego.”

The Tabors’ station was chosen partly because it’s just south of heavily traveled California 78. Also, several North County entities--including the Vista Unified School District and the North County Transit District--are experimenting with natural gas vehicles.

Unocal and SDG&E; hope to gain experience in marketing natural gas, although the utility looks at its main role as proving that natural gas can be made available to consumers and should be taken seriously as an alternative fuel.

“We’re trying to bring all of the parties together and get them to the table . . . at the same time,” Felsinger said.