Liquefied Natural Gas: Quiet, clean and very green

As business and industry makes attempts to reduce pollution, the key area has been clearly identified as the road transport market. Air quality officials recognise that HGVs, buses, LGVs and taxis using traditional fuels play a critical role in the nation's air pollution problems. On-road vehicles contribute more than 60% of all carbon monoxide (CO) pollution, and are the second largest source of hydrocarbons (29%) and NOx (31%), the major ingredients of ground-level ozone.

Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs) have surpassed oil based fuels in delivering superior emissions performance. Because of it's simple chemical make-up: one molecule of carbon and four molecules of hydrogen (CH4), natural gas burns far cleaner than complex fossil fuels such as oil and coal (which contain high proportions of carbon, sulphur and nitrogen).

NGVs emit virtually no particulate matter emissions and contain almost no toxic components. Gasoline and diesel fuels and their exhaust contain numerous harmful chemical agents. The gaseous components of diesel exhaust, for example, contain benzene, 1,3-butadiene, arsenic and nickel, which are known to cause cancer in humans.
Source: Gas Research Institute (GRI)

CO2 Reduction

Scientifically, methane is not a pollutant since it is naturally occuring, and not a by-product of a combustion process or chemical reaction. Methane, however has a greater global warming potential than CO2 so any emmission to atmosphere is undesirable.

Today, natural gas powered vehicles are fitted with an exhaust catalyst which coverts unburnt methane fuel (i.e.fuel slippage) to CO2 and water. Therefore the global warming potential of natural gas powered vehicles is reduced relative to they're diesel counterparts.

As a simple rule of thumb based on average fuel efficiency data available to Chive Fuels: For every gallon of diesel displaced by methane in a dual fuel engine then the CO2 saving is approximately 2.65 kg's.

Noise reduction of Natural Gas Vehicles

Another environmental advantage that natural gas has over diesel is the reduced noise pollution of gas powered vehicles. Tests on LNG tractor units have shown that gas vehicles are consistently quieter than diesel. The reductions which averaged around 10 dB(A), are the equivalent to a halving of the noise level.