Natural gas-fueled buses and trucks: Will the climate really benefit?

They are looking for an advantage in co2 (CO2) emissions as well as energy costs savings to warrant the higher vehicle costs as well as reduced fuel efficiency associated with natural gas vehicles.

Climate advantages uncertain at best

They may be amazed to know, however , that organic gas-powered vehicles are not always more climate-friendly than their own diesel fumes-spewing counterparts.

To ensure a fuel switch provides immediate climate benefits, we have to make engine-efficiency improvements and also major cuts in powerful heat-trapping methane emissions across the natural gas value chain. In case these steps are not taken, relocating truck fleets from diesel powered to natural gas could really increase warming for decades in the future.

This is a growing concern these days as the market share for this kind of vehicles seems poised to develop.

While only about 3 % of new freight trucks operate on natural gas today, some experts suggest their market share might reach as high as 20 percent on the next decade if higher oil and diesel costs return. Meanwhile, investments in normal gas-powered utility vehicles along with transit buses are developing, with 11 percent regarding such vehicles already operating on gas.

It means we should address the problem of methane emissions today, before marketplace penetration becomes significant and also the technology is locked within and harder to change.

Gas value chain full of leakages

Methane - the main component in natural gas and a green house gas many times more potent compared to CO2 - is leaked out to the atmosphere from the stage where it’s first removed from the ground to when it is burned by a vehicle barreling down the expressway.

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