By September 16, 2015 Read More →

CEDM News: CEDM Researchers show that methane leakage rate holds the key to make natural gas-derived fuels greener than conventional gasoline to power light-duty vehicles

Ph.D. student Fan Tong and EPP faculty members Dr. Paulina Jaramillo and Dr. Inês L. Azevedo from Carnegie Mellon University recently evaluated the greenhouse gas emissions of using natural gas to power light-duty vehicles (passenger vehicles and SUVs).The analysis indicates that among all natural gas-derived fuels only battery electric vehicles (BEV) powered with natural gas-based electricity achieve large emissions reduction. Further, it concludes that “life cycle GHG emissions of natural gas pathways are sensitive to the vehicle fuel efficiency, to the methane leakage rates of natural gas systems, and to the GWP assumed. With the current vehicle technologies, the break-even methane leakage rates of CNG, gaseous hydrogen FCEV, and BEV are 0.9%/2.3%, 1.2%/2.8%, and 4.5%/10.8% (20-year GWP/100-year GWP).” The work appears in the journal Energy & Fuels (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.5b01063).