Although recent years have seen substantial reductions in noxious pollutants from individual motor vehicles, the number of such vehicles has been steadily increasing. Consequently, more than 100 cities in the United States still have levels of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and ozone that exceed legally established limits. There is a growing realization that the only effective way to achieve further reductions in vehicle emissions short of a massive shift away from the private automobile is to replace conventional diesel fuel and gasoline with cleaner-burning fuels such as compressed natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, ethanol, or methanol.
All of these alternatives are carbon-based fuels whose molecules are smaller and simpler than those of gasoline. These molecules burn more cleanly than gasoline, in part because they have fewer, if any, carbon-carbon bonds and the hydrocarbons they do emit are less likely to generate ozone. The combustion of larger molecules, which have multiple carbon-carbon bonds involves a more complex series of reactions. These reactions increase the probability of incomplete combustion and are more likely to release uncombusted and photochemically active hydrocarbon compounds into the atmosphere. On the other hand, alternative fuels do have drawbacks. Compressed natural gas would require that vehicles have set of heavy fuel tanks a serious liability in terms of performance and fuel efficiency and liquefied petroleum gas faces fundamental limits on supply.
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