THERMAL SCIENCE

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Hanna Wang Helmreich

,

Stefan Lochner

THE POTENTIAL OF NATURAL GAS AS A BRIDGING TECHNOLOGY IN LOW-EMISSION ROAD TRANSPORTATION IN GERMANY

ABSTRACT
Greenhouse gas emission reductions are at the centre of national and international efforts to mitigate climate change. In road transportation, many politically incentivised measures focus on increasing the energy efficiency of established technologies, or promoting electric or hybrid vehicles. The abatement potential of the former approach is limited, electric mobility technologies are not yet market-ready. In a case study for Germany, this paper focuses on natural gas powered vehicles as a bridging technology in road transportation. Scenario analyses with a low level of aggregation show that natural gas-based road transportation in Germany can accumulate up to 464 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent emission reductions until 2030 depending on the speed of the diffusion process. If similar policies were adopted EU-wide, the emission reduction potential could reach a maximum of about 2.5 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent. Efforts to promote natural gas as a bridging technology may therefore contribute to significant emissions reductions.
KEYWORDS
emission reduction potential, natural gas vehicles, alternative fuels, road transportation
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2012-01-31
PAPER REVISED: 2012-03-27
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2012-04-14
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI120131125W
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2012, VOLUME 16, ISSUE Issue 3, PAGES [729 - 746]
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The potential of natural gas as a bridging technology in low-emission road transportation in Germany

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