Increase Use of CNG as Public Transport & Reduce Emissions: A Comparative Study of the Benefits of CNG & Automobiles Fuel: Present Scenario on Bangladesh

Abstract

Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) is a natural gas i.e. methane, in compressed form. Natural gas at ambient temperature and pressure has very low energy density compared to other fuels. To use natural gas as a transportation fuel, it must be compressed to increase its volumetric energy density.

In recent years due to spiraling hike of fuel price, Bangladesh government had no other options but to increase in fuel price. This has led to increase in conversion of petrol/octane automobiles into CNG system, which runs on natural gas abundantly available in this country. How more and more CNG conversion workshops have developed and CNG has gained popularity and acceptability at a rapid pace. The purpose of this study is to access the popularity of CNG as an alternative automobile fuel.

In many respects, the distribution of modal choices in Dhaka is unique among cities of comparable size in the Asia region. Almost 60% of the 8.5 million weekday person trips are walk trips and about 19.2% use rickshaw. For the remaining 20% trips on motorized models. The high dependence on walking and rickshaw, both slow and typically best suited for short trips on secondary roads and a low dependence on buses, in a city of 14.5 million people with an urban area about 2000 sq. km. is a symptom of inefficient and ineffective transport operations as well as uncontrollable land use (DOE 2011).

The number of CNG vehicles plying on road till to date is 204243 (RPGCL, May-2012). Taking an average of 15 liter/day per vehicle, the cost of CNG use per annum amounts to tk. 170.00 crore. The same number of vehicles would spend tk. 1000.00 crore on equal amount of petrol. It was revealed that the CNG users are saving tk. 830.00 crore by using CNG instead of petrol (EAW 2006).

Keywords: CNG, conversion, environment, fuel, gas, transportation