Methane causing global warming and ozone emissions, worse than NOx emissions, says Harvard & Argonne national laboratory study

Diesel Fuel News, Nov 11, 2002

While clean-diesel was incorrectly fingered for possibly causing worse "global warming" emissions by Stanford University's Mark Jacobson--later debunked by University of Minnesota particle scientist David Kittelson--there's no doubt that methane (natural gas) is far worse than clean-diesel on "global warming." Now, a Harvard University/ANL study shows that cutting methane emissions (which could be accomplished partly by avoiding the conversion of diesels to natural gas) not only can cut global warming, but also ozone emissions.

In a study funded by US EPA, NASA and National Science Foundation, researchers found that gas pipeline leaks and other man-made sources are 60% of methane emissions. "A reduction of man-made methane by 50% would have a greater impact on global tropospheric ozone than a comparable reduction in man-made nitrogen oxide emissions," according to the r eport from American Geophysical Union, publisher of Geophysical Research Letters. "Reduction in methane emissions would, however, help to decrease greenhouse warming by decreasing both methane and ozone in the atmosphere worldwide, and this would also help to reduce surface air pollution," the researchers found.