Validating the role of AFVs in voluntary mobile source emission reduction programs.

Late in 1997, EPA announced new allowances for voluntary emission control programs. As a result, the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Clean Cities and other metro areas that have made an ongoing commitment to increasing participation by alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) in local fleets have the opportunity to estimate the magnitude and obtain emission reduction credit for following through on that commitment. Unexpectedly large reductions in key ozone precursor emissions in key locations and times of the day can be achieved per vehicle-mile by selecting specific light duty AFV offerings from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in lieu of their gasoline-fueled counterparts. Additional benefit accrues from the fact that evaporative emissions of non-methane hydrocarbons (generated in the case of CNG, LNG, and LPG by closed fuel-system AFV technology) can be essentially negligible. Upstream emissions from fuel storage and distribution with the airshed of interest are also reduced. This paper provides a justification and outlines a method for including AFVs in the mix of strategies to achieve local and regional improvements in ozone air quality, and for quantifying emission reduction credits. At the time of submission of this paper, the method was still under review by the US EPA Office of Mobile Sources, pending mutually satisfactory resolution of several of its key points. Some of these issues are discussed in the paper