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Clean Fuel Put to Test in East China Province
China's first filling station sporting pumps full of light hydrocarbon, a pollution-free fuel to replace gasoline, held a test run on Friday in Jinhua City of Zhejiang Province, an economic powerhouse in the east.
Twenty refitted cars, which can use either gasoline or light hydrocarbon as fuel, got fill-ups and took a spin through the city streets.
Use of light hydrocarbon can cut 80 percent of the toxic materials from auto exhaust, such as carbon monoxide, and can also provide greater driving force than natural gas which is also widely used as a pollution-free fuel for automobiles.
Most Chinese automobiles use gasoline, even though its exhaust contains a high percentage of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbon, lead, sulfur, and other harmful chemicals. Scientists have suggested that more clean fuels, such as natural gas, be used as gasoline substitutes.
Light hydrocarbon is also an economical fuel, said Zhao, because an average car will use about 40 liters of gasoline to run 400 km, but only use 34 liters of light hydrocarbon to cover the same distance.
Construction of a standard gasoline filling station costs about two million yuan (US$ 240,000). But the cost of rebuilding a gas station into a light hydrocarbon station is only 200,000 yuan (US$ 24,000), Zhao said.
The hydrocarbon research was patented last September. The Zhejiang provincial government plans to promote its use throughout the province this year.
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