Establishment of a CNG Station and its Economic Savings in Reduction of Air Pollution's Adverse Health Effects in Comparison to a Gasoline Station in Tehran

Natural gas as an environmentally friendly fuel will have the highest growth rate among energy carriers in the first two decades of this century which is an indication of its ever increasing share in global consumption of energy sources. The present study utilizes the most recent statistics and data about air pollution and fuel price to estimate the amount of saving that can be attained through the establishment of a single- purposed CNG station having 4 dispensers and consuming 10.512.000 cubic meters of CNG annually. Thus, the economic losses of pollutants’ emissions from 1 cubic meter of CNG and 1 liter of gasoline were calculated. Finally, by considering the annual revenue of a CNG station, the total monetary saving through the consumption of gas in comparison to the equal amounts of gasoline (per kilometer) was calculated. The results indicate that the total savings for each single-purpose CNG station is about 26.088.303.168 Rials. The cumulative savings from a chain of CNG stations will be remarkable and in long term it will have huge paybacks including air pollution reduction, public health improvement, gasoline and diesel consumption decrease, reduction in foreign currency expenditures, self sufficiency in use of modern technologies and preservation of petroleum resources.