Green diesel from natural gas could cut city smog

May 16, 2005; AIADA reported that a $20 billion investment in the middle eastern country of Qatar is being waged that natural gas can be converted to “green diesel,” according to AP. The product, which relies on a gas to liquid process developed in 1920s Germany, creates a fuel that is virtually sulfur-free. The clean-burning fuel, with almost none of the smelly sulfur soot belched by engines firing on conventional diesel, appears tailor-made for countries looking to reduce emissions in line with the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Sulfur emissions from diesel engines cause as many as 10,000 deaths a year among Americans with heart and lung ailments, said William Becker, who represents state and local air pollution control agencies in the United States. The fuel will be sell for more than conventional diesel, and is hugely profitable with current oil prices above $50 a barrel.