Compressed Natural Gas: The new alternative fuel for the Algerian transportation sector

The Climate change has seriously impacted on the environment of the human beings. Though, most of the climatic warming that has occurred has been caused by human activities, in particular the burning of fossil fuels that generate the greenhouse gas emissions. However, in urban area, the transport sector is one of the most important causes of the high levels of atmospheric pollution: greenhouse gas and fine particulate matter emitted by the gasoline and diesel engines. The introduction of alternative fuel in the transport sector which is less pollutant, economically more affordable and more available is an alternative quite interesting to reduce air pollution while allowing economic and social development of Algeria. Using Compressed Natural Gas 'CNG' for vehicle is an alternative which is environmentally friendly as well as economically and energetically interesting, it is also in accordance with the world energy tendency which sustains the future use of gaseous fuels that are subscribed in the decarbonization process of the energetic systems (reducing the fuels carbon content). In this item, an overview of the Algerian automobile fleet will be exposed. And the economic, energetic and environmental matters of the introduction of the CNG as fuel in the Algerian transport sector will be discussed. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of ISWEE'11