DETROIT, Mich. (November 18, 2002) - Exhaust emissions from natural gas school buses contain higher levels of air pollutants and toxic air contaminants than those in school buses powered by advanced-technology, low-emitting diesel engines.

That is the chief finding by an independent research laboratory under contract to International Truck and Engine Corporation, presented to the Society of Automotive Engineers conference. The research compares emissions from a popular model natural gas bus with emissions from diesel school buses.

"We now have a reliable basis for comparing the current relative toxicity of natural gas and diesel engine exhaust," said Dr. Charles A. Lapin, a toxicologist and co-author of a forthcoming SAE paper on the research. "The study shows that low-emitting diesel technology clearly has clean-air advantages over natural gas when it comes to school buses."

International Truck and Engine Corporation, which has begun selling a low-emitting diesel engine certified to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California Air Resources Board (ARB) 2007 particulate and hydrocarbon emission standards, sponsored the research along with ConocoPhillips, a producer of the ultra-low-sulfur fuel that enables the use of the new diesel technology.

The study raises questions about the basis for diesel exhaust regulation in California, the nation's leading state air pollution regulator, said Lapin.

Of the 41 toxic air contaminants (TACs) listed as present in diesel exhaust by the California ARB, tests did not find 21 of them in the exhaust of any of three tested power system configurations - conventional diesel, low-emitting diesel or natural gas.

"Special sampling provisions were used specifically to detect low levels of these contaminants," Lapin said. "The fact that the contaminants were missing casts doubt on previous statements about diesel toxicity."

The natural gas bus exhaust had higher levels of six of California's listed TACs than the exhaust from the low-emitting diesel bus.

In the three tested bus configurations, the natural gas bus had the highest emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), nitrogen oxide (NO), total hydrocarbons, non-methane hydrocarbons, methane and carbon monoxide (CO), according to Lapin.

The low-emitting diesel bus was found to be higher than both natural gas and conventional diesel in two other emissions - nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide - but the low-emitting diesel had the lowest emissions of the four engine exhaust "criteria pollutants" regulated by EPA and the ARB: NOx, CO, particulate matter, and hydrocarbons.