About ten filling stations for vehicles running on natural gas are to be built in the Helsinki area by 2010.
The natural gas company Gasum hopes to set up its stations where the main gas pipeline and heavy flows of traffic intersect.
"Cars using natural gas will not increase in traffic unless there are more filling stations", says Jarko Alanko, director of the Gasum subsidiary responsible for local distribution.
For instance, Gasum wants at least two locations on the Kehä I ring road, which has Finland’s heaviest traffic.
Another filling station would be at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, which is served by many buses and taxis. One option would be to introduce vehicles using natural gas as a fuel for the airport’s internal transport needs.
Gasum had hoped to set up a filling station in Hakaniemi in the centre of Helsinki, but the Uusimaa Environment Centre would not grant permission for the construction.
A court appeal has been launched. Jarko Alanko admits that the establishment of a network of filling stations has not moved forward as smoothly has had been expected.
"This has been surprisingly difficult. We are between three and five stations behind our original schedule", he calculates.
The European Union has set as its goal that by 2020 about one fifth of all traffic will be powered by alternative fuel.
Natural gas should account for about ten percent of transport fuel. It has clear environmental benefits: there are no sulphur or small particle emissions, and carbon dioxide emissions are 25 per cent less than with ordinary gasoline.
A network of about 30 filling stations for natural gas is planned for the south of Finland by the turn of the decade.
