HOUSES, not just cars, are enemies of air quality in Chile’s smog-filled
capital, Santiago. The fuel that most Chileans use to heat their homes and power
their cookers is leaking out of valves and spewing hydrocarbons into the air,
according to a report in Geophysical Research Letters (vol 28, p 1711).
Tai-Yih Chen from the University of California, Irvine, looked at 144 air
samples from Santiago. They found that propane and butane from liquefied
petroleum gas are a leading source of ozone-forming hydrocarbons in air samples
taken in the city.
Propane was the number one hydrocarbon in Santiago’s air…
