With black smoke belching from battered vehicles on the congested streets of Cairo and the sickly smell of exhaust hanging in the air, Mohamed Daoud's taxi glides quietly along on cheap, clean fuel.
His black and white cab is part of a growing fleet of roughly 100,000 vehicles that have been converted to run on cheap natural gas after the Egyptian government pushed for more reliance on greener energy.
Compressed natural gas (CNG), which produces fewer harmful emissions than gasoline or diesel, is catching on in the smog-shrouded northern cities and demand may grow further as the fuel becomes more widely available across the country.
But it is the tough economy, not the environment, that is leading a growing number of drivers to make the switch as the cost of even heavily subsidized petrol rises beyond what many Egyptians can afford.
The most populous Arab country is one of the Middle East's least well-endowed in energy reserves. Egypt has 1.2 percent of the world's gas and 0.3 percent of its oil.
"I am interested in the environment. But it (CNG) is also cheaper," said Daoud, who switched his taxi to run on natural gas five years ago. "I can bring in more profit."
"In this atmosphere, we can't use petrol," he added as he waited for his taxi to be worked on at a bustling CNG service station, the first in Africa and the Arab world.
The Egyptian government, hit this year by inflation and a larger-than-ever bill for bread subsidies for the poor, slashed petrol subsidies in a lightning move in May to cover the cost of pay rises for civil servants.
Long accustomed to cheap petrol, Egyptian consumers woke to prices that had risen by up to 57 percent overnight for the highest grade of petrol. Popular 90-octane fuel surged 35 percent to 1.75 Egyptian pounds ($0.32) per liter, expensive by local standards but still well below free-market prices.
An equivalent amount of compressed natural gas sells for a quarter of the price.
ENERGY CRUNCH
Worried about an energy crunch in coming decades, Egypt wants to diversify its resources. That includes developing renewable energy like wind and nuclear power.
Lending urgency to the drive for alternative energy is Egypt's limited supply of fossil fuels, especially crude oil. Experts say Egypt's proven oil and gas reserves will last for roughly three more decades.
Egypt wants to generate 20 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020, according to the country's New and Renewable Energy Authority. It already gets significant hydroelectric power from the Aswan High Dam.
Cairo also wants to build several nuclear power stations and has secured U.S. backing for the project, for which it is seeking Russian expertise. But it is also encouraging other forms of greener energy.
