Ethanol Cars Unhealthier Than Petrol Ones?
The Register:
An American academic has published research (pdf) suggesting that bio-ethanol vehicles could be more damaging to human health than ordinary fossil-fuelled ones.
Mark Jacobson of Stanford University in California used two computer models to predict American air quality in the year 2020. In the first scenario, it was taken that all vehicles ran on petrol. In the second, it was assumed that the motors would instead use E85 – a mix of 85 per cent ethanol and 15 per cent petrol.
Jacobson found that the E85-driven model forecast 200 more deaths per year across the USA, the majority occurring in Los Angeles. The extra deaths would occur in places where the amount of surface-level ozone could be expected to increase as a result of ethanol use. There would be other places where ethanol vehicles would actually reduce the amount of ozone present, but overall the health consequences would be negative.
Ozone, the triple-atom oxygen molecule, is vital for human health when found high above the earth’s surface as it absorbs harmful UV radiation. But when breathed in too-high concentrations, it can trigger asthma attacks and other respiratory problems.
“We found that using E85 will cause at least as much health damage as gasoline, which already causes about 10,000 premature deaths annually from ozone and particulate matter,” said Jacobson.
“The question is, if we’re not getting any health benefits, then why continue to promote ethanol and other biofuels.”
Another way of looking at those figures, of course, is that the sims showed a two per cent difference between deaths from petrol and deaths from ethanol. Most of that variance was the result of a cluster in LA, a region for which Jacobson seems to have used a different sim structure than he did for the rest of the States. Just how statistically significant all this is could be open to debate, especially as E85 advocates would point out that ethanol could potentially be carbon-neutral one day – unlike petrol.
However, we can probably acquit Jacobson of being in the oil industry’s pocket. His plan is for windmill-powered cars.
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