This is an extract from the New Scientist magazine.
Heres something else, some seems to be duplicated in the above
As a cute for out addiction to oul, ethanol turns out to have some nasty side effects.
Pollution from gasoline engines accounts for 10,000 deaths in the US each year, along with thousands of cases of respiratory disease and even cancer.
The widely touted ethanol-based fuel E85 (15% gasoline 85% ethanol) could make matters worse.
Mark Jacobson of stanford university in California modelled emissions for cars expected to be on the road in 2020. The model assumed that carbon emissions would be 60% less than 2002 levels, so overall deaths would be halved. However, an e85-fuelled fleet would cause 185% more pollution related deaths per year than a petrol one across the US, most of them in Los Angeles. The findngs, to be published i nvironmental Science and Technology, run counter to the idea that ethanol is a cleaner-burning fuel. While ethanol-burning cars will emit fewer carcinogens such as benzine and butadiene, they will spew out 20 times as much acetaldehyde as those using conventional fuel. Acetaldehyde can react with sunlite to form ozone, one of the man constituents of smog, and so increase the risks to peoples health. Without the predicted 60% emissions cut it will be worse. "If we went on todays emissions, there could be 2.5 times more damage", Jacobson says. "There are so many people barking pretty loud about biofuels. They've been pushing these things before the science is done. Now the question is: will people listen?"
Heres something else, some seems to be duplicated in the above
Concerns that the nation’s cars are contributing to global warming have led automobile manufacturers and policy makers to promote ethanol as the fuel of the future, since it is made from crops such as sugar beet.
Pollution from gasoline engines accounts for 10,000 deaths in the US each year, along with thousands of cases of respiratory disease, and even cancer. The widely touted ethanol-based fuel E85 (15% gasoline, 85% ethanol) could result in similar numbers of deaths, or even make matters worse, according to a new study.
However, ethanol is an even bigger culprit. Along with many of the same pollutants as gasoline, a large amount of unburned ethanol gas escapes into the atmosphere. That vapour readily breaks down in sunlight to form acetaldehyde, which can send ozone levels soaring.
Out of a total fleet of over 240 million cars, trucks, and other vehicles in the US there are currently only about 6 million that can run on E85 fuel. But this is widely predicted to rise in coming years.
However, the small potential increase in pollution-related deaths predicted in the study could be a risk worth taking for a renewable fuel, environmentalists may argue.
