By JANE HOUIN
Ohio Correspondent

MARION, Ohio — The Ohio Corn Growers have taken issue with a study recently released by Stanford University scientists suggesting that ethanol vehicles could pose serious health risks to consumers and harm the atmosphere even more than gasoline.

While ethanol is widely touted as an eco-friendly, clean-burning fuel.

But if every vehicle in the United States ran on fuel made primarily from ethanol instead of pure gasoline, the number of respiratory-related deaths and hospitalizations would likely increase, according to Stanford atmospheric scientist Mark Z. Jacobson.

His findings are published in the April 18 online edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T).

“Ethanol is being promoted as a clean and renewable fuel that will reduce global warming and air pollution,” said Jacobson, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering

“But our results show that a high blend of ethanol poses an equal or greater risk to public health than gasoline, which already causes significant health damage.”

According to OCGA, ethanol, which is made from corn, is a clean alternative to pure gasoline, which contains compounds such as benzene, toluene and xylene - all cancer-causing agents.

Using an E85 blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, this fuel drastically reduces emissions that cause air pollution and smog.

“This study goes against all of the scientific data gathered by the federal government that shows ethanol to be a cleaner alternative to foreign oil,” said OCGA Executive Director Dwayne Siekman.

For the study, Jacobson used a computer model to simulate air quality in the year 2020, when ethanol-fueled vehicles are expected to be widely available in the United States.

“The chemicals that come out of a tailpipe are affected by a variety of factors, including chemical reactions, temperatures, sunlight, clouds, wind and precipitation,” he explained. “In addition, overall health effects depend on exposure to these airborne chemicals, which varies from region to region. Ours is the first ethanol study that takes into account population distribution and the complex environmental interactions.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy (DOE) and numerous other public and private research entities have tested emissions impacts of pure ethanol and E85.
The results of these tests have indicated ethanol has a superior emissions profile and health record when compared to gasoline.
Jacobson programmed the computer to run air quality simulations comparing two future scenarios: a vehicle fleet (that is, all cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc., in the United States) fueled by gasoline, versus a fleet powered by E85.

“We found that E85 vehicles reduce atmospheric levels of two carcinogens, benzene and butadiene, but increase two others - formaldehyde and acetaldehyde,” Jacobson said.

“As a result, cancer rates for E85 are likely to be similar to those for gasoline. However, in some parts of the country, E85 significantly increased ozone, a prime ingredient of smog.”

Inhaling ozone - even at low levels - can decrease lung capacity, inflame lung tissue, worsen asthma and impair the body’s immune system, according to the EPA. The World Health Organization estimates that 800,000 people die each year from ozone and other chemicals in smog.

“In our study, E85 increased ozone-related mortalities in the United States by about 200 deaths per year compared to gasoline,” Jacobson said. “These mortality rates represent an increase of about 4 percent in the U.S.”

The study showed that ozone increases in Los Angeles and the northeastern United States will be partially offset by decreases in the southeast.

“However, we found that nationwide, E85 is likely to increase the annual number of asthma-related emergency room visits by 770 and the number of respiratory-related hospitalizations by 990,” Jacobson said.

The deleterious health effects of E85 will be the same, whether the ethanol is made from corn, switchgrass or other plant products, Jacobson said.

“Today, there is a lot of investment in ethanol,” he said.
“But we found that using E85 will cause at least as much health damage as gasoline, which already causes about 10,000 U.S. premature deaths annually from ozone and particulate matter. The question is, if we’re not getting any health benefits, then why continue to promote ethanol and other biofuels?

“There are alternatives, such as battery-electric, plug-in-hybrid and hydrogen-fuel cell vehicles, whose energy can be derived from wind or solar power,” he said.

“These vehicles produce virtually no toxic emissions or greenhouse gases and cause very little disruption to the land - unlike ethanol made from corn or switchgrass, which will require millions of acres of farmland to mass-produce. It would seem prudent, therefore, to address climate, health and energy with technologies that have known benefits.”

But ethanol proponents, such as OCGA dispute the Stanford study and point instead to the studies done by the EPA and DOE.

Both EPA and DOE tests include real vehicle trials that quantify the actual physical emissions of these fuels. These tests, of which there have been hundreds, go far beyond the obvious limitations of computer modeling ethanol proponents contend.

According to DOE’s Argonne National Labs, E85 reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 29 percent compared to conventional gasoline.

Additionally, of 17 studies conducted since 1990 that examine the greenhouse gas emissions of ethanol, 14 found that ethanol significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

The American Lung Assoc. backs the use of ethanol as a major component of cleaner-burning fuels.

The American Lung Assoc. of Chicago credits ethanol-blended fuel with reducing smog formation by 25 percent. And according to the American Lung Assoc., “E85 is cleaner. E85 reduces ozone-forming pollution by 20 percent. Ethanol is less toxic.”

“Think of who you would trust with information, a scientist with a computer-generated model or scientists with the American Lung Assoc. who work to keep Americans breathing cleaner air,” Siekman said.

The Stanford study was funded in part by NASA.