Stanford Researcher: Ethanol Not Silver Bullet For Air Quality

Many of ethanol's backers are now pitching it as a clean-burning, healthy alternative to gasoline, in addition to promoting it as a homegrown fuel with potential CO2 savings. The idea is that ethanol burns cleaner than gas, making fewer unhealthy emissions and creating less smog.

But Mark Jacobson,an atmospheric chemist at Stanford University, knew that air quality got worse during Brazil's big ethanol push in the 1970s.

Jacobson decided to use a sophisticated air-pollution model to put ethanol to the test. Would switching the U.S. fleet to "white lightning" make the country breathe easier?

His results, published today on ES&T's Research ASAP website (DOI: 10.1021/es062085v), show that ethanol is no silver bullet for health. Switching to E85 blends (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) could result in slightly higher ozone-related mortality, hospitalization, and asthma (9% higher in Los Angeles and 4% higher in the U.S. as a whole), the study finds. Cancer rates would be similar for gasoline and E85.

http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/asap.cgi/esthag/asap/pdf/es062085v.pdf