Using Ethanol may not be healthier

Ethanol vehicles may have worse effects on human health than conventional petrol, US scientists have warned.

A computer model set up to simulate air quality in 2020 found that in some areas ozone levels would increase if all cars were run on Bio-Ethanol.

Deaths from respiratory problems and asthma attacks would increase with such levels, the researchers reported in Environmental Science and Technology. The European Union has agreed that biofuels should be used in 10% of transport by 2020.

Mark Jacobson, an atmospheric scientist at Stanford University in California, used a computer model which took into account factors such as temperatures, sunlight, clouds and rain to simulate air quality in 2020 for two different scenarios.

In one simulation all vehicles were fueled by petrol and in the other all vehicles were fueled by E85 - a mix of 85% ethanol and 15% petrol.

If all cars were run on E85, he found that in some parts of the US there were significant increases in ozone - a pollutant with harmful effects on the human respiratory system - compared with petrol cars.

In the study, the increase in smog translated to an extra 200 deaths per year in the whole of the US, with 120 occurring in Los Angeles alone.

Increases in ozone in some areas of the US would be offset by decreases in other areas but overall there would be 770 additional visits to accident and emergency and 990 additional hospitalizations for asthma and other respiratory problems, the results showed.

Although ethanol was found to reduce levels of two atmospheric carcinogens, levels of others increased so associated cancers would be the same as with pollution caused by petrol fumes, the study showed.