Stanford University E85 Pollution Study Author Disputes Claim of Big Oil Influence
by Myke Feinman, BioFuels Journal Editor
Palo Alto, CA-—No oil companies were involved with funding or influencing a study about how replacing gasoline with E85 ethanol could cause health risks and be harmful to the ozone, according to the study’s author, Stanford University Environmental Engineer Mark Z. Jacobson.
A PR Newswire story posted for the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) by April 26 implied that the study was tainted by ExxonMobil ties by Stanford University.
The story states that a $100 million grant from ExxonMobile Corp. funded Stanford’s Global Climate and Energy Program.
The story added that though Jacobson’s study was not funded by ExxonMobile Corp., “Jacobson had a three-year grant from GCEP to study the impact of replacing fossil-fuel motor vehicles and electric power plants with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and power plants.”
Jacobsen told BioFuels Journal that ExxonMobile had no influence in the study and indicates his report talks about similar health risks of gasoline as well as E85 causing cancer deaths and asthma health issues.
“This report was absolutely not funded by any oil company, any company of any kind or any special interest group,” Jacobson said. “The only funding for the study came form NASA (and my Stanford salary), and NASA’s support was just toward the computational development of the model. The implication that I have been financially or otherwise influenced in any way in my research by any special interest is a smear.”
He said the study finds both gasoline and E85 are “bad for U.S. health with E85 causing equal or more damage. Since the implication of this study is that both gasoline and E85 should be eliminated in favor of cleaner technologies (e.g., battery-electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles where the electricity for batteries and for hydrogen production by electrolysis is produced by wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, wave, or tidal power), the suggestion that this study was influenced by oil companies is unfounded.”
Jacobson’s study uses computer modeling to assess what would happen if all cars in the United States were converted to run on E85 by the year 2020. The study, which was posted to the Internet in Mid-April, indicates that converting to 100-percent E85 vehicles would increase ozone in the Los Angeles area and the Northeast, but decrease ozone in the southeast.
“Since E85 increases total organics and decreases NOx (nitrogen oxides), it will increase ozone in Los Angeles and the Northeast due to both changes and slightly decrease ozone in the Southeast due to the NOx reduction,” Jacobsen said in an April 27 interview with BioFuels Journal.
His report shows that converting to E85 “may increase ozone-related mortality, hospitalization and asthma by about 9 percent in Lost Angeles and 4 percent in the United States as a whole relative to 100 percent gasoline.”
See Related Websites/Articles:
|
