Air Pollution Deaths

E-mail to Congress:

EIN News says, "Fossil Fuels' Hidden Cost Is in Billions, Study Says. Burning fossil fuels costs the United States about $120 billion a year in health costs, mostly because of thousands of premature deaths from air pollution, the National Academy of Sciences reported in a study issued Monday. (nytimes.com)".

We must be extremely careful in accepting such generalized statements. One problem is the source of the report. The National Academy of Sciences is generally regarded favorably by the public, but if they continue with this kind of unreasonable pronouncements, they will lose a good reputation.

We have to look at some of the detail. Fossil fuels are coal, petroleum, and natural gas.

Coal is mostly burned in electric utilities to generate heat/steam, which operates turbines to produce electricity. Products of coal combustion are gases, such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. There are also particulates, such as very fine fly ash and small quantities of mercury. Recognizing the health dangers to humans and the general environment, such as plant growth, the industry has made tremendous progress in reducing effluents of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury. The large quantities of emitted carbon dioxide and a small quantities of particulates are not now considered significant health dangers. However, the industry will continue to reduce environmental contamination, through public pressure. With that said, I challenge the National Academy of Sciences to support their position that coal burning power plants now contribute to thousands of premature deaths from air pollution. What is the reason for the premature deaths? Poisoning? Suffocation?

Continuing with petroleum, most of this energy source is converted to gasoline and diesel fuel, for automotive use. Refiners purify their products in the refining operation. For example, sulfur tends to inactivate catalytic converters and is removed in the refining operation. In subsequent burning, the major combustion products are carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and water. The automotive industry's catalytic converters reduce generation of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides. Carbon dioxide and water are considered innocuous. Carbon monoxide is generally unstable in the atmosphere and any small quantities are subsequently naturally converted to carbon dioxide. Is the National Academy of Sciences concerned with any small concentrations of escaped nitrogen oxides? Is there something else that is causing premature deaths? Are those air pollution deaths significant in relation to physical deaths caused by automotive accidents, or are we concentrating on the wrong thing.

Natural gas is primarily methane with small quantities of ethane. In the refining operation, helium is removed, as well as water and hydrogen sulfide. Subsequent burning in home heating systems and in some generation of electricity again gives mostly carbon dioxide and water, with the possibility of small amounts of nitrogen oxides. If the National Academy of Sciences has a particular concern with some of these products as leading to premature deaths, they should specify the specific concern, subsequently test their hypotheses and then report to industry their recommendation and basis for subsequent air pollution control. We also have an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which is already supposedly doing this, and I haven't heard from them about them about the "thousands of premature deaths from air pollution". People die all the time. It is a natural event. Everyone dies of something. Usually as a matter of a combination of circumstances, such as genetic weakness, old age, improper health practices, etc. Under these conditions it seems unreasonable to me that the National Academy of Sciences can designate thousands of deaths specifically to air pollution.