Implications for Autogas · Implications for Autogas Eric Johnson Diesel exhaust and human health

Implications for Autogas

Eric Johnson

Diesel exhaust and human health

Diesel exhaust’s three horsemen

• Cardiopulmonary (heart-lung) disease – Emphysema – High blood pressure – Heart attacks

• Respiratory (breathing) ailments – Bronchitis – Asthma

• Cancer – Lung – Bladder

How do they know this?

Are they sure?

Since when, says who?

• Started in the late 1970s, early 1980s

• ‘Diesel cancer’: 30,000 references in Science

• Regulators agree

– California: diesel PM a carcinogen (since 1998)

– US EPA: ‘a likely carcinogen’

– German Environmental Agency: ‘a suspected carcinogen’

June 2012: WHO said what?

Diesel exhaust is carcinogenic to humans

This is new

Gasoline exhaust is possibly carcinogenic

Unchanged view since 1989

Diesel Exhaust in Miners Study

After 17 years of fighting

Henry Chajet, Patton Boggs LLP Mining Awareness Resource Group

US government agencies

Reaction of other industries?

What about LP Gas?

How diesel exhaust causes cancer

Carcinogen

Nitroarenes are nasty

6-Nitrochrysene Melting point: 220 C

LP Gas chemistry is less complex

Diesel LP Gas

Hey, it’s used indoors

Particle filters will solve diesel cancer, right?

They might make it worse!

Autogas: for fleets and cities

These results indicate that stringent occupational and particularly environmental

standards for diesel exhaust should be set and compliance ensured to have an impact on

health outcomes.

Lesley Rushton, PhD Department of Epidemiology and

Biostatistics Imperial College London

Thank you for your time

Atlantic Consulting

+41 44 772 1079

atlantic@ecosite.co.uk