Switching the nation’s vehicles from gasoline to mostly ethanol will not reduce air pollution, a new study finds. The work joins other evidence questioning the benefits of ethanol fuel.
Mark Z. Jacobson, an atmospheric scientist at Stanford University, created a model that takes into account how the chemicals emitted in car exhaust transform through reactions in the atmosphere. He combined the resulting chemical profile with population and health-effects data to determine the risks associated with each of the fuels.