Ozone pollution?

[Richard111]

The latest post over at The Inconvenient Skeptic blog has grabbed my attention:

Ethanol, Ozone and the EPA

Quote:The EPA considers ozone as one of the primary pollutants that needs to be reduced. How to reduce it is where the problems arise. As most people are well aware there is a current push for renewable fuels and ethanol is synonymous with renewable fuel. The problem is that ethanol also increases ozone pollution. In study after study the direct comparison shows that ethanol results in more ozone pollution than gasoline.

The difference can be large. The higher the ethanol content in the fuel the more ozone that is produced. It is not a direct emission, but a multiple step reaction of volatile organic compounds (VOC) or nitrogen oxides (NOx). Adding any amount of ethanol to gasoline increases the content of VOC’s in the car emissions. The higher the ethanol content the more VOC’s that are released into the atmosphere.

Read what he has to say about the health effects of ozone at just 1ppm.

I built my retirement home on a cliff sixty feet above a busy roundabout. I have always had a slight breathing problem and noticed it getting worse. I just assumed it was the advancing years but now I wonder.

[Questioning_Climate]

Richard111,
It is certainly a dangerous gas at the right concentrations. However, it is probably unlikely you are being affected by it as a result of traffic. That said, the fact that traffic produces ozone is partly, or possibly largely due to the use of catalytic converters. They indiscriminately form all kinds of oxides including ozone. Ozone is well known to be present in larger (although not ppm levels) concentrations near the ocean, and that was one of the reasons people with breathing difficulties were encouraged to holiday by the sea. You also need to remember that air ionisers and other high voltage equipment (normally in kV region) can produce it.

This link must have been from silly season at Science Daily and should give everybody a good laugh:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...074236.htm

On the serious side, this paper on ozone safety is worth reading:
http://www.io3a.org/Ozone-Safety-Article.pdf

[Richard111]

Thanks for the links Q_C. I wonder how they flushed the air rapidly from the rats cage? Boom!? I have lots of rats visiting my bird feader and this provides much exercise for my shooting eye. I got two yesterday! Normally only about one a week. Poor little buggers are starving. Everything is frozen here. -6C on my central heating boiler at 6:30 this morning.

On the picture I posted above you can see the north edge of the harbour. Lots of sea nearby. At the bottom of the cliff, about 100 feet to the right is large power transformer!

And I chose this site to build on.