#particulates

The particles are one-fifth the diameter of a human hair. They lodge deep in the lungs and never come back out. Children and the elderly are particularly affected. They cause lung cancer, lower resistance to disease, and make it difficult to breathe. It’s impossible to accurately estimate the deaths that occur as a result of exposure, but the EPA has suggested that it could be between 500 and 8,000 per million people.

Toxic exhaust from diesel engines, in both the form of gases and particulate matter, is a major contributor to health problems. It is also a leading cause of smog, which has led Paris to ban diesel cars on alternate days during high-smog periods and to plan for a comprehensive ban on diesel passenger vehicles in the city by 2020.

For Europe, this is a case of chickens coming home to roost.

TUV Nord, a safety testing and certification agency, has issued a report commissioned by an environmental group that says that modern engines that use gasoline direct injection (GDI) of fuel emit more small particles in their exhausts than modern diesel engines. Particulates raise concerns over possibly causing cancer. GDI has proliferated as a means of increasing power, improving fuel efficiency and lowering CO2 emmissions but TUV Nord says that GDI engines put out 1,000 times more harmful particles than traditional gasoline engines and 10 times more than the latest diesels. The study is based on a sample size of three cars, a Ford Focus with a 1 liter EcoBoost engine, a Renault Megane with a 1.2 liter Energy TCe, and a Hyundai i40 with a 1.6 liter GDI engine.

“The cost of a filter to eliminate particle emissions from GDI cars is low (around EUR50 [~$68 US]), with no loss in fuel efficiency and a big societal benefit. Despite this, carmakers are delaying fitting filters on GDI cars,” the Transport & Environment advocacy group based in Brussels said in a summary of the report.