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Hydrogen & Health

    There has been no shortage of coverage in the media in recent years about the costs of fuel prices and how it relates to the cost fluctuation of a barrel of crude oil. Indeed, these costs can be directly attributed to the outdated energy policies we adhere to. However, what is not often mentioned is the human costs that these energy policies present to us. While some people are paying at the pump for these policies, others are paying with their lives.
    There is no doubt that adverse health effects can be traced to air pollution and the burning of fossil fuels. But what are even less known are the health effects of the workers who labor in the processing of these resources. The 2008 Olympics in Beijing put a world spotlight on the adverse air quality in one of the world’s most notorious criminals in the crime of pollution. And while we threaten the sustainability of our earth’s ozone layer and ability to produce enough oxygen for our spiraling population in the future, even today lives are at risk.
    Within the processing centers where fossil fuels are converted, such as coal factories and oil refineries, every day workers encounter the dangerous realities of an obsolete energy paradigm. Among the most common materials used in the fixtures of these factories is asbestos. While asbestos was banned in the late 1970’s by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, it still exists in nearly all facets of American and foreign industry. Older fixtures built with asbestos have not been replaced and represent a clear hazard to those who encounter them each day.
    Asbestos formed insulation compounds around piping and boilers, as well as a myriad of other products which required a resistance to temperature transfer. As these materials become abraded by age or damage, asbestos fibers can easily be released into the air, posing a serious hazard for surrounding workers. In recent years, there has been an influx of pleural mesothelioma (a rare but deadly cancer caused by asbestos exposure) and other respiratory complications as a result of occupational exposures in fuel processing centers. However, mesothelioma is not the only hazard our energy policies pose. It’s just another consequence of a dirty business. At this point as a country we can go one of two ways. We can stay on the course we’re on, which is a dead end. Or we can move out of fossil fuels and into a new era of practical and sustainable energy, saving not only the earth for our posterity but the lives of our workers today.

WHY HYDROGEN?
Living Near Highways
Can Stunt Lungs
Major traffic exposure could result in lifetime deficits in lung function, a USC study of children finds
Jennifer Chan  USC Today  January 25, 2007

“Otherwise-healthy children who were non-asthmatic and non-smokers also experienced a significant decrease in lung function from traffic pollution.
This suggests that all children, not just susceptible subgroups, are potentially affected by traffic exposure.”
W. James Gauderman, associate professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine

COAL OR RENEWABLES?  YOU DECIDE.
STATES FINALLY REBEL AGAINST CUMULATIVE MERCURY POISONING FROM COAL POWER PLANTS

"We are morally compelled to take
effective action to safeguard our people
against this toxic pollutant."
Kathleen A. McGinty, Secretary Pennsylvania EPA
Pennsylvania EPA Rejects New Federal Rule Allowing Big Coal to Poison Their State with Deadly Mercury
Penn Department of Environmental Protection   April 26, 2006

DISTRIBUTED ENERGY IS NO SOLUTION WITHOUT CLEAN AIR TECHNOLOGY

Quantifying the Air Pollution Exposure Consequences of Distributed Electricity Generation
Garvin A. Hath, Patrick W. Granvold, Abigail S. Hoats, William W. Nazaroff
University of California Energy Institute     November 2005

CALIFORNIA    DETROIT    AIR RESOURCES BOARD              September 24, 2004 

Dr. Alan Lloyd, Chairman
California Air Resources Board

Terry Tamminen, Secretary
California EPA

California Regulators Approve
World's Toughest Smog Rules
Tim Molloy    AP/Sacramento Bee

"We see... no apparent health benefit at a great cost to California consumers."
Gloria J. Bergquist, a spokeswoman for the industry trade group
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers   Sacramento Bee

RECOMMENDED READING FOR THE
ALLIANCE OF AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS

• Researchers with the Children's Health Study have monitored levels of major pollutants in a dozen Southern California communities since 1993, while carefully following the respiratory health of more than 3,000 students. The report released in the October issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, covers smog's health effects on children over the first four years of the study.
       For more information about the Children’s Health Study, visit the researchers' website at: www.usc.edu/medicine/scehsc  
       W. James Gauderman, Rob McConnell, Frank Gilliland, Stephanie London, Duncan Thomas, Edward Avol, Hita Vora, Kiros Berhane, Edward B. Rappaport, Fred Lurmann, Helene G. Margolis and John Peters, Association Between Air Pollution and Lung Function Growth in Southern California Children. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Vol 162, No. 4, October 2000, pp. 1-8.
      Acknowledgement: This research was supported by the California Air Resources Board (under the auspices of the Long-Term Exposure Health Effects Research Program), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (which funds the Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center), the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Hastings Foundation.
• Report says auto emissions in Southland cost health care $1.8 Billion.  Nearly half of all Americans are breathing unhealthy air, and air quality in dozens of metropolitan areas has actually gotten worse over the last decade according to a new report from the Surface Transportation Policy Project. The study names transportation as a major contributor to air pollution nationwide, and calls on Congress to protect and strengthen clean air laws and funding. The new report, Clearing the Air, Public Health Threats from Cars and Heavy Duty Vehicles - Why We Need to Protect Federal Clean Air Laws ranks metropolitan areas by the highest number of days of unhealthy air pollution levels.

Also see HYDROGEN & HEALTH

 

"What are we doing?" Pollutants Cause Huge Rise in Brain Diseases Scientists alarmed as number of cases triples in 20 years Juliette Jowit     The Observer (UK)      August 15, 2004 The alarming rise, which includes figures showing rates of dementia have trebled in men, has been linked to rises in levels of pesticides, industrial effluents, domestic waste, car exhausts and other pollutants, says a report in the journal Public Health. In the late 1970s, there were around 3,000 deaths a year from these conditions in England and Wales. By the late 1990s, there were 10,000.     'This has really scared me,' said Professor Colin Pritchard of Bournemouth University, one of the report's authors. 'These are nasty diseases: people are getting more of them and they are starting earlier. We have to look at the environment and ask ourselves what we are doing.'     The report, which Pritchard wrote with colleagues at Southampton University, covered the incidence of brain diseases in the UK, US, Japan, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain in 1979-1997. The researchers then compared death rates for the first three years of the study period with the last three, and discovered that dementias - mainly Alzheimer's, but including other forms of senility - more than trebled for men and rose nearly 90 per cent among women in England and Wales. All the other countries were also affected.   more UNITED STATES PUBLIC CITIZEN   ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY PROJECT               May 5, 2004
FOSSIL ENERGY IS "CHEAPER" THAN RENEWABLE ENERGY ONLY BECAUSE THE IMMENSE COSTS OF RESULTING HEALTH, MILITARY AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS ARE PASSED INDIRECTLY TO CITIZENS AS HIGHER TAXES, INCREASED HEALTHCARE AND LIVING EXPENSES.  - RDM   "Besides causing major environmental and property damage from acid rain, sulfur dioxide also inflicts a serious health toll in terms of asthma attacks and lung ailments. According to EPA studies, pollution from power plants is linked to heart and lung diseases which contribute to more than 20,000 premature deaths a year. Mercury is a highly toxic metal that, once released into the atmosphere, settles in lakes and rivers, where it moves up the food chain to humans. In 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that roughly 10 percent of American women carry mercury concentrations at levels considered to put a fetus at risk to neurological damage. " - EIP/PC Report
	America's Dirtiest Power Plants Environmental Integrity Project and Public Citizen "No one should have any illusions about what is happening:   This is a well-connected industry that is absolutely intent on preserving its ‘right’ to foul the air regardless of the consequences for the American public.” - Eric Schaeffer, EIP Director
NEUROLOGIC DAMAGE AND THE FALL OF CIVILIZATIONS History of Lead Poisoning in the World by Dr. Herbert L. Needleman Second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals Department of Health and Human Services/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  January 2003                                more:   HYDROGEN & HEALTH

"If provisions in last year's United States energy bill pass this year, many diesel vehicles will qualify for the same tax credits as hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. It is a surprise to me that this proposal was made before its possible effect on public health was evaluated.''
Mark Z. Jacobsen
associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, Stanford
Stanford Research: U.S. Push for Diesel Fuel Risky
CBS 5 Eyewitness News     February 22, 2004

• Study Refutes Notion that Diesel-powered Vehicles are better for the Environment     Czerne Reid     Stanford Report     February 11, 2004

• The Effect on Photochemical Smog of Converting the U.S. Fleet of Gasoline Vehicles to Modern Diesel Vehicles - Mark Z. Jacobson, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University; John H. Seinfeld, Departments of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Science and Engineering, California Institute of Technology; Greg R. Carmichael, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, University of Iowa; David G. Streets, Argonne National Laboratory
  GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 31, L02116, doi:10.1029/2003GL018448, 2004

• Association Between Air Pollution and Lung Function Growth in Southern California Children. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Vol 162, No. 4, October 2000, pp. 1-8.
  USC Study Shows School Absenteeism Rises as Air Pollution Worsens   January 2002

Smog Causing 'Epidemic'
Report says auto emissions in Southland cost health care
$1.8 Billion
Kerry Cavanaugh     Daily News     August 19, 2003
Download Report

Nationwide, childhood asthma rates have doubled in the last two decades and the public health cost of pollution from cars and trucks is estimated to be $40 billion to $65 billion a year, according to the report.

AIR POLLUTION MAY ALTER GENES

    Six years ago, scientists found that herring gulls living near steel mills around the harbour in Hamilton, Ontario, tended to have high DNA mutation rates. These mutations were then transferred to the next generation of gulls, increasing the offspring's chances of developing genetic diseases like cancer and birth defects. Researchers suspected at the time that air pollution was causing the mutations, but they couldn't eliminate other factors, such as polluted water or contaminated fish, that also could have been responsible.

     Now other scientists have published a paper indicating that air pollution is indeed the likely culprit behind the mutations. What's more, there's no reason why human DNA should be immune from the same pollution. So our genes may also be damaged and inherited by our children.

     It's sobering to think that chemicals in our air affect us at a genetic level. Few studies have been done on this topic outside examinations of animals exposed to radioactive dust from nuclear accidents.

     ...The chemicals thought to be responsible for the mutations ...are also found in cigarette smoke. They're called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, a group of about 100 different chemicals that are created largely when fossil fuels are burned, but are also found in charred food and cigarettes.

Air Pollution May Alter Genes    
Environmental News Network    David Suzuki    January 7, 2003

"Shouldn't we look before we leap? Before we change rules that can affect the most basic protections for our kids and families and our parks, shouldn't we at least do an analysis of what impact it's going to have?" ¹
    "To not take a serious scientific look on what effect it will have on kids with asthma, on seniors with respiratory problems, on human health is an enormous mistake." ²
Presidential Candidate Senator John Edwards
Sponsor of the defeated amendment to delay the changes for six months while a panel of scientists studies the effects of increased polllutionAir Trust