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38,000 People a Year Die Early Because of Diesel Emissions Testing Failures (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Diesel cars, trucks, and other vehicles in more than 10 countries around the world produce 50 percent more nitrogen oxide emissions than lab tests show, according to a new study. The extra pollution is thought to have contributed to about 38,000 premature deaths in 2015 globally. In the study, published today in Nature, researchers compared emissions from diesel tailpipes on the road with the results of lab tests for nitrogen oxides (NOx). The countries where diesel vehicles were tested are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, and the U.S., where more than 80 percent of new diesel vehicle sales occurred in 2015. The researchers found that 5 million more tons of NOx were emitted than the lab-based 9.4 million tons, according to the Associated Press. Nitrogen oxides are released into the air from motor vehicle exhaust or the burning of coal and fossil fuels, producing tiny soot particles and smog. Breathing in all this is linked to heart and lung diseases, including lung cancer, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation, which took part in the research. Governments routinely test new diesel vehicles to check whether they meet pollution limits. The problem is that these tests fail to mimic real-life driving situations, and so they underestimate actual pollution levels. The researchers estimate that the extra pollution is linked to about 38,000 premature deaths worldwide in 2015 -- mostly in the European Union, China, and India. (The U.S. saw an estimated 1,100 deaths from excess NOx.)
38,000 out of nearly 8 billion is hardly worth worrying about.
OK, I'll keep this short: the half life of nitric oxide in the atmosphere is 100 hours. So basically your observation that automotive emissions don't match global natural emissions of NO is true, but irrelevant.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Here is how this works.
You didn't read the paper. I did.
The basic idea in the method is that they ran a number of simulations of where diesel vehicles are estimated to be driving in the 11 jurisdictions (based on real-world measurements), where emissions would end up being carried (and dissipated) by the atmosphere, and matching that up with population estimates. This was then applied to the current best estimates of the exposure-response curves to get an estimate of the number of deaths.
They ran with measured emissions to validate that it matches up with measured death rates. Then they reran with "theoretical" emissions (i.e. if the vehicle emissions actually were what they were supposed to be) and subtracted the two. Actually, they probably ran the simulation multiple times to get a confidence interval; more on this later.
NOx, ozone, and PM2.5 ("soot") were accounted for separately. This is clear from the paper, but not clear from the
The model was validated against real-world studies to make sure that it matched what we find in the field.
Now, if you're thinking that's a lot of assumptions, you're right. The 95% confidence interval is 23,000–47,000, which is quite a wide margin of error. Again, that is not clear from the writeup, but it's clear from the paper.
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As a truck driver, I find that my 1990s emissions levels nicely complement my 1970s wages.
-- sudon't
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