Too often, filling up means adding a Toxic Tiger to the gasoline in your tank.
by Delores Broten
The war at the gas pump rages un••• abated, with the oil and gas companies and consumers lined up in unequal battle over gasoline price hikes. Meanwhile, the toxic assaults from benzene, Poly Aromatic Hydrocarbons and other natural components of this fuel so central to current industrialized society continue to wreak havoc.
Urban smog drifts across the continent of North America. Sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxides, ozone, all cause respiratory illness and premature death, a high price for the marvel of personal mobility. But the naturally toxic results of burning gasoline are compounded by the questionable additives our governments allow, and even mandate, the gas corporations to add to this dirty brew.
The story of legal battles, corporate rule under NAFTA, and fears about toxic gasoline additives got even more extreme in July, this time featuring the American additive of choice, MTBE, methyl tertiary butyl ether.
California announced plans to ban the gas additive MTBE in March and more US jurisdictions are likely to follow. The chemical causes cancer in mammals such as laboratory rats and mice. The EPA has announced plans to reduce the amount of MTBE in American gas. MTBE has been found in reservoirs, ground water and surface water, including storm water run off, across the US, and 10% of California ground water, including over 10,000 wells, is contaminated with traces of the additive.
Although most MTBE quickly evaporates, it is persistent and very mobile in water. A spill of one litre of gas with MTBE additive can contaminate a well 300 metres away.
In July, red-ink plagued Methanex Corp. of Vancouver Canada threatened a $960 million lawsuit against the US government under NAFTA, alleging that California's plan to ban MTBE amounts to an expropriation of its investment in the US market.
Last year, the Canadian government tried to ban another gas additive, MMT, methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl, a manganese compound. MMT, due to resistance by the US EPA, now overruled by the courts, has been used mainly in Canada. Ottawa's motivation for banning MMT was twofold: manganese is a potent nerve poison, and auto manufacturers claimed that MMT interfered with the computerized diagnostic systems and catalytic converters on new cars. The sole producer of this additive, Ethyl Corp. of Richmond, Virginia, sued under NAFTA. Ottawa lifted the ban and paid Ethyl $20 million. [See "The Vampire Child Comes Home: MMT Puts NAFTA on Trial," Watershed Sentinel, August/November 1998]
Ethyl Corp. was also the major producer of lead additives from 1923 until leaded gasoline was banned in the 1980s. Leaded gasoline was banned because levels of lead in children's blood, as well as those who have to work in traffic, were causing illness, lowered intelligence, and neurological dysfunction.
Among the many bizarre twists in this story is the fact that 500,000 tonnes of MTBE, which so readily travels in and contaminates surface water, is manufactured in Edmonton, Alberta, and shipped by railroad along the Bulkley, Skeena and Kitimat Rivers for transfer to California-bound tankers at Kitimat in northern British Columbia. Despite the new evidence of how quickly MTBE can contaminate water, neither the federal nor provincial governments can or will overturn the permits issued under old Environmental Assessment processes. In fact, a new plant in Alberta, owned by US Bioclean Fuels, plans to produce a further 800,000 tonnes a year of MTBE and ETBE from barley and butane.
MTBE was assessed as a Priority Substance under the (old) Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), and deemed to be "non-toxic." However, the scientific review included no data on human health issues obtained after October 1991, and no environmental impact data obtained after April 1992. There were no studies on human populations exposed to the chemical, and animal experiments on chronic toxicity and carcinogenicity had not yet been completed.
The definition of 'Toxic-Under-CEPA' includes a criteria of how much MTBE there is likely to be in the Canadian environment, for which the reviewers simply calculated a generous spill allowance of 1% plus-a-bit of the 500,000 tonnes produced in Edmonton in 1992, spread over the entire country. Clearly, the situation has changed: there are further worrisome animal experiments; there is a growing level of manufacture and use (and probably spills) in Canada. It is time to reevaluate MTBE, which is now considered a possible human carcinogen in the US.
But the strangest aspect of this entire convoluted story of toxic contamination of a continent is that not all of these additives are necessary for most automobiles, according to the Canadian Automobile Association, among many others.
So what's going on? What is this stuff, and what's wrong with gasoline that it needs all these additives – octane boosters, oxygenizers, detergents – with every gas station billboard trying to convince you that your car will implode if you don't choose just the right brand and the most expensive gasoline? The basic corporate profit motive hidden and protected in some badly-negotiated trade deals is one part of a confusing and devious road map.
What is Gasoline?
Gasoline is refined from crude oil, which, Ashland Petroleum explains on their web page, "is a mixture of thousands of different compounds of hydrogen and carbon, or hydrocarbons." The crude oil is refined by separating it into different fractions based on the vapourization at different temperatures. These fractions are then purified and transformed into high end products, from gasoline and kerosene to diesel oil, with asphalt being one of the "dregs" at the bottom of the distillation tower. Low end fractions are improved, and contaminants including sulphur, are removed, using pressure, catalysts, and heat.
The cleaner the gas the more intensive this complicated refining process needs to be. This is why the gasoline companies are threatening dire price consequences if the Canadian government moves to require lower sulphur content in our gasoline in order to improve air quality. The important thing to note here though, is that gasoline is mostly just a string of hydrogen and carbon atoms. It burns releasing a lot of energy, which is harnessed by the internal combustion engine. The heat of the gasoline burning causes the gases to expand, pushing the pistons in the motor up and down. The gas needs to burn at the same rate as the pistons move, for maximum efficiency. If the combustion is too slow, unburned fuel is exhausted as pollution.
If the gas burns too fast, the pistons can't keep up, and the engine will be damaged. That mysterious 'Knocking' is the sound of a too rapid expansion of gases in the motor. If combustion is too fast or too slow energy is wasted.
Enter the Mysterious Octane Rating
Gasolines are graded on their ability to burn smoothly and without knocking, on an arbitrary 'octane rating' based on how different hydrocarbons burn in a special test engine.
Octane is a hydrocarbon with eight carbon atoms and is assigned an octane rating of 100. Gasolines are blended with additives to reach the appropriate burning rate. Most automobile engines require an octane rating of 87 or higher.
In fact, Statistics Canada says that in 1995 only 10% of the cars on the road required premium gasolines, although those expensive high end gases claimed 16% of all gasoline sales.
Incidentally, the auto techies say that switching octane levels is not particularly good for modern cars, since the computer which regulates gas flow needs to readjust. They also say higher octane gas is not going to "turn your Ford into a Ferrari."
Even the gasoline companies suggest you read your owner's manual and use what the car manufacturer recommends. (Car companies explicitly don't recommend gasoline with MMT as an additive!)
Additives Also Add Oxygen for Cleaner Burning
In order to get the octane level of 87, additives to gasoline are required, which brings us back to the sad stories of lead, of MMT, of MTBE, and of NAFTA.
But there's more. In 1990, to improve air quality in American cities, the US government amended the Clean Air Act to require the addition of oxygen to gas so it would burn cleaner, emitting carbon dioxide instead of carbon monoxide. Gas which burns cleaner can also be made by improving the refining process but this is not mandated by the law.
American gas companies immediately chose to add up to 15% MTBE, which contains oxygen, thus triggering an explosive growth in the amount of the compound manufactured and released.
In some parts of the United States, a wave of worker and consumer health complaints, from headaches and eye irritations to coughs, nausea, and dizziness, although unproven, immediately followed.
Dr. Peter Joseph, on the Asthma Task Force of the Philadelphia Dept. of Health, believes that the doubling and tripling of asthma rates in US cities is related to the time in each area of introduction of MTBE, although he stresses that the health complications may be due to breakdown products such as formaldehyde, tertiary butyl nitrate, or others, as the volatile compound decomposes in the air.
Alaska, where the cold temperatures mean that MTBE does not break down quickly when it disperses into the air, almost immediately switched to ethanol; Alaska was followed by Maine, and then California.
What's Wrong with Ethanol?
Ironically, the simplest and cleanest alternative as a fuel additive is probably the most innocuous: ethanol–alcohol produced from corn, grain, or even wood chips, possibly pulp mill sludge. Methanol, wood alcohol, would be even cheaper as a gasoline substitute, but it is toxic, and so corrosive that it would require stainless steel gas tanks and pipes in automobiles.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada points out that ethanol as fuel has three main advantages:
- It's cleaner burning than gasoline,
- It can be produced from renewable sources, and,
- It would provide an extra economic base for rural communities.
The same advantages apply to ethanol as an octane booster instead of the troublesome products we have mainly used to date.
What's the problem? Some technical difficulties with vapour pressure which had led to smog generation have been solved by better refining. But the oil refineries would rather use products they make, than dilute their share of the gasoline market by adding ethanol from other sources.
Ethanol is not particularly cheap to make, although probably competitive as the technologies develop. Commercial Alcohols in Tilverton Ontario produces 6 million tonnes of fuel grade ethanol and 19 million tonnes of commercial alcohol a year. The fuel blend goes into farm gas from Imperial Oil and Petro-Canada, thanks to the persistence of Ontario farmers. Sunoco and UCO Petroleum distribute an ethanol blend from their refineries. Mohawk distributes ethanol-boosted "green gas" in western Canada.
An environmental concern about ethanol, of course, is using food grains and valuable farm land for non-food purposes. Interestingly, AgCanada points out that the protein and fibre left after production of ethanol from grain can be fed to cattle, provided the plant is in an area with a market for these co-products.
The solution to the gas wars about gas additives is probably multi-headed, from new technologies for transportation, and new non-petroleum engines, to a careful selection of the kinds of chemicals used for improving gasoline.
As Peter Montague points out, in "Bad Decisions Again and Again," (Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly # 541, April 1997) it is time that we changed the way corporations make these decisions which affect our lives and future generations:
"Shouldn't we require an assessment of all available alternatives and selection of the least damaging? And should that burden of proof be placed squarely on the Ethyl Corporation–and others like it–and not on the public? Where can all this poisoning be taking us?"
* With thanks to Josette Weir, Smithers BC and all others who sent information
* If you are interested in working on the MTBE contamination issue, contact: Eugene Conway, MTBE Activist, Box 16, Conception Harbour, NF AOA 1ZO; ph: (709)229-6206; fax: (709)229-4806; email: econway@nfld.com
***
[From WS October/November 1999]