Traffic pollution kills 5,000 a year in UK, says study

By Roland Pease, BBC Radio Science Unit

Road pollution is more than twice as deadly as traffic accidents, according to a study of UK air quality.

The analysis appears in Environmental Science and Technology, carried out by Steve Yim and Steven Barrett, pollution experts from MIT in Massachusetts.

They estimate that combustion exhausts across the UK cause nearly 5,000 premature deaths each year.

The pair also estimate that exhaust gases from aeroplanes cause a further 2,000 deaths annually.

By comparison, 2010 saw, 1,850 deaths due to road accidents recorded.

Overall, the study’s findings are in line with an earlier report by the government’s Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP), which found that air pollution in 2008 was responsible for about 29,000 deaths in the UK.

The new study arrives at a slightly lower annual figure of 19,000, a difference the lead author of the COMEAP study, Fintan Hurley, attributes to differing methodology.

Breaking down pollution

The latest study adds to the debate by breaking down mortality rates according to sector – transport, energy and industry.

The researchers combine models of atmospheric circulation and chemistry with source data and clinical studies to arrive at their independent figures for the health effects of pollution.

Although the popular perception of air pollution involves images of smoke stacks billowing out toxic black fumes into the atmosphere, industry and the power sector turn out to kill fewer than vehicle emissions, the data shows.

“Cars and lorries emit right by where people live and work and so have a greater impact,” explains lead author Steven Barrett.

The findings also pinpoint where the deaths happen: 2,200 every year in Greater London, another 630 in both Greater Manchester and West Midlands.

Because the model includes Europe-wide weather patterns, it also reveals how far the deadly effects of air pollution can reach.

Of the 19,000 annual UK deaths estimated, 7,000 are due to pollutants blown in from the continent. In London, European pollutants add 960 deaths each year to the 2,200 caused by UK combustion fumes.

But the international trade in deaths goes both ways. More than 3,000 European deaths can be attributed to UK emissions the authors say.

“We are all in this together,” agrees Fintan Hurley of COMEAP.

“If one city were to clean up its traffic, it would still be dealing with pollution from traffic elsewhere.”

The propensity for air pollution to straddle boundaries has political, as well as medical, implications.

The UK is currently facing the threat of prosecution by the European Union for serial violations of air-quality standards.

But the new study suggests that 40% of the key pollutant, PM2.5 (particles up to 2.5 micrometres in diameter) comes from abroad.

“The EU-attributable particulates in London are likely to have significantly contributed to the violations, because they raised the background concentration on which local short-term peaks were superimposed,” explains Steven Barrett.

Not that these legal niceties are of any help to those most at danger from polluted air. The analysis identifies key improvements that would help reduce the health burden of air pollution.

Practical measures include the reduction of black carbon emitted in car exhausts – especially from older cars that fail to burn their fuel completely.

Reductions in nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions would also help, though perhaps at a cost of making vehicles less efficient.

Far more effective, experts say, would be to invest in public transport, taking cars off the road altogether.

Such improvements would come at a cost, but so does continuing with business as usual.

“We estimate the premature deaths are costing the UK at least £6 billion a year,” says Steven Barrett, “and perhaps as much as £60 billion.”

For comparison, Crossrail is projected to cost £14.8 billion to build and expected to remove 15,000 car journeys during the morning peak.

Meanwhile, Steven Barrett is moving his attention to another form of public transport, and hopes soon to conclude a detailed assessment of the health impacts of either a third runway at Heathrow and of the alternative Thames Estuary Airport proposal.

Fill up your tank, beat the oil companies price rises or get Microlon now!

While the volatility in the price of oil may be behind us (for now), motorists shouldn’t get too used to it, analysts have warned

The price of Brent crude oil is more or less back to where it is some three months ago, at $116 a barrel, suggesting that the days of petrol price volatility are behind us … for now.

Though the civil war in Libya rumbles on, outbursts of civil unrest are occurring more often in holiday resorts these days than they are in oil producing nations, giving motorists that stable supplies of the black stuff will spare them more wallet-busting price hikes.

Barclays Capital, however, thinks motorists can kiss goodbye to the notion of petrol prices moving back down to the 122p per litre that was the norm in the UK at the end of 2010. According to the Automobile Association (AA), the average price rose to 137p per litre for unleaded 95 octane. That’s 622p a gallon for you greybeards.

Better get used to it, seems to be the message.

“Meanwhile, the upside risks emanating from pure supply-demand dynamics (leaving aside the large number of geopolitical risks) are growing. Thus, the oil market is neither in a position of fundamental nor political balance at this point, and the current imbalance tends to skew price risks to the upside, in our view,” BarCap added.“Pent-up consumer demand and higher break-even price requirements from OPEC [Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries] members to balance their rising fiscal spending continue to keep a solid floor under oil prices at current levels,” the investment arm of Barclays said.

Goldman Sachs is another bank that is bullish on the oil price, and bearish on the state of motorists’ wallets.

“While near-term downside risk remains as the oil market negotiates the slowdown in the pace of world economic growth, we believe that the market will continue to tighten to critical levels by 2012, pushing oil prices substantially higher to restrain demand,” the US investment bank said.

The bank thinks that with the global economy growing faster than non-OPEC oil producing countries can pump out oil, the likelihood is that inventories will subside and OPEC will have to use spare capacity to meet demand.

“In our view, it is only a matter of time until inventories and OPEC spare capacity will become effectively exhausted, requiring higher oil prices to restrain demand, keeping it in line with available supplies,” Goldman Sachs said in a recent research note.

Twelve months from now, Goldman Sachs sees the price of Brent crude rising to around $130 a barrel, which should see the petrol price spike nicely in time for all the visitors to the Olympics in London to be shocked by the petrol prices. According to the AA’s calculations, $10 on a barrel of oil translates to around 4p up on a litre on the price of petrol, so if Goldman Sachs is correct, this time next year motorists can expect to be paying around 143p a litre for regular unleaded.

If it is any consolation, according to the AA’s research, there are 11 countries in Europe that pay more for their petrol than the UK, with Norway proving the most expensive at the equivalent of 152.62p a litre. Bad news for the Norwegian motorist when he decides to fill up the F(j)ord …

The comparative picture is not so good for drivers with diesel engines. The average price per litre of diesel in the UK in May was 141.5p, a price only surpassed by the poor folk in Norway.

The prices paid for petrol and diesel in Norway (and the UK, for that matter) would likely prompt riots in the USA, where the AA says the average price for petrol is 64.754p a litre, while for diesel, the cost is 66.41p a litre.