Modern, clean diesel engines emit virtually no soot or harmful emissions that they are not harmful to animals and likely humans, according to a comprehensive study by the Health Effects Institute.
The study concluded that there’s no evidence that exposure to new-technology, post-2010 diesel engines is linked to lung cancer. The lengthy study was conducted by exposing lab rats to what it dubs ‘new technology diesel exhaust’ (NTDE). According to the Health Effects Institute, the rats’ lungs did not suffer any ill effects from exposure, meaning that people’s lungs are also not likely harmed since the animal and human organs operate in similar fashion.
As reported by Heavy Duty Trucking:
The Advanced Collaborative Emissions Study also confirmed that amounts of particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen have been reduced by over 90% in new-tech exhaust compared to that from older traditional diesel engines, or TDEs, as Environmental Protection Agency regulations require. And use of new-tech diesels meeting 2007 and 2010 federal standards is becoming widespread, he added.
“We are already seeing a transition in America’s roads with over 30% of the trucks and buses in use today meeting these new standards, and the trend is growing in Europe as well,” said the institute’s president, Dan Greenbaum.
“These results confirm the great strides that government and industry have made to reduce diesel risk – and argue for even greater efforts to accelerate the replacement of older diesel engines.”
Scientists directed exhaust from new-tech diesel engines at lab rats for up to 80 hours a week for as long as 30 months, a rat’s lifetime, he said. They looked for effects from nitrogen dioxide, or NO2, which is known to cause cancerous tumors in rats’ lungs, and particulate matter, or PM, which was labeled a carcinogen after a study in California years ago.
Researchers also found that, “in contrast to previous health studies of TDE” the lifetime exposure in this NTDE study “did not induce tumors or pre-cancerous changes in the lung and did not increase tumors related to NTDE in any other tissue.”
Greenbaum added that PM could hardly be measured at all. “PM coming into the cages was actually lower than the PM coming out of the cages, generated by the rats themselves.”
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