Wonder how many premature lung cancer deaths are directly and indirectly attributable to ALL ICE vehicles + refineries + oil & Gas transport + exploitation (including shales and tar sands)?

The grand total and all associated cost to society is certainly scary.

The savings (in lives and health care cost and climate changes cost) by going to FCEVs and BEVs and clean energy sources would pay for all the new infrastructures required within one or two decades.

What is more appalling is that the majority does not (yet) understand the positive implications of the essential changes.

That total calculated for this study was just for lung cancers. Diesel has also been implicated in heart damage, and frequency of attacks. Another cause of disability and premature dearths in people who do not smoke, is COPD caused by diesel particulate. So yes, your sweet mother, who never smoked, fed you fresh veggies and saw you got plenty of love, exercise and good foods may herself suffer years of debilitation because she happens to live in an area where infilling, and redevelopment eventually placed your lovely childhood home too near a freeway, down wind from a port, next-door to a guy who loves his diesel trucks, or otherwise right in harms way.

Air quality is generally better in Sweden than in continental Europe or in the USA. This is mainly due to less dense population. We do have some problems in the wintertime but this is mainly due to studded tires, not vehicle exhaust. Where I live, in a rural area, air quality is much better than in the cities. To give you some perspective, I would like to mention that I have measured particle mass and number emissions from my own diesel car. These levels are lower (factor 2-4) than in ambient air. When I drive into the city, I am literally cleaning the air. For that, I pay a penalty called “congestion charge”. Often, “upstream” emissions of BEV can be higher than for the fuels used in ICEs. Besides that, BEVs cannot clean the air while driving.

@Peter XX,

I submitted comments to USEPA regarding high PM/PN emissions from GDI vehicles for the Proposed Rule, "Control of Air Pollution From New Motor Vehicles: Tier 3 Motor Vehicle Emission and Fuel Standards", EPA Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2011-0135. EPA has not yet finalized the Rule and has not yet responded to comments.

However, based on the EPA response to my comments in a previous Proposed Rule on the 2025 CAFE ("Proposed Rule to Extend the National Program to Reduce Greenhouse Gases and Improve Fuel Economy for Cars and Trucks"), I'm not optimistic that anything will be done to address the high particle emissions from GDI. Here is the EPA response from the 2025 CAFE Rule...

"...EPA agrees with the commenter that testing on initial GDI technology, primarily wall-guided systems, has shown an increase in PM emissions over the FTP as compared to conventional PFI gasoline engines. However as noted above, the technology is still evolving, making it difficult to predict future PM emission performance of GDI vehicles. Testing on initial spray-guided GDI systems has shown less of a PM increase over the FTP, and even reduced PM emissions over the US06 compared to PFI vehicles. Due to the improved fuel economy and reduced emissions offered by spray-guided GDI technology, it is anticipated that spray-guided GDI will replace wall-guided systems in the 2017 to 2025 timeframe. As a result, in the technical assessment conducted by the agencies as part of this rulemaking, the agencies assessed the emissions and fuel consumption improvements associated with spray-guided GDI systems and assumed that their overall in-use PM emission performance was comparable to that of PFI vehicles...."

@Carl
We both know that the statements from US EPA are totally wrong. Manufacturers are not using wall-guided GDI systems any more (EPA should update themselves regarding technology). Yet, the PN emissions from GDI cars are much higher than from old MPI cars. For sure, older GDI cars were even worse but they were not produced in large numbers and that technology is now obsolete. We have enough tests in the EU to prove that the newest GDI cars have high PN emissions; much higher than diesels with DPF and much higher than old MPI cars. For example, all the three cars tested in the German study were modern (Euro 5). You must do something about the US EPA! They are now in a process of conducting a large-scale experiment on the health of US citizens. Why not use GPF if this technology is readily available (with emission limits that would enforce this to happen)? Why would it be so difficult? Is it about industrial politics, i.e. to give US manufacturers some advantage over imports? Is it the “not invented here” syndrome, due to that this problem was first recognized in Europe? I am stunned with EPA!

@HarveyD
Why not concentrate on the pollution that causes the remaining 94% of cancer cases, since we know that modern diesel vehicles are so much better than older generations. From the ACES2 study: “…emissions of fine particles were also 92% lower than the 2010 standard, 99% lower than 2004 emissions” and: “hydrocarbons were also significantly below required 2010 levels… 99.9%, respectively. If we use these numbers, we see that the 6% you refer to would be 0,06% and 0,006% for new engines respectively, i.e. the problem remaining from other sources would be 99,94% and 99,994%. Why not concentrate on the other sources, e.g. electricity generation?