Mtbe and the Environment

MTBE and the Environment

In 1990, the United States Congress made further amendments to the Clean Air Act of 1970 requiring areas across the country with the worst air pollution problems to use reformulated gasoline (Medlin A371). This gasoline included an oxygenator, compounds added to the fuel designed to reduce tailpipe emissions of carbon monoxide. The most common oxygenator is MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether). On March 20, 2000 the EPA announced the phase out of MTBE (Environment 197). In this report we will give some details about the history of MTBE and point out some of the reasons why the EPA reversed its position concerning this controversial compound.

Most Californians had never even heard of MTBE, and had no idea that it was a component of the fuel that they were putting into their vehicles, until recently when the media started publishing articles of the effects of its use across the country. MTBE is made from methanol and isobutylene, it has been used as an additive in fuel since the early 1970's when gas companies started using it to replace lead and boost octane. Until 1980 it was mostly in premium grade gasoline at concentrations of three percent or less.

Since the air quality standards set in the Clean Air Act of 1970 have continually not been met, the standard has been revised several times. One of the requirements of the Clean Air Act of 1990 was that the thirty-eight cities with the worst carbon monoxide problems were required to add oxygen to their fuels. Oxygen was added in the form of alcohol or ether (Nebel and Wright 546). The most popular choices of the gas companies were ethanol and MTBE. Both of the substances are supposed to work the same, injecting oxygen into the gasoline allowing it to burn hotter (Moolenarr and Hefflin 402) thus releasing less unburned fuel (carbon monoxide) out of the tailpipe and into the atmosphere. The states with offending cities had until 1992 to comply with the new requirements. Many of them (like California) chose to make the requirement a statewide mandate.

Congress left it up to gas makers to pick the oxygenate they would use. Ethanol was not their first choice because it is made from corn. They did not want to use anything that was not petroleum based, which would lessen their market share of fuel products. Most oil refineries opposed the idea of having to produce reformulated gasoline because of the exorbitant price tag. It was going to cost refineries three to five million dollars per facility to refit and retool for the proposed gas mixture.

MTBE mixes very well with gasoline. Also on the positive side for gas producers, one of the ingredients of MTBE is isobutylene; this substance had long been a problem for refineries. Classified by the EPA as a hazardous substance, it is a byproduct of the gasoline refining process (Gougis) and has to be handled and disposed of at a very high cost. This helped to offset the cost of the required refinery retrofit, and the cost of MTBE manufacturing, which is fairly inexpensive to begin with.

In response to the requirements of the Clean Air Act of 1990, the then governor of California, Pete Wilson, chartered the California Air Resource Board to make recommendations

as to what the state was going to require of gas producers. Most of who were fighting over the prospect of supplying the huge, car happy, gas guzzling California market (Gougis).

The timing seemed to be perfect for the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), which had been producing and selling oxygenated fuels since 1989. They started a huge advertising campaign, they placed advertisements in most of the large newspapers across the state (especially in the areas most concerned with air pollution) extolling the benefits of their supposedly cleaner burning product. They also lobbied the California Air Resource Board trying to convince them to require statewide usage of reformulated gasoline (Gougis). They supplied to anyone who wanted the data, and computer models, showing how air pollution was going to be reduced and air quality would improve.

ARCO at the time was the largest producer of MTBE in the nation. Their strategy worked. The board eventually made their recommendations to the governor, who approved, and signed into law, statewide requirements for oxygenated fuel. Seventeen other states require reformulated gasoline to be used in all or part of their state.

In California MTBE makes up fifteen percent of every gallon of gas sold. In 1992 the U.S. produced nine million pounds of MTBE. On this one product alone, oil companies were making three billion dollars a year (Lewis).

Since the introduction of MBTE, Many drivers in the United States use a cleaner burning gasoline designed to reduce harmful tailpipe emissions from gasoline powered automobiles and improve the air we breathe. MTBE was chosen for its direct reduction of carbon monoxide emissions by promoting more complete combustion. Reformulated gasoline with MTBE was suggested to cut smog-forming pollutant emissions by over seventeen percent, the equivalent of removing 64,000 tons of harmful pollution from the air or taking ten million vehicles off our roads (MTBE).

However, members of the National Academy of Sciences introduced information that, researchers provided unsupported data that reformulated gasoline blended with MTBE reduced carbon monoxide and other harmful emissions. The data was based on educated hypotheses and computer aided models. The National Academy of Science also reviewed reports from the governmental interagency that stated, "that there has been substantial reduction in ambient carbon monoxide concentration in the past 20 years, "and that vehicles emission control has been a major factor in this reduction"(Mehlman 245).

It is important to know that emission control units where mandated in the United State and installed on production automobiles in the early 1970's. Emission control units were introduced to reduce hydrocarbons (unburned fuel), and carbon monoxide from automotive exhaust. This reduction in automotive emissions has become more prevalent with the introduction of new technologies i.e., vehicles with computer control systems and more efficient catalytic converters.

The National Academy of Sciences has not found any substantial data to support the claim that reformulated gasoline with MTBE has reduced carbon dioxide or any other harmful emissions since it's introduction (Mehlman 245).

One of the main controversies is that MTBE was introduce as a fix for our clean air problems, but has become a huge threat to the water we drink. In the early 1990's, throughout the United States MTBE has been showing up in wells, aquifers and ultimately our drinking water. Scientists from the Environmental Protection Agency have determined