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Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#31

Post by CapitalistCartr »

air7 wrote: post #6

> The most compelling option was actually ethanol. But from the perspective of GM, Kitman wrote, ethanol wasn’t an option. It couldn’t be patented and GM couldn’t control its production. And oil companies like Du Pont "hated it," he wrote, perceiving it to be a threat to their control of the internal combustion engine. I'm generally an avid beliver in free markets as an agent for positive change, so these types of "r…

All we needed was strong environmental protection at the time. It's a natural commons, ripe for protection and regulation. But "The Environment" wasn't a common concept at the time.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#32

Post by tonyedgecombe »

hippich wrote: post #9
warning26 wrote: post #2

Interesting, I had assumed they just didn’t know that lead was bad back then. What’s even weirder is how there are still people today who insist that banning leaded gasoline was an key example of government overreach. Someone once was arguing this point to me and I just had to drop the topic because it was such a baffling stance.

> Someone once was arguing this point to me and I just had to drop the topic because it was such a baffling stance. It is also possible that two of you were arguing about different things despite seemingly talking about the same one. For example, you could be arguing that preventing people poisoning by lead is good, where the other person were arguing that people should bear more responsibility instead of pushing it…

That would be a generous interpretation.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#33

Post by heymijo »

warning26 wrote: post #2

Interesting, I had assumed they just didn’t know that lead was bad back then. What’s even weirder is how there are still people today who insist that banning leaded gasoline was an key example of government overreach. Someone once was arguing this point to me and I just had to drop the topic because it was such a baffling stance.

Two beliefs became entrenched:

1. that lead is natural to the human body, and

2. that a poisoning threshold for lead existed

Robert Kehoe, working for GM, was the chief advocate for leaded gasoline, and really the only person/lab doing research on lead until Clair Patterson stumbled into it while measuring the age of the earth. [0,1]

A modern equivalent might be if Facebook was the only organization researching social media's impact on society, while being able to set the paradigm/assumptions about said safety for half a century.

So even when Patterson's research was published in 1965, it took time to change the paradigm, and more time to phase out lead's use.

Should anyone want to read a narrative about the intertwined lives of Midgley, Patterson, Kehoe and lead, then this Mental Floss article is a good read. [2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Kehoe

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clair_Cameron_Patterson#Campai...

[2] https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-sc...

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#34

Post by hbogert »

HomeDeLaPot wrote: post #27
air7 wrote: post #6

> The most compelling option was actually ethanol. But from the perspective of GM, Kitman wrote, ethanol wasn’t an option. It couldn’t be patented and GM couldn’t control its production. And oil companies like Du Pont "hated it," he wrote, perceiving it to be a threat to their control of the internal combustion engine. I'm generally an avid beliver in free markets as an agent for positive change, so these types of "r…

... Regulation? Just ban lead in gas and let the free market find the next best solution.

That's what happened it took decades.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#35

Post by arbitrage »

laurent92 wrote: post #18
foob wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intellectual property reform could be a solution. It sounds like they might have gone with ethanol if they weren't motivated by patents so that they could prevent free market competition. We see the same thing with pharmaceuticals and in many other industries. I'm not particularly convinced that intellectual property laws are anywhere close to a net positive for consumers or society at large.

Patents, but also copyright on software. We gain nothing by rewriting the software every time, OSS should be the default. Same for music. It’s more controversial but Spotify is monetizing convenience, not music, which itself is available for free on P2P.

It's not controversial, it's the whole point of capitalism.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#36

Post by arbitrage »

dexen wrote: post #30
air7 wrote: post #6

> The most compelling option was actually ethanol. But from the perspective of GM, Kitman wrote, ethanol wasn’t an option. It couldn’t be patented and GM couldn’t control its production. And oil companies like Du Pont "hated it," he wrote, perceiving it to be a threat to their control of the internal combustion engine. I'm generally an avid beliver in free markets as an agent for positive change, so these types of "r…

>I'm generally an avid beliver in free markets as an agent for positive change I'm with you here - especially including the observation that it was the non-free market force ("It couldn’t be patented") that skewed the choice in favor of the inferior, poisonous option. Side note, besides its anti-knock properties, the lead also had protective effect on the valves - with early metallurgy, the high temperature gasses wo…

> It is a concern with older vehicles

This hasn't been true since about 1970, and even then, it was dubious.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#37

Post by shadytrees »

If you're interested in reading more about leaded gasoline, I highly recommend Jamie Lincoln Kitman's in-depth article about it from 2000. It makes the case that the US government played a key role in allowing bad science to spread https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/secret-history-lea...

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#38

Post by bombcar »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #28
Aloha wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TEL (tetraethyl lead) had and has other advantages over ethanol beyond patentability - Unlike TEL, ethanol is hydrophilic, which makes gasoline blended with it more apt to be contaminated with water, and other water containing contaminants, this is particularly relevant for aviation uses and also reducing incidences of vapor lock. TEL is also (more) rubber and seal friendly, other than the (very) high risk of lead to…

Those problems were solved for cars, they can be solved for planes. We shouldn't use it. Bioaccumulation of heavy metals was understood very early. Everything has a cost, spraying lead everywhere should be higher than what we are willing to pay. I am guessing it's still allowed because people who fly planes can afford to lobby. I was astounded to find TEL was still allowed in aviation fuels. Rates of cancers etc are…

Military planes just kerosene/JP-8 which contains no lead as far as I know.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#39

Post by ithacaman »

wpietri wrote: post #26
warning26 wrote: post #2

Interesting, I had assumed they just didn’t know that lead was bad back then. What’s even weirder is how there are still people today who insist that banning leaded gasoline was an key example of government overreach. Someone once was arguing this point to me and I just had to drop the topic because it was such a baffling stance.

America has two radically different concepts of freedom that travel under the same name. Both start with "I should be free to do as I want". One ends with "as long as I don't harm others". The other ends with "regardless of harm to others". You were dealing with the latter. It of course sounds insane when you say it baldly like this, which is why it rarely gets stated openly. But a lot of traditional societal structu…

The complexity is in proving what harm is being done and to whom.

Re: Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016)

#40

Post by thatguy0900 »

sircastor wrote: post #8
warning26 wrote: post #2

Interesting, I had assumed they just didn’t know that lead was bad back then. What’s even weirder is how there are still people today who insist that banning leaded gasoline was an key example of government overreach. Someone once was arguing this point to me and I just had to drop the topic because it was such a baffling stance.

Neil deGrasse Tyson said in an episode of Cosmos that even the Romans understood lead was dangerous, but it was a convenient metal to work with, so they used it anyway

Roman's also knew asbestos was bad. It was well documented that sending a slave to work in asbestos mines meant they would get lung sickness, and some slaves tried using masks made of pig bladder when mining.
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