Leaded gas was a known poison the day it was invented (2016) • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by HPsquared » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #65

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…

"Dry gas" which is used to correct moisture problems in cars' fuel systems is alcohol: Ethanol, methanol, etc. and it takes advantage of alcohol being hydrophilic. Ethanol has requirements for hoses and seals that might otherwise be degraded by alcohol. But this is not an ongoing issue in modern vehicles.

The same property, increased ability to absorb water, both helps to remove excess of water and can cause a problem in the longer-term.

It's like using a towel to dry your shower tray: in the short run it's helpful but if you leave it there all the time you'll end up with a permanently soggy towel keeping everything damp.

EDIT: Some empirical evidence for the doubters- https://youtu.be/UvS_D4_lF5U

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

#102

Post by Aloha » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

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…

The amount of TEL used in AvGas is infinitesimally small, its only used in Aviation Gasoline, which is only used in older piston engined craft, the military flies none of these as far as I know.

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

#103

Post by jabl » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

There are many octane boosters in addition to lead and ethanol. Like N-methyl aniline, ethers like MTBE and ETBE, and modifying the gasoline composition to replace low-octane components with high-octane components like aromatics, and so-called super alkylate.

Most of these have disadvantages of their own, and tend to be more expensive. So TEL won for a reason. Particularly if you ignore things like diffuse health effects.

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

#104

Post by smnrchrds » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

paulkrush wrote: post #91

I guess we live on the shoulders of nastiness and things get better. So TEL was part of our boot sequence. What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today? BTW: The guy that invented TEL also invented CFCs! See Thomas Midgley Jr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr . This guy who invents awesome working chemicals that are tragically bad for people on a worldwide scale manages to exit life dues to his…

> Midgley's legacy has been scarred by the negative environmental impact of leaded gasoline and Freon. Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history", and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny".

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

#105

Post by magwa101 » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

Private profits, future liabilities. We have been trading the future for wealth today, all that wealth has to be paid back. Is all the generated wealth zero sum?

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

#106

Post by mcguire » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #32

hippich wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Overly generous. Much if not most of the damage of lead was done to unrelated third parties who did not necessarily have any relationship with those responsible for the use of lead. The person who makes that argument is telling those unrelated people, "wear hazmat gear 24/7 because somebody, somewhere may be killing you."

The remainder of the damage from lead was done to employees, where the advice boils down to "don't work because your employer may be killing you."

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

#107

Post by tjohns » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

bleachedsleet wrote: post #89

consumer451 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s finally over. > After more than three decades of research and development, general aviation finally has an approved unleaded 100-octane fuel. https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/gami-awarded-long-awaite...

It will be over, but it’s not over yet. Your link says that it will both take a while for it to come to market and also be more expensive to produce…an expense that will likely be balked at by the airlines until forced to use it at which point it will be the customers that pay.

For what it's worth, unleaded avgas is already available at some of the Bay Area airports as of recent, and it's currently priced cheaper than traditional leaded avgas.

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

#108

Post by throwawayboise » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #41

wpietri wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this is an example of 3 negative features of free markets, exacerbated by a kyriarchic system, but I think it's fixable with work. The three issues I see: One, the short-term market incentive was for them to have something patentable and controllable. Two, the money accrued to them but the harms fell to others, creating a huge negative externality. And three, free markets in goods tend to create markets in poli…

> Politicians live on fixed budgets, any private wealth is put in index funds I like where you are going with all this, but I'll nitpick here that while tying politicians' wealth to the overall stock market in general reduces their incentive to legislate in favor of particular companies, it does provide them incentive to legislate in favor of corporate America in general. We don't need laws that help stock market par…

> 50% of Americans don't hold stock in any form

Maybe we should address that problem -- it's one of the best long term ways for anyone to build wealth. Why aren't we educating people about this in school?

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

#109

Post by mcguire » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #80

nso95 wrote: post #7

Gasoline is poison in general though

It is fairly trivial to avoid drinking gasoline. For example, I managed it 100 per cent of the time so far, and I am 43. It is not as trivial to avoid breathing in lead when you live around cars that use leaded gasoline.

Never had an old Kawasaki KLR650 with a leaking gas tank, eh? :-)

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

#110

Post by jrockway » Sun, Sep 12, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

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…

> Rates of cancers etc are higher near military bases due to fuel handling incidents.

Avgas is only used in piston engines, and the military mostly flies turbines, which use ordinary jet fuel (which does not contain lead). They have some, but I think if you told the military "jets and turboprops only" it wouldn't be a big problem. (Not sure how they would train new pilots, however.)

If you're looking for disease/damage from lead in avgas, you want to find a little airport in the middle of nowhere that has a really good restaurant on the field ;)

https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/avgas

> I am guessing it's still allowed because people who fly planes can afford to lobby.

People that fly piston engines do not have any money to lobby.

To me it feels very similar to why software engineers pay so much tax -- we get paid just enough to be dinged by things like the AMT, but not enough to afford lobbyists.