Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 428 posts

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

#151

Post by api »

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…

Fossil carbon, loads of food additives, and the way the military industries generate much of technological innovation all come to mind.

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

#152

Post by eutectic »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #126
Aloha wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airlines (outside of bush planes) are not using AvGas in any substantive quantity, and have not been since the early 60's. The amount of AvGas used a year is dwarfed (several times over) by the amount of Jet Fuel (Jet A does not have TEL in it). AvGas (which uses TEL) is used by general aviation exclusively.

That doesn't make jet fuel any better. Just search for 'Toxicologic assessment' or 'profile of jet fuel' and focus on the 'A1' , which is the one used for commercial aviation. Then there is the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about, the military which is using the 'JP-X' variants all over the world, some of them even for their cars and trucks, because, hey, it's just better Diesel, why would we stock differ…

Organic compounds burn up, lead just accumulates.

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

#153

Post by andi999 »

Is this really the full story? Why did then the whole world follow suit (in using TEL instead of e.g. ethanol)? Here it seems the reason was production cost of TEL was lower than ethanol: https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-a-brief-history-... Also, since there were less cars when this was decided and supposedly low dosage risk of lead was only known in the 60s, the original article seems to follow a bit of a narrow narrative. (For the workers the high risk was probably known though)

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

#154

Post by Klinky »

artificial wrote: post #149
wpietri wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not generally. It mainly gets complex when the latter side wants to deny the harm. Then it's an ocean of motivated reasoning and endless arguments. We still have people arguing today that American slavery was good for the slaves.

Excellent! Together we can ban fast food and sugar consumption for the greater good. Heart disease and diabetes from the scourge of empty calories finally eliminated. Hundreds of thousands saved each year from poor choices. Up next: sedentary lifestyle enablers :). It’s such a rabbit hole, who should know best?

Are you saying it's not worthy of deeper inspection? I mean you kind of make an excellent point, the fast food and processed foods industries create a lot of waste selling an unhealthy product while paying unlivable wages. Their product increases healthcare costs while enabling a sedentary and stressful commuter lifestyle.

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

#155

Post by nemacol »

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…

>What nastiness are we subjecting ourselves to today?

Among the list of nasty things we are doing, fracking stands out. Fresh water is scarce in much of the world. Ground water is drying up and massive aquafers are eroding.

Simultaneously we are pumping cancer directly in the ground, breaking up rocks, and mixing the cancer stuck in the rocks into the ground water. Pumping that cancer back out and ... god only knows what is really happening to it.

My town, which relied on well water for as long as it has been a town, had city water installed in 2005~. Right around the time all the well heads were going up. I would guess that my well is no longer safe/usable - though I have never had it tested.

Seems a real shame and extremely short sighted.

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

#156

Post by clusterfish »

artificial wrote: post #149
wpietri wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not generally. It mainly gets complex when the latter side wants to deny the harm. Then it's an ocean of motivated reasoning and endless arguments. We still have people arguing today that American slavery was good for the slaves.

Excellent! Together we can ban fast food and sugar consumption for the greater good. Heart disease and diabetes from the scourge of empty calories finally eliminated. Hundreds of thousands saved each year from poor choices. Up next: sedentary lifestyle enablers :). It’s such a rabbit hole, who should know best?

You can harm yourself with junk food and lack of exercise all you want, it doesn't affect others the same way pouring poison into our shared environment does. What you're doing is called whataboutism. Trying to muddy clear waters by bringing in muddy issues that aren't directly related, just for the sake of muddying.

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

#157

Post by magila »

bbreier wrote: post #142
jvanderbot wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Implying we would know about all possible destructiveness at time of invention.

Isn't the article's primary claim exactly that?

Sort of. As the saying goes: the dose makes the poison. The article itself presents a quote stating that the low level of lead exposure caused by TEL in gasoline was thought to be safe at the time.

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

#158

Post by jabl »

Neil44 wrote: post #141
jabl wrote: post #103

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 eff…

Yes, not to mention the lubricant properties of the lead for the valve seats and guides.

Hardened materials for poppet valves and seats, like stellite, were invented and used before TEL. It was only after leaded gas became ubiquitous after WWII that manufacturers started saving a buck and stopped using them.

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

#159

Post by nebula8804 »

lazide wrote: post #25
sircastor wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

More than just dangerous, it was a known death sentence to be working in lead mining/smelting and a common poison [ https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/lead-poisoning-historic... ]. Like you note, it was also extremely convenient and relatively cheap. Pretty sure at least some of the chemicals we’re using now in soaps or for food processing will have something nasty associated with them once time has passed.

It will probably be Triclosan:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triclosan#Health_concerns

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

#160

Post by tialaramex »

artificial wrote: post #149
wpietri wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not generally. It mainly gets complex when the latter side wants to deny the harm. Then it's an ocean of motivated reasoning and endless arguments. We still have people arguing today that American slavery was good for the slaves.

Excellent! Together we can ban fast food and sugar consumption for the greater good. Heart disease and diabetes from the scourge of empty calories finally eliminated. Hundreds of thousands saved each year from poor choices. Up next: sedentary lifestyle enablers :). It’s such a rabbit hole, who should know best?

In my country drinks with added sugar are taxed extra. So, for example, all the no sugar Coke or Pepsi variants are one price, but "classic" Coke or Pepsi with sugar in it are more expensive in the same quantities. A small nudge. And I already noticed it impacts bars and restaurants. If you're only going to bother stocking one cola beverage, why carry the one with sugar, which costs extra, when a customer asks for "A Coke" it's no harder to train staff to say "Pepsi Max OK?" than "Pepsi OK?".

As to "Who should know best?" that's exactly what we're paying our politicians to be on top of.

Post reply on HN