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Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

nytimes.com

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Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#81

Post by jabl »

samtho wrote: post #61
Ekaros wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how many gallons were sold with lead added? I would imagine that is quite substantial number, so in the end we are talking about large sums of money...

The “couple of cents” seemed like an off the cuff remark to indicate that leaded gas was less expensive than alternatives, but I would be interested in hearing about this delta as a percent rather than a fixed cost. Given inflation, gas price fluctuations, and the sheer volume in which fuel was sold, measuring it as a “couple of cents” is completely meaningless.

It's hard to have any conclusive number on this, it's not only about inflation etc. but also the cost of alternative ways of achieving the required octane (e.g. increasing production of reformate or alkylate, or the refinery buying external blendstocks like ethanol or MTBE), which varies a lot over time (due to technical advancements) and place (what kind of equipment does a refinery have installed), etc.

From a 1998 article (https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/d3706d00-3d97-495d-8b8c-.... ) it estimates between $0.01-$0.03/liter for lead removal. US gasoline prices in 1990-2000 were at around $1.20/gallon which works out to about $0.32/liter. Taking the middle value of $0.02/liter for lead removal that would be around 6%. Just as a back-of-the-envelope calculation. I think in reality in many places that cost delta at pump the is lower since the usage of ethanol as an octane enhancer shifts the cost to various agricultural subsidy programs.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#82

Post by dsfyu404ed »

somenameforme wrote: post #18
chuankl wrote: post #11

The absolute terrible thing about leaded gasoline is that they were already aware of several other additives (including ethanol, IIRC) that have the desired anti-knocking properties. But they went with tetraethyl lead anyway because it is cheaper and provided a few cents more profit per gallon. A cent was worth more back then than it does now, but still :-(

I would also emphasize a more social issue to this. There's also a tendency for society to discount the dangers of something when the impact is sporadically distributed or long-term. Beyond the endless corporate lobbying and sold out scientists/politicians working to convince everybody that leaded fuel was 100% safe, I think there was also probably a mindset of many in society that 'Well, if leaded fuel is so poisono…

It's infinitely more convenient to assume that the leaders in the past were evil and the masses of the past ignorant than it is to assume they weren't let alone assume they were mostly just like us.

It must be nice to be able to make those assumptions and believe them...

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#83

Post by [deleted] »

TylerE wrote: post #13
Groxx wrote: post #5

> Midgley is best known for the terrible consequences of that chemistry, thanks to the stretch of his career from 1922 to 1928, during which he managed to invent leaded gasoline and also develop the first commercial use of the chlorofluorocarbons that would create a hole in the ozone layer. TIL that was the same person. What a legacy. Whole-world-altering inventions (both in being spread literally everywhere because…

He also managed to kill himself with another of his inventions. Karma exists?

[deleted]

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#84

Post by dsfyu404ed »

qqtt wrote: post #22

Friendly reminder that leaded gas is still used all over the United States today in airports (avgas). And if you live near an airport you are probably affected by elevated lead levels. https://news.sccgov.org/news-release/study-commissioned-coun...

Blood lead levels are overwhelmingly affected by local exposure, basically the history of lead use where you live, work and your food is from.

While leaded avgas is not great the FAA just approved a replacement and I'm sure it will be in use quickly because "hurr durr muh lead" is the rallying cry of obnoxious suburbanites who just bought a house beside an airport and now want it shut down and everyone involved in general aviation has a large incentive to silence that screeching.

Now, before any jerks show up to strawman me as endorsing lead exposure so they can bust out their favorite "no safe level" quip that they love to circle jerk it to, I'm not. I'm saying that while the effect is measurable it's not meaningful in light of the fact that you or anyone else's lead exposure is overwhelmingly dominated by local sources.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#85

Post by jabl »

twarge wrote: post #73
prennert wrote: post #45

This Cautionary Tales podcast episode talks about him [0]. Both were invented in the service of DuPont. CFC at least helped making refrigeration safer and helped getting it to the masses. Leaded gasoline on the other hand was always known as a bad idea. In both cases though, DuPont fought back hard to prevent bans of these solutions. They rather kill the planet than their profits. Suitably enough he killed himself wi…

Propane is a shockingly better refrigerant. Sure, it's flammable, but is it really unsafe? It's widely used in commercial units.

Propane is a very good refrigerant for many common uses like AC, heat pumps, or refrigerators, yes. But yes, AFAIU initially CFC's were hailed as a significant safety advancement and quickly replaced older refrigerants that were poisonous (ammonia) or flammable (hydrocarbons). But subsequently we've become better at making refrigerant machinery that needs less refrigerant and is less prone to leakage, and the natural refrigerants have made a comeback as subsequent generations of the flourocarbon family refrigerants have been banned (CFC bans, F-gas regulations etc.) and become more and more expensive.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#86

Post by awestroke »

andruby wrote: post #48
awestroke wrote: post #40

If you had a time machine, would you go back in time to kill Hitler or this guy?

I’d go back and show this guy the consequences and convince him to use other additives.

He knew the negative effects. He also knew that other additives worked just as well (eg ethanol). Still he lobbied hard for using his additive

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#87

Post by vitus »

samtho wrote: post #61
Ekaros wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how many gallons were sold with lead added? I would imagine that is quite substantial number, so in the end we are talking about large sums of money...

The “couple of cents” seemed like an off the cuff remark to indicate that leaded gas was less expensive than alternatives, but I would be interested in hearing about this delta as a percent rather than a fixed cost. Given inflation, gas price fluctuations, and the sheer volume in which fuel was sold, measuring it as a “couple of cents” is completely meaningless.

A gallon of gasoline back in 1930 (or 1925 for that matter, pre-depression) cost about 20 cents. So, even 2 cents per gallon would be a 10% savings.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/om030621b has some points of comparison (as well as a lot more historical context of the research that led Midgley & co to leaded gasoline if you're interested).

For what it's worth, per Table 1, ethanol is not anywhere near as effective as tetraethyllead -- it has an effectiveness of 0.1 per mol, vs TEL having a value of 118. Even when normalizing by molar mass (since TEL is a much heavier compound), TEL is still ~100x more effective than ethanol.

"... iodine had a few slight drawbacks. It added over a dollar to the cost of a gallon of fuel and we were afraid that would be considered a trifle excessive by most motorists."

"Further studies with more dilute solutions showed that a one-fortieth of one percent solution of tetraethyllead was equivalent in knock inhibition to 1.3% aniline in kerosene."

"The first public sale of Ethyl gasoline (the name given it by Kettering) occurred on February 1, 1923 in Dayton, OH at 25 cents per gallon (regular gas cost 21 cents per gallon) (Figure 8) before large-scale production had started."

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#88

Post by than3 »

versteegen wrote: post #52
Weneedlead wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is nonsense. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485653/ says > There is no such level of lead that appears to be necessary or beneficial to the body and no “safe” level of exposure to lead has been found. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lead-poison... says > There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects. > The body stores lead in the teeth and bones…

Ver, the guy is a bot pushing a narrative that will harm anyone following it, contact an HN mod and flag his post. That's all you can really do.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#89

Post by vitus »

jabl wrote: post #81
samtho wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “couple of cents” seemed like an off the cuff remark to indicate that leaded gas was less expensive than alternatives, but I would be interested in hearing about this delta as a percent rather than a fixed cost. Given inflation, gas price fluctuations, and the sheer volume in which fuel was sold, measuring it as a “couple of cents” is completely meaningless.

It's hard to have any conclusive number on this, it's not only about inflation etc. but also the cost of alternative ways of achieving the required octane (e.g. increasing production of reformate or alkylate, or the refinery buying external blendstocks like ethanol or MTBE), which varies a lot over time (due to technical advancements) and place (what kind of equipment does a refinery have installed), etc. From a 1998…

Wapo article from 1984 [0] asserts that 85-octane nonleaded gasoline was consistently about 2 cents cheaper to make than 87-octane leaded gasoline.

That said, that was with numerous advancements over the preceding 60 years which most likely would never have happened if we hadn't developed engines capable of taking advantage of high-octane fuels.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1984/04/01/c...

"But, as DeMuth noted, the EPA study is concerned about total costs and benefits to society, not just to one group. The study makes no attempt to predict what would happen to prices at the pump. It points out instead that the cost of manufacturing 87-octane unleaded gasoline, according to market prices, is consistently less than 2 cents a gallon more than for making 89-octane leaded gasoline. Average pump prices are about 7 cents more, however."

I believe this is the EPA study: https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPURL.cgi?Dockey=9100YK16.TXT (I clicked the "download as pdf" adobe acrobat icon on the right)

"The DOE model estimates that at current lead levels (1.10 gplg) the marginal manufacturing cost differential between unleaded and leaded regular grades of gasoline is less than two cents per gallon. Retail prices, however, diverge by an average of about seven cents per gallon (Weekly Petroleum Status Report, 1984, various issues)."

7 cents per gallon is right around that 2 cents per liter that you cite, naturally.

Re: Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons

#90

Post by Weneedlead »

than3 wrote: post #88
versteegen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485653/ says > There is no such level of lead that appears to be necessary or beneficial to the body and no “safe” level of exposure to lead has been found. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lead-poison... says > There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects. > The body stores lead in the teeth and bones…

Ver, the guy is a bot pushing a narrative that will harm anyone following it, contact an HN mod and flag his post. That's all you can really do.

[flagged]
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