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

Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

attheu.utah.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 352 posts

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#141

Post by breakyerself »

busterarm wrote: post #124
breakyerself wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every environmental regulation has come after it was already shown that there was some harm that needed to be mitigated. The worst environmental crisis in human history is going largely unchecked. I find it hard to take seriously any argument that environmental regulation has gone too far as opposed to not nearly far enough. If there's a specific regulation that can be shown to be doing more harm than good I'm…

How do you explain the bug up its ass that the EPA has about auto racing?

Congress should pass the RPM act and exempt race cars from the clean air act. I never said you can't cherry pick individual problems with environmental regulation.

I just don't like the general attitude that because you can find something to disagree with that environmental regulation as a general rule is bad. It isn't.

There are thousands and thousands of pages of environmental regulations. Obviously people are going to be able to find some things that need to be revisited, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Nothing should be repealed without evidence and in many cases amendments are more prudent than repeals.

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#142

Post by rayiner »

bluGill wrote: post #130
zug_zug wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the point -- the point is that gasoline companies KNEW ABOUT alternative lead-free substitutes for anti-knock (such as ethanol) and chose lead because they perceived it was less profitable. [1] Specifically because ethanol wasn't patentable and TEL was, and ultimately it WAS patented. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leaded-gas-poison-...

It is more than that - lead and ethanol have other properties that engines that use them need to handle. Lead also acted as a lubricant and parts designed for engines that assumed lead fuel were designed with softer valve seats - switch to unleaded with otherwise equal octane and your will destroy the engine. (though experience shows that unless you were driving your car on a race trace most cars worked fine for long…

Also, TEL being patented by Dow (which isn’t an oil company) actually was a reason oil companies would want to use an alternative, if possible. Why would they want to pay Dow to use a patented product, all else being equal?

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#143

Post by ch4s3 »

breakyerself wrote: post #131
nokcha wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that environmental regulations that impede building modern nuclear power plants to replace coal power plants are net harmful. Nuclear power safety has advanced a lot since Chernobyl.

Chernobyl design was never in use in the US, but nuclear went through a long period of near universal public opposition to its expansion because of the high profile disasters that it caused. Now the cost of solar and storage are dropping at a rate I doubt nuclear is ever going to make a significant comeback. I'm not opposed to it, but I wonder if the economics will ever be favorable even with regulatory reform.

> Chernobyl design was never in use in the US

Commercially. Several early test reactors were essentially just graphite moderated piles not unlike Chernobyl, but they were abandoned for a reason.

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#144

Post by epistasis »

prodigycorp wrote: post #16
epistasis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal is mostly sticking around in the US because of federal overreach to keep unprofitable and ancient coal generators going long after anybody wants to pay for the high maintenance. Last week, a Colorado utility was "respectfully" asking to be able to close a plant: > TTri-State Generation and partner Platte River Power Authority had a “respectful” but emphatic response late Thursday to the Trump administration orde…

Thank you for such a thoughtful comment. There's politics that gets flagged on this site, and there's politics that makes me think about things with more clarity. Yours is obviously the latter.

Collective decisions are unavoidably political, and grid electricity has to be a collective decision! My hope is that we can take the partisan aspect out of the politics, however, and reduce it to a discussion of the tradeoff of values: cost, reliability, climate, and any other values that we need to include. Fortunately I think that for nearly any value set, the answer is very similar.

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#145

Post by mattmaroon »

breakyerself wrote: post #131
nokcha wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that environmental regulations that impede building modern nuclear power plants to replace coal power plants are net harmful. Nuclear power safety has advanced a lot since Chernobyl.

Chernobyl design was never in use in the US, but nuclear went through a long period of near universal public opposition to its expansion because of the high profile disasters that it caused. Now the cost of solar and storage are dropping at a rate I doubt nuclear is ever going to make a significant comeback. I'm not opposed to it, but I wonder if the economics will ever be favorable even with regulatory reform.

It would. People are still building some natural gas plants even despite renewables being cheaper and nuclear is far cheaper over its lifecycle than that and, other than regulatory issues, is basically better in every way.

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#147

Post by breakyerself »

an_account wrote: post #118
breakyerself wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every environmental regulation has come after it was already shown that there was some harm that needed to be mitigated. The worst environmental crisis in human history is going largely unchecked. I find it hard to take seriously any argument that environmental regulation has gone too far as opposed to not nearly far enough. If there's a specific regulation that can be shown to be doing more harm than good I'm…

CEQA in California is very often used to block apartments in existing urban areas. So, instead, California continues to mostly build single family housing sprawl into natural habitats. A clear example of environmental regulation hurting the environment and the climate. And of course the affordability of housing.

Yeah I'm not in favor of sprawl. It sounds like it needs to be amended, but do you want to go back to polluted air and water just because a small minority of regulations need to be repealed or amended? Wouldn't it make more sense to just revisit whatever regulations are having unintended consequences?

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#148

Post by titzer »

t1234s wrote: post #77
Faaak wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK that's why leaded paint is bad for children: it tastes sweet so they continue licking it/eating the chips of paint that fall off the wall

Water from lead pipes must have tasted amazing

Ancient Romans used lead as a sweetener.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/sugar-of-lead-a-...

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#149

Post by derektank »

breakyerself wrote: post #147
an_account wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEQA in California is very often used to block apartments in existing urban areas. So, instead, California continues to mostly build single family housing sprawl into natural habitats. A clear example of environmental regulation hurting the environment and the climate. And of course the affordability of housing.

Yeah I'm not in favor of sprawl. It sounds like it needs to be amended, but do you want to go back to polluted air and water just because a small minority of regulations need to be repealed or amended? Wouldn't it make more sense to just revisit whatever regulations are having unintended consequences?

>do you want to go back to polluted air and water just because a small minority of regulations need to be repealed or amended?

>Turning "environmental regulation" into a unified bloc that must be either supported or opposed in totality is a manipulative political maneuver and it should be forcefully rejected.

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#150

Post by breakyerself »

busterarm wrote: post #124
breakyerself wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every environmental regulation has come after it was already shown that there was some harm that needed to be mitigated. The worst environmental crisis in human history is going largely unchecked. I find it hard to take seriously any argument that environmental regulation has gone too far as opposed to not nearly far enough. If there's a specific regulation that can be shown to be doing more harm than good I'm…

How do you explain the bug up its ass that the EPA has about auto racing?

At the same time I'm sick of people facing no consequences for modifying their diesel pickups to blow black clouds of smoke on their fellow citizens.
Post reply on HN