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

171–180 of 352 posts

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

#171

Post by mikkupikku »

ch4s3 wrote: post #143
breakyerself wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Graphite moderated reactors are broadly fine, the problem was with some technical specifics of that specific reactor design, and the operational culture that surrounded it. After Chernobyl, those flaws were corrected and operation of other RBMK reactors has continued to this very day, with no repeats.

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

#172

Post by WorldMaker »

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 may have done a lot to inflame cultural imagination of what could happen in the worst cases, but the US still had its own high profile disasters like Three Mile Island.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

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

#173

Post by cyrialize »

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.

Thank you for mentioning this, it was the first thing I thought of in this conversation thread!

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

#174

Post by breakyerself »

davidw wrote: post #151
bevr1337 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article doesn't speak to me. What I read is, "Won't someone think of the poor UC system?" But the UC system is _massive_ > But Casa Joaquin’s neighboring, overwhelmingly white homeowners could have used CEQA to demand costly studies and multiple hearings before Berkeley officials. Important to note that white people are well-represented at UC Berkley too. https://opa.berkeley.edu/campus-data/uc-berkeley-quick-fa…

They're talking about using environmental rules to block homes for people to live in, inside cities. Using land efficiently in walkable places is one of the most environmentally friendly things we can be doing, and supposed "environmentalists" sought to block it using "environmental" rules! If that's not NIMBYism to you, you have blinders on.

I would just say that NIMBYS that weaponize environmental regulation for purposes it wasn't written for aren't environmentalists.

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

#175

Post by justin66 »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #113
buildsjets wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you proposing that the base of the bullet which is exposed to the burning propellant magically remains at room temperature, and none of the lead in the base of the bullet is vaporized? What about the process of forcing the projectile into the barrel's spiral grooves at very high speed, leaving grooves in the side of the bullet. Where do you suppose that displaced and/or vaporized material ends up? What about the…

I am directly questioning whether the .22LR bullet creates more lead vapor than any other round as per OP statement.

I haven't measured this but all the ingredients are there: they're unjacketed or copper washed, and they are made from soft lead rather than a hard-cast alloy. You can get a polymer-coated or pure copper round but that's pretty unusual since it goes against the cheap plinking purpose most people are using the .22 for.

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

#176

Post by bevr1337 »

breakyerself wrote: post #174
davidw wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're talking about using environmental rules to block homes for people to live in, inside cities. Using land efficiently in walkable places is one of the most environmentally friendly things we can be doing, and supposed "environmentalists" sought to block it using "environmental" rules! If that's not NIMBYism to you, you have blinders on.

I would just say that NIMBYS that weaponize environmental regulation for purposes it wasn't written for aren't environmentalists.

That's a great hypothetical, but it's not supported by the article. There are claims that NIMBYs are doing this or that, but follow the links to the supplementary articles and it's baseless. I only find evidence that students and homeless protested. Those aren't NIMBY homeowners.

To me, it seems UC wants to bulldoze a park famous for homeless camps and replace it with student housing. Pro-development is trying to cast the UC expansion in the same light as folks asking for affordable housing. But, UC is not providing useful housing for residents of Berkley.

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

#177

Post by zhshsha »

yellottyellott wrote: post #52
jmward01 wrote: post #14

I remember going to LA in the late 80's and my eyes watering (I also remember the pants-less man on the side of the strode but that is a different story). Environmental regulations are a win. Unfortunately there is a large segment of the population that doesn't believe something until it happens to them directly. That makes it a challenge to maintain environmental, or any regulations for that matter, over generations…

In Louisana there’s a stretch around all the refineries nicknamed Cancer Alley. The locals work the plants. Everyone gets sick. And they vote for expansion because it brings in more jobs. You need the regulations.

> You need the regulations.

This is fixing the symptom instead of the problems. Elites are allowed to be rich because the cost of failure is supposed to be extremely (historically, their life) expensive to them. We got rid of the latter without the adjusting the former.

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

#178

Post by HowardStark »

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.

CEQA itself is a mixed bag. I want to be clear that there are very important things the CEQA does to improve our environmental conditions[0]! The very real issue of CEQA being “weaponized”[1] stems from how environmental complaints have to be re-litigated in their entirety every time one is filed. Say there’s a coalition of neighbors who do not want something built. They can each file a lawsuit alleging environmental issues and each will have to be handled in isolation

*I am not going into immense detail here. It is admittedly a bit more complex than this, but this is a reasonable summary

[0] https://youtu.be/TKN7Cl6finE?si=CR4SjVK5_ojk-OKq [1] https://www.planningreport.com/2015/12/21/new-ceqa-study-rev...

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

#179

Post by wat10000 »

cfiggers wrote: post #28

In my opinion it is obvious and should be uncontroversial that some environmental regulations work and are great and should if anything be reinforced, while other environmental regulations do more harm than good and need to be reigned in or eliminated. 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 force…

This sounds nice, but in the context of actual politics it's completely meaningless.

It's like saying that some people are dangerous criminals who need to be locked up, and other people are upstanding citizens who should be free to live their lives. Everybody would agree with this. The disagreement is in how you sort people. What category encompasses someone who belongs to the opposing political party? That sort of thing.

Regulation should definitely be justified by scientific data. Who gets to determine what's enough? Who gets to determine what counts? Leaded gasoline is a great example. It was pretty well understood when it was introduced that lead was hazardous and dumping a bunch of it into the atmosphere was unwise. But this was evaded, denied, and suppressed for decades.

Even today, it's not settled. Lead is still used in aviation gasoline in the US. It's being phased out, but it's been in the process of phasing out for a couple of decades and there seems to be no urgency in it.

You'll find plenty of people disagreeing with pretty clearly beneficial environmental regulations because in their view those regulations are not supported by the data. They would completely agree with your statement, while saying that pollution from coal power plants is no big deal, climate change is a myth, etc.

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

#180

Post by recursive »

FatherOfCurses wrote: post #55
cfiggers wrote: post #28

In my opinion it is obvious and should be uncontroversial that some environmental regulations work and are great and should if anything be reinforced, while other environmental regulations do more harm than good and need to be reigned in or eliminated. 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 force…

It should be uncontroversial that introducing shit into an environment where it doesn't belong is a bad idea, yet many people remain unconvinced that dumping tons of carbon dioxide a year into the atmosphere or tons of fertilizer by-products into the oceans is a bad idea.

You've just shifted the disagreement into a debate about whether the particular shit does or does not belong in the particular place.
Post reply on HN