Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by mattmaroon » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 5:02 PM UTC

9rx wrote: post #156

mattmaroon wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> nuclear is far cheaper over its lifecycle than that That is the case for base load generation, where the plant can operate near 100% capacity all the time. But that isn't were gas is usually being deployed; it being used for reserve generation. The economics of nuclear isn't as favourable in that application as it costs more or less the same to run at partial generation, or even no generation, as it does when it is…

Right, but in the context of data centers, it’s all about baseload anyway, right? If data centers become a big driver of energy use, there will be a lot lower fluctuation between peak and trough demand.

I can imagine a future in which every data center has a little baby nuclear plant built right next to it. Watts per acre may become a significant measurement of density. Solar’s environmental impact is of course dramatically overstated by its opponents, but it won’t be when we scale it up and have to start slashing forests for it.

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

#292

Post by brailsafe » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #285

brailsafe wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, I'm not a wetland expert, so maybe someone will chime in and tell me why every inch of freshwater shoreline must be undisturbed. But I like freshwater swimming and suspect that we can allocate some space for human recreation. Are you prevented from fresh water swimming because you can't fabricate a beach for yourself, even if you own the property next to it? Seems like a strange complaint

Crawling through brush to get to the water isn't fun. Besides, half the fun of the "beach" is the clearing where you can sit and read a book or play in the sand.

Do you need to own a beach to go to the beach?

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

#293

Post by 9rx » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

mattmaroon wrote: post #291

9rx wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuclear is far cheaper over its lifecycle than that That is the case for base load generation, where the plant can operate near 100% capacity all the time. But that isn't were gas is usually being deployed; it being used for reserve generation. The economics of nuclear isn't as favourable in that application as it costs more or less the same to run at partial generation, or even no generation, as it does when it is…

Right, but in the context of data centers, it’s all about baseload anyway, right? If data centers become a big driver of energy use, there will be a lot lower fluctuation between peak and trough demand. I can imagine a future in which every data center has a little baby nuclear plant built right next to it. Watts per acre may become a significant measurement of density. Solar’s environmental impact is of course drama…

If it were simply an option between nuclear or gas for that, nuclear would, generally, be the obvious choice. But it would be quite atypical to build a gas plant to provide base power. Typically they are being built to back up renewables.

Fair point that renewables may have a practical expansion limit, but for the time being are, by far, the cheapest option so a data centre is still going to prefer that source of power to the greatest extent possible, thereby leaving gas/nuclear only as reserve — of which nuclear has not proven to be cost effective at. Geothermal, hydro, etc. are hard to beat, but where you aren't sitting on the perfect environment, generally speaking, wind+solar+gas is about as good as it gets on a cost basis.

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

#294

Post by gwbas1c » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 6:12 PM UTC

brailsafe wrote: post #292

gwbas1c wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crawling through brush to get to the water isn't fun. Besides, half the fun of the "beach" is the clearing where you can sit and read a book or play in the sand.

Do you need to own a beach to go to the beach?

Do you understand the point of owning lakefront property?

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

#295

Post by fuzzfactor » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 6:49 PM UTC

It's definitely lead.

But when you do look at the details it doesn't look like the results point to the measured lead coming directly from gasoline itself.

Just as likely if not more so coming from the neighborhood lead smelter that operated over a period of decades where the phaseout probably overlapped from both mineral and gasoline sources, in step with the regulations.

These are rare samples but I wonder if it would be possible to determine how much lead was on the outside of the hairs which could be expected to settle from the atmosphere, compared to within the biological matrix itself which could have been incorporated metabolically?

And in a ubiquitous TEL-using environment, would that form of lead build up more so on the outside of the hairs or the inside?

With or without a lead smelter in the neighborhood?

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

#296

Post by _DeadFred_ » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 7:51 PM UTC

fuzzfactor wrote: post #256

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When left to their own cigaret companies tell congress cigarettes are safe and non addictive. Left alone companies pay in scrip only usable at the company store. The 'greater good' has arguably PREVENTED much more hurt of people than it has ever hurt. Meanwhile companies have PROVEN time and time again that they WILL hurt people when left to their own devices. In environmental policies. In pay policies. In employment…

This is the extreme, and it shows how far some (most?) people would go. There are many examples, and more being minted, it can be a drag. Yes, not just environmental, all kinds of money stuff. The more money can be how it gets on steroids. But this says a lot here: >not try to condense it down to something overly simplistic With greed involved you can follow the money to an extent, you find lobbyists on both sides of…

Lobbyists at this point is just sports 'flood the zone' defense strategy gumming up the process everywhere so they can point and say 'look at it, government doesn't work'. Another form of the Reagan 'starve the beast' strategy to say 'look at it, government doesn't work'. I'm starting to feel the same with speech online. Capitalism and other negative social elements working to undermine the social system that impedes them just constantly flooding the systems that assume/can handle the volume of/when all interactions are in good faith but can't designed to handle malicious flooding.

Our society has an IRC/USENET problem.

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

#297

Post by breakyerself » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 9:09 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #294

brailsafe wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you need to own a beach to go to the beach?

Do you understand the point of owning lakefront property?

To ruin the natural ecology so that you don't have to share a swimming hole with anyone else in your community?

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

#298

Post by breakyerself » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 9:10 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #237

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…

>Almost every environmental regulation has come after it was already shown that there was some harm that needed to be mitigated. Ok, strong example here: the long term efforts to stop forest fires caused build up of fuel that should have burned up in small fires which then instead burned up ecosystems which evolved for small forest fires and instead were destroyed in large ones. That's a well intentioned environmenta…

Is forest fire mitigation about protecting the environment or protecting property of people who live in wooded areas?

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

#299

Post by mattmaroon » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 10:06 PM UTC

9rx wrote: post #293

mattmaroon wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but in the context of data centers, it’s all about baseload anyway, right? If data centers become a big driver of energy use, there will be a lot lower fluctuation between peak and trough demand. I can imagine a future in which every data center has a little baby nuclear plant built right next to it. Watts per acre may become a significant measurement of density. Solar’s environmental impact is of course drama…

If it were simply an option between nuclear or gas for that, nuclear would, generally, be the obvious choice. But it would be quite atypical to build a gas plant to provide base power. Typically they are being built to back up renewables. Fair point that renewables may have a practical expansion limit, but for the time being are, by far, the cheapest option so a data centre is still going to prefer that source of pow…

Yeah, and I'm all for all of it. I just can see a future in which nuclear (through some combination of regulatory reform and new technology) ends up becoming cost-feasible and fossil fuels fade away.

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

#300

Post by brailsafe » Thu, Feb 05, 2026, 2:58 AM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #294

brailsafe wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you need to own a beach to go to the beach?

Do you understand the point of owning lakefront property?

Apparently not, I should be more down to earth, but there's so much brush in the way. Usually, if I want to go to the beach though, I'll just go to the beach, it's not so complicated