Why did we use leaded petrol for so long? (2017)

17 pointsposted 13 hours ago
by simonebrunozzi
(bbc.com)

14 Comments

drweevil

9 hours ago

> Cynics might point out that any old farmer could distill ethyl alcohol from grain. It couldn't be patented, or its distribution profitably controlled. Tetraethyl lead could.

Were they cynics, though? As the article itself points out, the dangers of tetraethyl lead were already well know. And then there is this:

> And, as Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner point out, "For the next four decades, all studies of the use of tetraethyl lead were conducted by laboratories and scientists funded by the Ethyl Corporation and General Motors".

It doesn't take a cynic to see what was going on here.

amiga386

7 hours ago

Veritasium did a great video on Midgley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA

And therein they give the reason why ethanol was passed over: a lot of it is required to be effective (~10% of the fuel mixture), seriously dampening the profit margin of fuel sales! It works, but tetraethyl lead is so much cheaper

somat

4 hours ago

It's not even that. alcohol destroys engines.

Sure in retrospect lead is a bad idea. but for the sake of argument. If we ignore all the subtlety of the real world choices, research and development required the argument would probably be.

We have this great additive that will let us make more powerful efficient engines that is also stable and lubricating or we could put something in the gas that degrades quickly and eats all the rubber seals out of our customers engines.

In short even ignoring price alcohol was a non starter then, even today with many years of developing rubbers that handle alcohol better E blends are a lot harder on engines than non E blends.

And a fun science experiment "how do you tell how much alcohol is in the gas?" fill a glass mason jar about a third full of gas, mark a line on the jar where the gas is. put another third of water in and color it with food coloring, put lid on and shake well, let separate and settle out. mark new line on glass where gas is. figure out percentage. The alcohol is water soluble and will have formed a solution with the water, the food coloring will only color the water and will let you see the boundery layer easier.

dontlaugh

2 hours ago

That used to be true.

For a while now, any petrol car can run on high ethanol mixed without any damage.

somat

4 minutes ago

True but it was a real consideration for a surprisingly long time. And you still find a lot of lawnmowers that tell you not to use E mixes in them, I am not sure why (my guess are ether they are being super cheap on the rubber or just acknowledging the fact that lawnmowers tend to sit and the E mixes sitting tends to corrode things and go bad.

nubinetwork

25 minutes ago

Then why use gasoline at all? This might sound sacrilegious, but I honestly wish LPG had more pull than it did in Canada.

1970-01-01

6 hours ago

The 21st century version of this will be "Why did we use petrol for so long?"

jokoon

an hour ago

Or pfas, plastic...

saulpw

4 hours ago

I think it will be 'ads'.

like_any_other

9 hours ago

> How did the US get this so wrong for so long? [..] For the next four decades, all studies of the use of tetraethyl lead were conducted by laboratories and scientists funded by the Ethyl Corporation and General Motors

The BBC is British - what about the UK? The rest of Europe? China? Japan? Russia? Australia? Did the entire rest of the world also use leaded petrol? And stopped using it at the same time as the US?

extraduder_ire

4 hours ago

I was pretty surprised to learn the US totally banned it for cars about 5 years before the UK/EU.

casey2

3 hours ago

The USSR banned TEL in cities in the 50s