Researchers who have studied the decision remain puzzled. Cynics might point out that any old farmer could distil ethyl alcohol from grain.
It couldn't be patented, or its distribution profitably controlled. Tetraethyl lead could. The US didn't tax lead in petrol until the s, then finally banned it as part of clean air legislation, as the country moved down the far side of the environmental Kuznets curve.
Two decades later, in the s, rates of violent crime started to go down. There are many reasons why this might have happened, but the economist Jessica Reyes had an intriguing thought. Children's brains are especially susceptible to chronic lead poisoning. Is it possible that kids who didn't breathe leaded petrol fumes grew up to commit less violent crime?
Reyes could test her hypothesis: different US states phased out leaded petrol at different times. Other researchers have found similar links between lead water pipes and urban homicide. You can put a dollar figure on the value of crime reduction, Reyes found. It's about 20 times higher than the cost of de-leading petrol - and that's before you count other downsides of children breathing lead, like worse performance in school.
It's a tale of disputed science and delayed regulation, much like you could tell about asbestos, or tobacco, or other products we now know slowly kill us. The problem is that people who want to ban things aren't always disinterested visionaries like Hamilton. Sometimes they're obstructive cranks. The only way to tell the difference is by conducting studies.
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". How Diesel's engine changed the world. Battery bonanza: From frogs' legs to mobiles and electric cars.
Why the falling cost of light matters. How a razor revolutionised the way we pay for stuff. And what of the scientist who first put lead in petrol? By all accounts, Midgley was a genial man who may even have believed his own spin about the safety of a daily tetraethyl lead handwash.
A misunderstanding is that a low compression engine put less stress on the valves. This is only true at low rpm and low load. Fact is that the exhaust temperature is higher for a low compression engine than high compression engine. This is because the efficiency increase with the compression ratio which means that more of the heat is transformed to useful power. Most of the wasted heat goes out with the exhaust.
I use Shell 89 octane gas in every vehicle I own because as far as I know Shell does not add ethanol to their gas as yet. There have been many discussions on this forum about using or not using lead additives and many opinions as to weather or not to use them but I have yet to see any concrete proof that they are needed or not needed.
Therefore I look at it like this, I pay hundreds of dollars a year for insurance on my vehicles so if lead additive helps prevent major damage to my engine why would I not spend the pennies per fill-up it costs to use it? You need to be a member in order to leave a comment. Sign up for a new account in our community.
It's easy! Already have an account? Sign in here. Do you use lead additive in your fuel? Share More sharing options Followers 0. Recommended Posts.
DSMtuned Posted February 5, Posted February 5, What fuel do people use in cars that originally required leaded fuel? Do most of you use the lead additive?
Many classic car owners simplify the problem altogether by converting to a modern engine system, so you can use standard fuel without any worries. If you own a classic car built for leaded fuel, you can either convert it, or take the easier option of using a standard fuel and adding lead to it with an additive like Redex Lead Replacement.
It contains additives which lubricate and protect the fuel system, safeguarding it against the harmful effects of ethanol while guaranteeing excellent performance. For more fuel advice and car maintenance guides, be sure to check out the rest of the Redex blog right here. Or, for our full collection of petrol and diesel fuel additives, visit our homepage today. In this guide, we look at why modern fuels containing ethanol are bad for classic cars and the best available alternatives: Why are Some Modern Fuels Bad for Classic Cars?
This moisture can condense in the fuel tank and cause components to rust, especially when the car is stored for long periods.
For example, methane has one carbon atom, propane has three, and octane has eight carbon atoms chained together. These chains have characteristics that behave differently under various circumstances; characteristics like boiling point and ignition temperature, for instance, can vary greatly between them. Should the fuel reach its ignition temperature during compression, it will auto-ignite at the wrong time. This causes loss of power and damage to the engine.
Fuels such as heptane which has 7 carbon atoms chained together can ignite under very little compression. Octane, however, tends to handle compression extremely well. This makes it necessary to have fuels that can handle higher compression without auto-igniting.
The higher the octane rating, the more compression the fuel can handle. In , Dayton Metal Products Co. They formed a research division that set out to solve two problems: the need for high compression engines and the insufficient supply of fuel that would run them. On December 9, chemists led by Charles F. Kettering and his assistants Thomas Midgley and T. Boyd added Tetraethyl lead to the fuel in a laboratory engine.
The ever present knock, caused by auto-ignition of fuel being compressed past its ignition temperature, was completely silenced. Most all automobiles at the time were subject to this engine knock so the research team was overjoyed.
Over time, other manufacturers found that by adding lead to fuel they could significantly improve the octane rating of the gas. Another benefit that became known over time was that Tetraethyl lead kept valve seats from becoming worn down prematurely. Exhaust valves, in early model cars, that were subject to engine knocking tended to get micro-welds that would get pulled apart on opening. This resulted in rough valve seats and premature failure. Lead helped fuel ignite only when appropriate on the power stroke, thus helping eliminate exhaust valve wear and tear.
The problems with Tetraethyl lead were known even before major oil companies began using it. Despite the warnings, production on leaded gasoline began in One worker died in the autumn of Three died in the summer of and four more in the winter of The Public Health Service held a conference in to address the problem of leaded gasoline.
As you would expect, Kettering testified for the use of lead, stating that oil companies could produce alcohol fuels that had the benefits that were provided by lead, however the volumes needed to supply a growing fuel hungry society could not be met.
Alice Hamilton of Harvard University countered proponents of leaded gasoline and testified that this type of fuel was dangerous to people and the environment. In the end, the Public Health Service allowed leaded gasoline to remain on the market. In , after environmental hazards began to become overwhelmingly apparent, the EPA Environmental Protection Agency announced a scheduled phase out of lead content in gasoline. One way manufacturers met these and other emission standards was to use catalytic converters.
Catalytic converters use a chemical reaction to change pollutants, like carbon monoxide and other harmful hydrocarbons, to carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water. Tetraethyl lead would tend to clog up these converters making them inoperable. Thus, unleaded gasoline became the fuel of choice for any car with a catalytic converter. The requirements by the EPA, emission control mechanisms on cars, and the advent of other octane boosting alternatives spelled the end for widespread leaded gasoline use.
Manufacturers soon found that cars could no longer handle such a fuel; public tolerance of the environmental and health hazards would not allow it; and it became cost prohibitive to continue producing it. On January 1, , the Clean Air Act completely banned the use of leaded fuel for any on road vehicle.
You are still permitted to use it for off road vehicles, aircraft, racing cars, farm equipment, and marine engines, in the United States. A lot of old houses had lead water pipes too. Then if you were a car enthusiast like me in your teens who tinkered in the garage tuning cars and fixing the bodies up by lead loading I just hope not too much long term damage.
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