Leaded gas and the EPA...here it comes

Acceptable blood levels of lead have trended down with advancements in detection technology. Note, the biology didn't change, only our knowledge and ability to detect smaller and smaller blood quantities.

Currently, we hear the mantra, "No level of lead is safe," which is obviously false. Does anyone believe one atom of lead in a pint of blood is unsafe?

Lead is an element. It occurs naturally all over the earth. What level of lead will be safe when detection technology advances until we can detect the naturally occurring lead levels?

So called "science" has been made the slave of politics. Virtually all science has been bastardized by politics. Whenever you hear someone say, "follow the science", what they really mean, is "believe what I believe and do what I say."
 
True, but @Tantalum mentioned airports. I'm reasonably sure he can get mogas in local gas stations in Massachusetts and California. It's a bit of a pain schlepping more than about 5 gallons of gasoline to an airport, especially away from your home-field.
Agreed. That's why I never used it in my 172, which had the STC. It would not be worth $30/hour for me to schlepp 40 gallons of gasoline in my car and stand on a ladder with 5 gallon jerry cans and almost certainly spill enough of it to cause a fire hazard. I wouldn't do that even if I wasn't almost 70yrs old. (I still can't understand how or when THAT happened).
 
True, but @Tantalum mentioned airports. I'm reasonably sure he can get mogas in local gas stations in Massachusetts and California. It's a bit of a pain schlepping more than about 5 gallons of gasoline to an airport, especially away from your home-field.
I just hauled 25 gallons of premium from the gas station last night for our plane. Fortunately we only have a 20 gallon fuel tank. If we had a larger plane with 40-50 gallon or larger tanks or that burned more than 5 GPH or so, it would be a real pain. But, the inconvenience of not filling it up on field beats the downsides of burning 100LL (a buck a gallon higher cost, much more frequent oil changes, an extra gearbox rebuild, etc).
 
I just hauled 25 gallons of premium from the gas station last night for our plane. Fortunately we only have a 20 gallon fuel tank. If we had a larger plane with 40-50 gallon or larger tanks or that burned more than 5 GPH or so, it would be a real pain. But, the inconvenience of not filling it up on field beats the downsides of burning 100LL (a buck a gallon higher cost, much more frequent oil changes, an extra gearbox rebuild, etc).

I agree, at least with my C150. My home base is a private field with no AvGas, so the closest places are the two local gas stations with non-ethanol fuel. I keep 30 gallons at home and just fill up a can or three when I am in town getting gas anyway. The other guys have to go fly to another airport to get fuel, burning 5 gallons on the trip there and back. Never had a problem with fouling either.

I do have a 35 gallon rolling tank with a hose and pump, but I was not using it enough to keep it at the field, so I didn't bring it back this year. It is nice in that it double filters the fuel (as I pour it in there from the gas station run, and again coming back out) and has a pickup 1" off the bottom of the tank so it would have to be really filled with water to get any in the cans. I have a few strong magnets on the bottom to catch any crusty weld debris from manufacture.

Another bonus is that it can suck fuel out of the tank if I can't take full fuel on a hot day and need the extra pounds. It would be helpful for those Mooney owners with the long range tanks, just keep an empty storage tank in the hangar and you can suck out 35 gallons in a few minutes.

Maybe $1.00-1.50 difference in price, but mostly it is actually more convenient as I just throw a can or two in the car and fuel right at the tie down, either before or after the flight.
 
Its $2.10 a gallon delta right now. Takes me about 45 minutes to move 30 gallons and saves me $63. It might cost me $3 to transport it.
 
So called "science" has been made the slave of politics. Virtually all science has been bastardized by politics. Whenever you hear someone say, "follow the science", what they really mean, is "believe what I believe and do what I say."
It sounds like you're saying that all science is dishonest. If so, what do you use as a basis for making decisions? If not, how do you decide which science to believe?
 

Statistics like this are tossed out without any reference as to how they were established. The campaign against fine particulate matter (FPM) uses similar verbage. Did you know that pollutants measuring 2.5 micrometers are killers?

:rolleyes:

Ending the use of leaded petrol will prevent more than one million premature deaths each year from heart disease, strokes and cancer, and it will protect children whose IQs are damaged by exposure to lead," he said.

FPM defined:

How small is 2.5 micrometers? Think about a single hair from your head. The average human hair is about 70 micrometers in diameter – making it 30 times larger than the largest fine particle.
 
True, but @Tantalum mentioned airports. I'm reasonably sure he can get mogas in local gas stations in Massachusetts and California. It's a bit of a pain schlepping more than about 5 gallons of gasoline to an airport, especially away from your home-field.
Okay, so that's the part I was unsure of.. to me that sounds ridiculous to haul 50 gallons from the local gas station to the airport. It also creates a funky tax situation as now you've paid taxes on something you shouldn't have.. never mind being totally screwed out of options if you've flown somewhere and you don't have a car.. good luck trying to use the FBO borrowed car to bring back gas for your plane

THAT - is not a solution, and the suggestion that mogas 'might be' is a ridiculous one.
 
Local gas stations have it here.
Thanks, I didn't realize it was that "manual" of a solution.. a 182 has around 80 gallons, right? Do you have a truck with 50 gallons barrels in the back and a transfer pump. This seems crazy to me.
 
It sounds like you're saying that all science is dishonest. If so, what do you use as a basis for making decisions? If not, how do you decide which science to believe?
I'm not Domenick, but I for one am a strong believer in science and scientists, except when that science has been politicized. But keep in mind that scientists deal in the theoretical. I'd wager that most theories are eventually proven wrong because "science" is hard. Once theories are proven, they are usually turned over to engineers to figure out how to use the science.
 
I'm still back at the step where they EPA wants to connect leaded fuel from airplanes to the poor kids that are suffering from it. What are those kids doing, grazing on the grass around the airports?

They can't in a scientifically rigorous way. No study so far has been able to show that there is a statistically significant difference in BLLs in those living near or far from airports, or that it is medically relevant. A major problem to navigate in these studies is controlling for other sources of lead exposure which can swamp any signal coming from aircraft ops. Such sources include exposure from lead paint, and atmospheric lead from coal-fired power plants. Then there is the whole mangling of statistics thing. It is not easy to show statistically significant differences between small numbers in a small sample set.

Unlike in the olde days when all cars burned leaded fuel, and we all breathed that air for years, aircraft are a much smaller source of atmospheric lead. (If you were born a decade or more before 1973, you will have much higher BLLs than those born later, due to the banning of TEL in automobile gasoline.)

Not that any of this is a reason to keep on using TEL. But as scientists we owe it to the public to get the science right. As in objective, and critically analyzed for strengths and weaknesses of conclusions. Crap science is supposed to be vetted in peer review (if peer reviewers take their responsibility seriously.)
 
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Did you know that pollutants measuring 2.5 micrometers are killers?

:rolleyes:
Wouldn't that depend on what those particles were composed of and how many of them were inhaled?

Web sites that track air quality don't rate 2.5 micron particles as unhealthy until they get above a certain concentration.
 
science has been politicized
unfortunately this is the bigger issue.. and it has resulted in people starting to doubt what should (and is) otherwise factual

Brainless morons in the media and politicians will grab one sentence out of a peer reviewed journal's abstract and run with it, to tell a particular story. It's awful, and in the long run only sets us back as a species.

Astronomers:
-asteroid will not strike earth on current trajectory, will pass between earth and moon in 2037

Media:
-scientists warn of possible collision with massive space object in the year 2037!

Politicians:
-we need more taxes to ensure space defenses are ready, don't you care about this issue?
 
Currently, we hear the mantra, "No level of lead is safe," which is obviously false. Does anyone believe one atom of lead in a pint of blood is unsafe?

Lead is an element. It occurs naturally all over the earth. What level of lead will be safe when detection technology advances until we can detect the naturally occurring lead levels?

So called "science" has been made the slave of politics. Virtually all science has been bastardized by politics. Whenever you hear someone say, "follow the science", what they really mean, is "believe what I believe and do what I say."

Unfortunately, lead is a cumulative toxin. That is, unless active measures (like chelation therapy) are taken to remove it, it accumulates in the body. So, literally, no amount of lead is "safe" as pretty much every atom you ingest stays until it accumulates to a level that begins to exert negative health effects. Without a blood test, there is no way to outwardly tell if lead has begun to accumulate to toxic levels until the damage is done. Detection technology has nothing to do with the toxicology of lead, but it does allow measurements of BLLs to be made to identify and/or prevent lead toxicity.

Lead is actually one of the more challenging elements to detect via analytical methods, because of a combination of relatively high detection limits compared to other elements, and the the very low levels of toxicity which require accurate measurements at the ppb level. The best methods are atomic emission and total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) but even these methods have limitations.
 
Unfortunately, lead is a cumulative toxin. That is, unless active measures (like chelation therapy) are taken to remove it, it accumulates in the body. So, literally, no amount of lead is "safe" as pretty much every atom you ingest stays until it accumulates to a level that begins to exert negative health effects. Without a blood test, there is no way to outwardly tell if lead has begun to accumulate to toxic levels until the damage is done. Detection technology has nothing to do with the toxicology of lead, but it does allow measurements of BLLs to be made to identify and/or prevent lead toxicity.

Lead is actually one of the more challenging elements to detect via analytical methods, because of a combination of relatively high detection limits compared to other elements, and the the very low levels of toxicity which require accurate measurements at the ppb level. The best methods are atomic emission and total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) but even these methods have limitations.

Super toxic and deadly. Omaha Nebraska, at one time lead production capital of the world, over 125 years of lead smelting, ground zero is downtown Omaha and the boundaries of the superfund site are 27 square miles.

Severely brain damaged populations and hospitals overrun with birth defects right? There should be signs up on the roads about the hazards right? (there isn't)

The amount of lead emitted by aircraft engines is?

https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/S...fuseaction=second.Cleanup&id=0703481#bkground
 
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It sounds like you're saying that all science is dishonest. If so, what do you use as a basis for making decisions? If not, how do you decide which science to believe?
It Sounds to me like you’re saying all science is honest. But I understand. Saves you the problem of thinking for yourself.
 
Wind turbines are very expensive for the energy they deliver over their lifespan

Quick correction here. You must be referring to older information. Currently wind is a pretty cheap energy source and has been for something like a decade.

2880px-20201019_Levelized_Cost_of_Energy_%28LCOE%2C_Lazard%29_-_renewable_energy.svg.png
 
I'm not Domenick, but I for one am a strong believer in science and scientists, except when that science has been politicized.

The problem is, how do you decide which science has been politicized? Too often, people base this on their own biases. And anyone can politicize any branch of science whenever it suits them, so rather than disregarding any branch of science that someone has decided to politicize, it seems to me that what's needed is to be able to recognize unscientific arguments when we see them. This is one reason why I think science education in our schools needs to go beyond who discovered what and when, to include making sure that students thoroughly understand the scientific method, and what it takes to sort fact from fiction.

But keep in mind that scientists deal in the theoretical. I'd wager that most theories are eventually proven wrong because "science" is hard. Once theories are proven, they are usually turned over to engineers to figure out how to use the science.

I think it's important to keep in mind that science is based on the supremacy of experiments, observation, and data over theories. Years ago, I read a book that said theories can NEVER be proven, only disproven, and that seems right to me. Heck, even the theories of motion underwent a major overhaul in the last century, and more recently, discrepancies between gravitational theory and observations have launched scientists on a quest to find "dark matter."

I prefer to speak of theories as being "confirmed" by experiments, observations, and data rather than "proven."

Unfortunately some people like to say "it's just a theory" when they want to disregard a body of science for whatever reason. In doing so, they overlook the fact that we trust our lives to theories every day when they have been well confirmed.
 
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It Sounds to me like you’re saying all science is honest.
If I had meant that, I would have said that, unambiguously.

I'm not saying that there is no such thing as dishonesty in science. I do say that accusations of dishonesty need to be supported by more than supposition and plausibility arguments. Science has methods of sorting the wheat from the chaff, the most important of which is replication of results. Peer review also plays a role. (Those apply to honest errors as well.)
 
...
(If you were born a decade or more before 1973, you will have much higher BLLs than those born later, due to the banning of TEL in automobile gasoline.)

huh?

It's my understanding that lead isn't stored in our bodies permanently, eventually it'll metabolize/whatever out of our bodies. That is, reducing or eliminating exposure to lead (e.g., lead dust) will eventually result in lower BLLs.

It's my understanding that BLLs were measurably higher way back when we were burning leaded gas in cars, but I'm confused how that would result in my having higher BLLs now than someone born after 1973.
 
Science is just a process by which we try to figure out what's going on. That's it, that's all it is.

Where it goes wrong is when people take years of research and turn it into a short news soundbite intended to push political, ideological, and economic agendas. Reality is usually more complicated than the soundbite and there might be more than one solution to the problem but a group will latch onto it and say "if you don't support this you're anti-science". It starts to sound more like a religion than a search for the truth after that...
 
I was conceived 40 years before 1973, and the banning of TTL in car gas. That is a combined 40 years of poisoning by TTL.

I have lived for years next to a heavily traveled feeder route into Washington DC.

I guess that in my learning years, I should have become so "dain bramaged" that I could not master so technical a past time as Private Pilot or done 2 years of college.

Fortunately, the standards are so lax that I have become an ASEL, Comm, and Instrument pilot.

In my career, I worked my way up in knowledge of the complex equipment at my workplace to the extent that I became a training supervisor, to teach the new employees, who had not been "dain bramaged" by lead exposure, how to be better at their work.

I am currently older than most of my ancestors who grew up in the horse and buggy days. I strongly suspect that the tailpipe emissions of horses killed more people than TTL.

I am inclined to think that putting alcohol into gas has had more undesirable side effects in the broader context, than the presence of TTL in 100LL will have. Not a theory, just an opinion, from someone with 2 years of chemistry, and one of physics. More than a vague idea how science does work.
 
the banning of TTL in car gas. That is a combined 40 years of poisoning by TTL.
I think you mean TEL, tetra ethyl lead... just think how more brilliant you might have been, anecdotal testimonial notwithstanding!

Paul
 
I think you mean TEL, tetra ethyl lead... just think how more brilliant you might have been, anecdotal testimonial notwithstanding!

Paul
Yeah, I don't think transistor–transistor logic ever was a component of car gas. :D
 
Correction accepted in good form, yes, there are too many such letter combinations rattling around this old brain, and I grab the wrong one.

When transistors entered my career, they were round metal cylinders, with three wires out the bottom ceramic disc. When I retired, we had one inch diameter threaded studs to connect to the heat sink, rating of 1,000 volts, and a hundred amps. The brains that controlled those big guys had chips with 40 pins.
 
huh?

It's my understanding that lead isn't stored in our bodies permanently, eventually it'll metabolize/whatever out of our bodies. That is, reducing or eliminating exposure to lead (e.g., lead dust) will eventually result in lower BLLs.

It's my understanding that BLLs were measurably higher way back when we were burning leaded gas in cars, but I'm confused how that would result in my having higher BLLs now than someone born after 1973.

The half-life of the lead reservoir in bones is measured in decades. It leaches out slowly over time into the bloodstream. Blood levels will respond to acute exposure to lead with a half-life measured in weeks to months, but the bone reservoir is nearly permanent and can result in extended elevated BLLs as it slowly leaches back out. Lead is definitely not metabolized. It has no known use in metabolism. It can be slowly excreted from the blood with the aforementioned half-life. So if you were born prior to banning of lead in gasoline, you stored some lead in your bone mass that those born later will not have. Those lead levels may or may not be clinically significant, but your lead burden will tpyically be higher nevertheless.
 
Is lead is only element that effects humans like this?
I did some reading and only found cadmium to be said to accumulate for an entire lifetime, but we also know that mercury, chromium, and arsenic accumulates. I just can’t find the overall time period.
 
Wait, so a guy who used to work for Lycoming AS AN ENGINEER and worked ON A 100LL REPLACEMENT knows nothing about Lycoming engines and lead free fuel?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Next up, Steven Hawking knew nothing about astrophysics.

And people wonder why we laugh at Californians.

Ah ha!! I get it now. He worked at Lycoming. No wonder why he got ****y when I questioned why Continental/Lycoming engineers cannot do what Rotax can. Honest question on my part. I didn't know I was offending a worshiped POA guy and his simpleton followers. Regardless, he cannot make a reasonable defense of his position.

Really, the fact that I'm from California now indicts my opinion? Again... simpleton.
 
Ah ha!! I get it now. He worked at Lycoming. No wonder why he got ****y when I questioned why Continental/Lycoming engineers cannot do what Rotax can. Honest question on my part. I didn't know I was offending a worshiped POA guy and his simpleton followers. Regardless, he cannot make a reasonable defense of his position.

Really, the fact that I'm from California now indicts my opinion? Again... simpleton.
At least you don’t have any issues showing your trie colors. Makes things rather straightforward. The answer to your questions are all here but you seem to be ignoring them for some unknown reason. For the record I don’t care where you live nor do I worship Ted. That’s just silly.
 
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On the Sling TSi, they have flown up to 23,000 feet on automotive fuel from the corner gas station (which includes ethanol). The fact that Continental or Lycoming fail to do the same as Rotax is a shame.

Fuel system design ain't Lycoming's or Continental's problem. It's an airframe issue mostly and the airframes that use Lycomings and Continentals were designed way before anyone designed for autofuel. Most Rotax installations were designed with autofuel (and its variable vapor pressure and ethanol content) in mind.

The compression/octane issue has been extensively detailed in this space, and again, it goes to design choices made a long time ago in the certified world. Engines with large cylinder volumes need higher octane than smaller cylinder volumes.

Ain't like Rotax has design magic, those engines were designed at a different time to a different specification.
 
Ah ha!! I get it now. He worked at Lycoming. No wonder why he got ****y when I questioned why Continental/Lycoming engineers cannot do what Rotax can. Honest question on my part. I didn't know I was offending a worshiped POA guy and his simpleton followers. Regardless, he cannot make a reasonable defense of his position.

Really, the fact that I'm from California now indicts my opinion? Again... simpleton.
Ted's one of a few people who truly has the expertise and experience, having worked in the field, to answer your questions. He did give good and reasoned answers to your questions, but you clearly didn't understand them. You'd do much better asking for clarification instead of making comments like those above. FWIW, Continental did try to produce an engine with electronic ignition and could have run avgas- AFAIK, it was only put into one certified plane, the Liberty XL2 and that didn't sell very well. Continental didn't recoup it's investment costs on the few units sold. You will find existing LyCon engines in experimental aircraft burning mogas, because the certification standards are different for those planes, and the designs, including the fuel systems, are different than most of the planes with standard airworthiness certificates. Ted was attempting to explain that it is an entire system that must work with mogas- tanks, seals, fuel lines, fuel pumps, and engine. To get those components changed and then tested to meet the standards of a standard airworthiness certificate (SAC) is expensive without many units sold that can carry this fixed cost. The sling TSi is an EAB plane, and doesn't need the testing required for an SAC.

You are advised to take a more humble approach. I've never know anyone to appreciate being called a "simpleton". While I don't understand some poster's positions on some topics, they surely aren't simpletons.
 
I didn't know I was offending a worshiped POA guy and his simpleton followers.
I might be getting older and wiser. Maybe just more tired of certain things. Maybe more desensitized. Hysterics seem to bother me less than they used to.

I find myself finding opportunities to see the humor in things. "Simpleton" made me think of this classic clip.


 
It takes a lot more to offend me than some inexperienced internet know-it-all with a Google search function telling me I clearly am no expert on something that... well I'll just stop talking and take note that I am known to not be an expert to the State of California. Does that mean there's a Prop 65 warning associated with me? Or is it Prop 100LL? Or Prop 93? I'm confused. I don't think I've caused cancer in anything... yet.

Worshipped by PoA? That's even funnier. :rofl:

But incidentally, don't forget about the Lycoming iE2 if you're looking for a Lycoming-designed engine that has the fuel system design capability to run on auto fuel with ethanol.

https://www.lycoming.com/engines/ie2

Back in the day I flew it in the Lancair Evolution (in fact, my 1000th hour of flight time was in that plane). It's also the engine in the Tecnam P2012 (released not all that long ago). Good luck running the original designed variant on auto fuel at rated power without some very significant changes due to detonation concerns (basically a Malibu Mirage engine - TIO-540-AE2A), but the engine fuel system portion of it is there. It's been around for some time and, well, only the one OEM has it that I'm aware of.
 
It sounds like you're saying that all science is dishonest. If so, what do you use as a basis for making decisions? If not, how do you decide which science to believe?
When politicians start quoting science to advance their policies and/or increase their power/influence, I get suspicious. When politicians spout science that increases the size of government and limits the choices of citizens, I get suspicious. When lawyer politicians who don't know a beaker from a flask, algebra from calculus, or a hypothesis from a theory, start spouting science, I get suspicious. When politicians act in contradiction to their own scientific edicts to the rest of us, I get suspicious.

If I am interested enough, I go to the source, peer-reviewed information--as much of it as I can find. The weakness or trickery is often in the statistics.

...But keep in mind that scientists deal in the theoretical. I'd wager that most theories are eventually proven wrong because "science" is hard. Once theories are proven, they are usually turned over to engineers to figure out how to use the science.
Indulge me a bit of philosophy:
One thing I know for certain, reality (if it exists) is very different from what we think it is and what we experience. Whatever reality is, it's weirder than we can imagine (for example entanglement). Most people don't know the difference between "hypothesis" (a hunch) and "theory" (a description borne out by a large volume of repeatable experimentation). Still, I guarantee every theory we accept as fact is wrong. Theories reflect our current understanding/observation of how the universe works. Every theory we hold today will eventually be replaced with something radically different.

My point is this, don't ever believe science's theoretical framework actually reflects reality. Remember Gödel's incompleteness theorems? In short, no formal system can prove its own consistency. Our concept of the universe will never be complete, consistent, or particularly accurate. In a hundred or two hundred or three hundred years (if humankind survives as a technological species) they will look back on our concepts of science and the universe the way we look back at the dark ages. (Imagine where we would be scientifically and technologically if we hadn't lost 500 years in the dark ages (early middle ages).

And finally, STOP using the terms "exponential" and "uncountable" unless you are referring to an actual exponential function f(x)=ay^(x) or an actual uncountable set, i.e., an infinite set larger than the set of natural numbers. PLEASE use "growing/rising quickly" and "a lot."

I was conceived 40 years before 1973, and the banning of TEL in car gas. That is a combined 40 years of poisoning by TEL.
Many of us grew up in houses awash in lead paint. Apparently, I'd be an Einstein if latex paint had been invented decades earlier. And I'd be an uber-Einstein if the mercury had been removed from latex paint decades earlier.
 
The jokes about the slow kids eating paint chips and "Mad Hatters" are not based in Wonderland.
 
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