The Story of Ethyl

Posted by Miss Cellania in Science & Tech on December 9, 2007 at 7:58 am


150_ethyl_plateFrom 1923 to 1986, American automobiles ran on ethyl, a gasoline that prevented engine knock due to its lead content. Within days of its introduction, refinery workers began dying. However, the oil industry managed to explain away the deaths and quash investigations into lead’s effect on people and the environment. A scientist named Dr. Clair Patterson noticed how lead contamination affected his research, and waged a decades-long campaign against ethyl which finally led to the Clean Air Act of 1970. Read the entire fascinating story at Damn Interesting. Link




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COMMENT

5 comments to "The Story of Ethyl"

  1. Edward
    December 9th, 2007 at 12:19 pm

    Someday, someone will write this same sort of article about MTBE.

  2. Chris
    December 9th, 2007 at 2:05 pm

    Someday, someone will write this same sort of article about glycol ethers.

    OK, third comment? ;)

  3. XuYu
    December 10th, 2007 at 12:12 am

    So the free market corrected itself — CHAULK UP ANOTHER WIN FOR THE FREE MARKET!

  4. Sid Morrison
    December 10th, 2007 at 8:54 am

    1986? You would be pretty hard pressed to find any pump gasoline sold with lead at that time. Catalytic converters have been used on virtually all US-sold cars since 1975 (early Honda CVCC engined cars being an exception). All of these cars had to use unleaded gasoline.

  5. Miss Cellania
    December 10th, 2007 at 8:59 am

    Yeag, 1986 was when they got rid of the LAST leaded gas sold for automobiles. I recall the phaseout took forever because they were waiting for the earlier cars to either die or convert.


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