An Ecological and Medical Good News Item

[dewline]

No one is selling leaded gasoline/petrol for cars anywhere on Earth now. At least, not legally that we know of. Algeria was the last "recognized" country whose gas stations were still selling the stuff, and that finally stopped this year.

We'll still be recovering from the error of having used the stuff for generations, but with each country and company that got out of that business, the resulting damages have been less severe over time.

Switching the world's transportation fleets over to zero-emissions vehicles is a continuing project, of course.

Comments

[jhetley]

I still have a old tractor (Ferguson) that was designed for leaded gas. Have to use an additive to prevent engine damage. I doubt if that contributes a great deal to poisoning the world.

[dewline]

My parents' honeymoon car is still in the family for now. I suspect the same sort of additive will be required for that to run safely again.

[pilottttt]

I thought that the production of leaded petrol was stopped many years ago... Or there were some old stocks?

[dewline]

There were, apparently, and aviation fuel is still holding out, as basefinder notes...

[basefinder]

NASCAR used leaded gasoline as recently as 2006. In fact, the first two races I attended were the last two at that track to use leaded fuel.

I guess aviation gasoline is still a holdout -- but I wonder how necessary that is or if they just have good lobbyists.

[dewline]

A good question to ask about aviation fuel.

[(Anonymous)]

The aviation fuel situation is complicated. There are some unleaded fuels being tried out but they're not quite as good (high enough octane). They're good enough for the smaller planes but its the bigger piston engine ones which burn the majority of the leaded fuel. Then there's the warbirds which were struggling to get by on 100 octane as it was.

Then there's the problem that most of the airports have 2 fuel systems and thats 100LL and Jet A. No one has the $$ for a 3rd.

Given the costs spent on making/evaluating/converting to no lead fuels, I'm starting to wonder at what point its just cheaper to change everyone's engines and be done with it. (If you have something that can run on auto or existing no load, you get an stc and paid conversion costs; if you have a big engine plane you either get a diesel or a small turbine and now you're on Jet A) Either way I suspect the flying warbird days are numbered.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh yea, there's only *1* TEL maker left and avgas already has to be trucked by special fleet to prevent cross contamination. So the aviation crowd has been a little worried about their fuel availability as it is anyway. The 100LL market is something like 1% of fuel sales so its a tiny market as it is.

So the end is coming regardless. Either replacement, regulation, economics or corporate disinterest will end 100LL.