America Was Wrong About Leaded Gas - For 100 Years!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 พ.ค. 2024
- Americans are dumber because of leaded gas - study shows.
From 1951 to 1980, nearly every American child had unhealthy lead levels.
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We’re covering the infuriating story of leaded fuel. There are three main topics we need to cover:
1. We knew it was dangerous from the very beginning, yet used it for an entire century. We started off with ethanol, then decided to poisoned ourselves for a hundred years, then came back to using ethanol.
2. We’re STILL using it today. If you're near a local airport, you're likely breathing air with leaded fuel exhaust.
3. A new study indicates we’re dumber because of it. Like, all of us. Especially if you were born between 1951 and 1980 - three decades of incredible amounts of lead in children's bloodstreams.
References:
History of Leaded Gas - dx.doi.org/10.1080/10406026.20...
Lead Impact on US Intelligence - doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2118631119
2005 Child Lead Study - ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/epdf/10...
Airplane Fuel Still Uses Lead - ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289...
1986, Lead 0.1g/gal - archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/...
AVGAS 100LL - www.exxonmobil.com/en/aviatio...
CDC on Lead - www.cdc.gov/nceh/features/lea...
13,000 Airports - www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/Win...
16M People Near Airports - www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
FAA Emissions - www.faa.gov/newsroom/leaded-a...
FAA 2030 - www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-indu...
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Okay I think we can all agree there's more than one bad cable news channel!
Anyways - there's another (very fun) anecdote I meant to include but forgot: "In 1975 [Clair] Patterson published a paper on his study of lead, barium, and calcium concentrations in bones from 1,600-year-old Peruvian skeletons. The skeletons had concentrations of lead 700 to 1,200 times less than lead concentrations in modern man. Patterson continued to study lead pollution and environmentalists give him credit for the demise of leaded gasoline. He died in December 1995, the last month leaded gasoline could be sold for use in automobiles."
For anyone curious, sources for all information contained in the video are linked in the video description.
I thought the beauty of that joke was that it's entirely a reflection of the listener's biases and perceptions as to whether they felt attacked, vindicated, etc.. It's a good joke
Midgley also brought us CFC's (Freon 12)
How about we agree that all the cable news channels are bad?
@@AoiKaze2000 BINGO
Mmmm. Yeah there’s a couple but they all pander to the same pool.
I was born before today...... crap.
I am still waiting...Been waiting for 59 years....
So cool to see you here Zach! Love your channels man!
Make a car that runs on water. ☠️
Please rig ur brain and show us how much lead is in it for comparison 😂
@@MowSow LMFAO!
Believe me, most of us that fly small aircraft don't want the leaded fuel either. There is one company GAMI out of Oklahoma that has made an alternative without lead (G100) and has been proven to be safe as a drop in replacement. But the very regulatory body you site for safety reasons is the same reason it is only available though the STC (Supplemental Type Certificate) process. And this is the reason that airports cannot or will not offer the G100 no lead. Not enough people have the STC to use it in their certified airplane so there isn't enough demand to make it feasible for airports to supply the G100 no lead.
Ugh, what a shame. Thanks for sharing your insight/experience!
Yup. I can't wait for an alternative to 100ll. The lead just makes a mess of everything and is hard on the oil. In the mean time, I'll probably get an auto fuel STC. I wonder how many people dump sumped fuel on the ramp too. I try to use my gats jar for everything
I'm pushing for unleaded avgas to replace our 100LL tank at my local airport. Everyone here seems to want it, but there are about 2 dozen LL customers hangered at our airport. A conversion for my club's airplane to an engine configuration certified for unleaded avgas exists, but it costs about $15000 (including stc). Our entire airframe is worth about twice that, being generous. To realistically fly on unleaded fuel at my airport, I'd have to convince all owners to make the conversion, as the airport will not get regulatory (EPA, I think? Maybe also local heath dept as well) approval for a 3rd tank of gas. So, yeah, that's about the microeconomics of the situation. This will absolutely need legislation to transition.
Lead is obviously a bad thing, but I’d rather have it in planes than in cars. Let’s be honest, GA planes spend 99% of their life on the ground.
Well you brought us Forresr Gump and Wesley Willis so it evens out.
Jay Leno once joked, "Scientists report finding lead particles in the air here in Los Angeles! Well duh, guys! We call them BULLETS!"
Correlation between lead expose and the rise in popularity of Don the Con. Murica!
@@sabbasdsouza6978you might be onto something with that
Ethanol absorbs water. Metal gas tanks don't like water. Some older engine plastic parts don't like ethanol. Ethanol is in our gas because of the corn lobby.
Ethanol free gasoline is available, stores longer, and gets better mileage.
if your engine wasn't specifically designed for it you really shouldn't use "unleaded"
@@jeebusk do we have a choice? Nope
Ethanol is banned in Alaska. Too many people have been stranded in the bush, and on the water because of it.
Non-ethanol gas or clear gas is available, @@429thunderjet2
@@jeebusk the only leaded fuel available is 100LL Av gas or racing fuel. The last time I bought a can of 112 research octane race fuel it was ten bucks a gallon. That was 12 years ago I traded my race car, so idk what it is now. But you must be thinking of non ethanol unleaded.
We can get premium unleaded with no ethanol in minneota but it at least 60¢ or more a gallon and that's what I use in all my small engines & powersports. But I use the dang ethanol in my daily drivers, because it get used up and replenished with fresh often enough so there isn't so much issues with it going bad from sitting unused like it does in small engines and stuff.
One of the more terrifying aspects of the tetraethyl lead additive is that partially because it is an organometallic compound, unlike most lead compounds, it is highly fat soluble and can be absorbed directly into your bloodstream from the air, as well as having the ability to easily cross the blood-brain barrier.
Nothing crosses the blood brain barrier. Someone lied to you.
@@davidbeppler3032 If _nothing_ crosses the blood brain barrier, where are your brain cells getting the energy to think that nothing can cross the blood brain barrier.
@@davidbeppler3032 plenty of things do, someone lied to you. Firstly, gases can cross it freely with no problem at all, fat soluble compounds too, and even bigger molecules or charged molecules can with some help.
@@davidbeppler3032 the lead must have cooked your brain
@@gonorrea6699 I notice lead was not in your list? It is a real problem with medication. Nothing crosses.
Dad worked at that Deepwater NJ DuPont plant. Luckily he wasn't in the lead part of the plant. A friend of his was supposed to clean the interior of a Japanese ship that had some kind of lead product. He had to take off the protective gear to get in and out of the hold. He almost died within hours. He survived another eight years, maybe, but he was on tranquilizers and various meds for the rest of his life. His personality was totally changed.
That Dupont plant is a disaster made manifest
I know someone that just got assigned to the ongoing clean up there. He usually deals in radioactive testing.
Like many dangerous places there is probably more than one contamination.
This is the type of factory you would expect to see in a 3rd world country, not America. We need to take the environment and health regulations more seriously
The interesting part of the not using ethanol story, is that farms used to run all their engine driven equipment on ethanol and methanol, produced from agricultural waste right on the farm. THAT is why standard oil, and others, funded the women's temperance movement... not because they cared if drunk men beat their wives...
@@amazin7006 that was like half a century ago. Everywhere in the world is a corrupt country nearly 1000 times worst than today. Standards were still fairly low, people are still fairly uneducated about the dangers of heavy metals. It took nearly 30 years later for those info about heavy metal toxicity to fully spread around the globe
Lead was also commonly added to paint until it was banned in 1978, and likely is still in houses built prior to its ban.
AFAIK lead paint is safe unless it cracks.
Lead oxide has been used as white pigment in paint for centuries. If you encounter any painted surface which predates the lead ban, especially white paint, it is almost certain to contain lead. Unless you scrape the paint off the surface and ingest the chips or inhale it as dust, its presence is benign. Lead based paint is still available in art supply stores. Artists use it to prime canvases as a pure white undercoat. Most modern white paint is formulated with titanium as a pigment base. I don't know if titanium has any toxic properties.
Its refferenced at the end of the video
@@macosx10.7lion4 No, it certainly is NOT. Lead paint, like most older paints, sheds microscopic particles throughout its life. This is called chalking. Lead ends up in the air and especially in house dust, where small children are exposed.
To clarify, the body treats lead the same as calcium, which is essential for nerve cell function. When the nerve cells absorb lead, it replaces calcium, but doesn't have the same chemical effect that calcium does, reducing the nerve functionality. Its like the time you stole the alcohol from your dad's bottle of vodka and replaced it with water. What happens when dad wants to make a martini?
Fun fact: Midgley not only invented leaded petrol, he also invented Freon, the stuff they put in aerosol sprays, which caused the huge hole in the ozone layer.
That man is Captain Planet's biggest nightmare.
He also accidentally killed himself with a pulley system be designed to help him get around. That dude took so many Ls
I’ve seen a TH-cam video that said something about him being the most detrimental single organism to the earth.
@@kc510 Veratasium did a video very similar to this, but was mainly speaking about how Midgley basically caused the most global issues and killed the most people via his actions
@@dylanhamilton904 I don't think anyone honestly tops Fauci at this point in time... except maybe gates? Not even sure on that one since Fauci is the one behind all the schemes anyway...
Wouldn't that be a novel idea. Bring back captain planet and literally model the villians from real life world killers.
Avgas 100 (100 being octane rating) was green in color, in the 70’s (yes, I’m an old pilot) 100LL was introduced. 100LL or “Low Lead” is blue in color and contains half the TEL of the original “green” 100 Avgas. Still a lot of Lead, but less than the original.
He was comparing 100LL to leaded regular in 1986. Leaded regular in 1986 had been reduced to almost nothing compared to earlier years... and is what he was using as his standard of comparison. Completely unfair. If you're 50+ years old, you've breathed FAR more fumes than you're going to get living outside an airport with the occasional small plane flying far overhead... or even if you're inside said plane. We sat in traffic, in garages, mowed grass, probably siphoned leaded fuel, etc. I enjoy his usual objectiveness, but on this he dropped the shark.
@@n2omike Plus lead paint, lead ceramics, lead pipes... At least we aren't like the Romans who used lead as a sweetener.
Late '80's Union 76 sold 108 octane, great for my GTO Judge, the car loved it didn't ping at all and could take the original factory timing 12 degrees BTDC and only $50 for a tank full of weekend fun
@@user-do5zk6jh1kthey actually used lead as a sweetner up until the early 1800's in some parts.... drinking from pewter cups! I think it was the pewter that acted with the lead to form a sludge at the bottom when heated. think of it: a cup that comes with its own sugar :)
There used to be five different grades of aviation gasoline.
73, 80/87 (lean/rich), 91/96, 100/115, and 115/145.
Talk about a lot of TEL in that last one. 73 octane was discontinued in the early 60s, and all others were discontinued in the late 70s in favor of 100LL. The idea was to replace all the grades with one grade that all could use. The old piston transports that used the highest grade had to reduce their manifold pressures to prevent detonation.
100LL has half the lead of 100/115 but still has twice the lead of 80/87 that the lower-powered airplanes used. This caused and still causes a lot of spark plug fouling and valve problems in those smaller aircraft, rendering moot the studies carried out that said valves need the lead to prevent seat erosion. Excess lead builds up in exhaust valve guides, causing valve sticking. Chunks of lead can also stick to valve faces and seats, causing leakage, overheating, and warping. Seat erosion is caused by excessive combustion temperatures, not a lack of lead. Run an engine designed for 92 octane rating fuel real hard on fuel with an 87 octane rating and you will get some detonation, which means excessive combustion temps, which makes valve seats more malleable while at those temps, and you'll have seat erosion whether there's lead in it or not.
Some 80/87 was still available in the 1990s, but I don't know about now. Seems like a good thing to go back to for the moment.
We still had leaded fuel here in Australia until 2002. I learned to solder when i was about 7 or 8, and used to build electronics kits in my bedroom with no fume extractors. I wonder what gave me higher lead intake as a kid
Why do people vote for pro pollution conservative governments around the world?
the"good old boy", syndrome plus lies,dam lies and statistics. @@sabbasdsouza6978
@@sabbasdsouza6978 Because no government is "pro pollution", if you believe that then you have obviously ingested vast quantities of lead. The fact is these issues can be complex with all sorts of trade offs and unintended consequences.
Not sure when Germany banned leaded gas but I remember it being available when I was a kid (and remember older cars that needed it). I also learned to solder when I was around 7 or 8. I would sit in our basement and spend hours harvesting components off old circuit boards to build new things. I wonder how much lead I took in during that time. I don’t think it harmed me too much in the long run though.
I've been in electronics maintenance since 1966... no problem so far. A quick google says the boiling point of lead is 3180F; most soldering is done below 800F. We should be okay.
It is not only aviation gasoline that contains tetraethyl lead, but there are also blends of racing gasoline for use at the race track that contain tetraethyl lead. One blend of racing gas called C16 contains lead. It is good that the use of tetraethyl lead has been greatly reduced. Since I was born in 1951 I can remember when gas pumps had the label on them that said, "For use as a motor fuel only contains lead tetraethyl". That label is only seen in old pictures and on gas pumps in museums.
I vaguely remember NASCAR switching to unleaded around 2004 or 2005.
I believe KLOTZ additive has lead too. A lot of the 2 stroke go kart racers used it like crazy... then again, they were already a little bit crazy to drive those little bastards! Lay down on a garage creeper and go 100 plus miles per hour and you get the idea!
Damn I'm never visiting a race track again
He was comparing 100LL to leaded regular in 1986. Leaded regular in 1986 had been reduced to almost nothing compared to earlier years... and is what he was using as his standard of comparison. Completely unfair. If you're 50+ years old, you've breathed FAR more fumes than you're going to get living outside an airport with the occasional small plane flying far overhead... or even if you're inside said plane. We sat in traffic, in garages, mowed grass, probably siphoned leaded fuel, etc. I enjoy his usual objectiveness, but on this he dropped the shark.
As an environmental engineer, who cleans up and manages hazardous waste sites, I loved this video. Heavy metal, including lead, impacted sites are some of the hardest bc people can't see the danger and it often impacts the neighborhood around the site.
Very funny that lead hasn't been produced since the '80s and you're talking about hazardous waste sites now most of that crap was cleaned up at the '80s and 90s, the number one polluters are jet aircraft per the EPA cleanest Air Day in American history September 12th 2001 and all of the lead poisoning came from Police Department buildings that were painted with lead paint, and the reason I know that is in 1974 the EPA came to our school and told us the number one cause of lead poisoning and I quote the EPA these children eating this lead paint off the walls in these big cities they are ingesting the lead
I bet you in the far future people will be genetically engineered to be a able to smell/taste heavy metals and they will taste like ass, so you immediately know not to drink that tap water or breathe that air.
@@Embassy_of_Jupiter I would hope that in the far future people simply won't needlessly contaminate their environment with toxic materials.
Lead doesn't have a metallic taste. It has a pleasant sweet taste, which is something that makes it even more dangerous for children. This is why when you work on lead paint, you're ideally supposed to cover any potential leftover lead paint with a strong bitterant.
I know how it tastes personally because as a kid, I didn't know that the wooden doors and door frames were lead-varnished. (Ironically, I was aware of and actively avoided the lead _paint,_ but the idea that the _wood_ would have lead on it never occurred to me until literally just last year when an HVAC contractor mentioned it off-hand.)
I never even took the time to think about lead in avgas. I honestly thought we switched away from it but kept the name for the fact we had always called it that. Nice to know that all the avgas I have gotten all over my hands and mouth for the last five years of flying is slowly killing me even worse than i thought!
Bro I'm a Pilot also , You will Be Fine ! Bless
He was comparing 100LL to leaded regular in 1986. Leaded regular in 1986 had been reduced to almost nothing compared to earlier years... and is what he was using as his standard of comparison. Completely unfair. If you're 50+ years old, you've breathed FAR more fumes than you're going to get living outside an airport with the occasional small plane flying far overhead... or even if you're inside said plane. We sat in traffic, in garages, mowed grass, probably siphoned leaded fuel, etc. I enjoy his usual objectiveness, but on this he dropped the shark.
@@n2omike So you're actually saying if you've already got lead poisoning, a little more won't hurt? That's pretty sad. Never mind all the people that don't already have lead poisoning - maybe we want to keep them that way?
@@moi01887 No... What I'm saying, is that people were FAR more exposed to leaded fuels back in the day, and you'd never know it. Being afraid of a few small 4 cylinder airplanes flying far overhead using 100LL is a bit silly and straight up fearmongering.
Get back in your bubble then, stay inside and watch let's make a deal, you'll be fine
As a pilot, lead is terrible for the engine as well. It makes a mess of the internals and is hard on the oil. You only mention lead in the air, but I'm sure lead from avgas probably ends up in ground water, as it's standard procedure to drain fuel from multiple points in the fuel system to check for contaminates and drain any water. Unless you have a special container, the fuel removed cannot be poured back into the fuel tank, and some sump points weren't even designed to have the fuel caught so I'm sure a lot of gas ends up dumped on the ground. It would be great if the government and people stopped taxing every better alternative into oblivion...
if your dumping it on the ground that is ILLEGAL I've seen small airports with a collection drum for pilots to dump contaminated fuel into.
@@ghostshadow9046 I don't dump it. But what do you do with things like the strainer sump in older Cessnas with the handle in the engine bay? There's really no way to even catch that fuel. With two people you can hold a gats jar under it, but lots of planes have sumps that you simply can't collect the fuel
Your comment just makes me believe even more that the government and big oil are in bed together.
@@doctorunicorn5550 I don't think anyone said aircraft exhaust doesn't contain lead
@@ghostshadow9046 I recently moved from Arizona to Texas, and today was my first day at my new flight school in Texas. After I sumped the fuel, I asked the instructor where the container to dump the fuel was. She told me that in Texas there's no law prohibiting pouring fuel on the ground, so that's what everyone does she said. I struggled to even compute what she was saying, and finally responded with "is this a test?" Unfortunately it was not.
The back story on the guy who invented leaded gas and how it was discovered we were all being poisoned by it is super interesting. He also invented CFC's! He later died by strangulation from a machine he made to help him get out of bed after contracting polio.
Yes! Came here for this comment, it's quite sad really how he had such a negative impact on the lives of so many, considering he was actually a rather brilliant engineer. But it serves as a warning to engineers of today, that you must consider the whole system the invention sits within instead of focusing on the positives. We are all better engineers as a result thankfully.
So he is the opposite of John B. Goodenough?!
Thomas Midgley jr as I recall, he was mentioned on a early episode of QI, I think he also invented a cigarette filter that contained asbestos...
He has a Citation Needed episode about him on this very video platform.
Karma …
👍 one of Simon Whistler's channels addressed the developer's efforts potential for being ("by far" arguably...) the greatest crimes against humanity.... interestingly, most of his developments were marketed/monetized by Dupont.
@Engineering Explained the Avgas 100LL replacement G100UL has been approved by the FAA for all piston airplanes! :) As a pilot this gives me hope. But production and distribution will take some years.
He was comparing 100LL to leaded regular in 1986. Leaded regular in 1986 had been reduced to almost nothing compared to earlier years... and is what he was using as his standard of comparison. Completely unfair. If you're 50+ years old, you've breathed FAR more fumes than you're going to get living outside an airport with the occasional small plane flying far overhead... or even if you're inside said plane. We sat in traffic, in garages, mowed grass, probably siphoned leaded fuel, etc. I enjoy his usual objectiveness, but on this he dropped the shark.
With respect, n2omike, leaded fuels should be banned not (merely) for the sake of 50+ year olds, but for the sake of today’s infants and children. Your having been harmed by leaded fuels does not make it acceptable for my children to be harmed by leaded fuels.
@@n2omike unwarranted pedantry
save your enmity for the @$$hole Apparatchiks and Bureaukratz
and the noxious toxic REPrehensible REPresentatives who commit
breach-of-trust and dereliction of fiduciary duty-of-care obligations
casually - with no consequences
rather than specious spurious nitpicky yammering about the messenger
@@n2omike I guess it's news to you that those small planes "far overhead" come down to the ground on occasion. Which is why kids living downwind from airports have an extra 40 ug/dl of lead in their blood, as you'd learn if you paid attention the video. (Pretty much the equivalent of drinking the water in Flint, MI.)
There have also been studies about linking lead exposure to crime. It's sometimes not easy to differenciate between poverty and lead as a reason, because poorer areas are more often closer to highways, but the timeline suggests a link between lead, lower intelligence and violent crime. See e.g. Howard Mielke's work, "The urban rise and fall of air lead (Pb) and the latent surge and retreat of societal violence".
Well, the demographic that commits the most crime is often much younger than the lead time-frame.
That is total horseshit.
The entire reason that study was created was because in the 1980s and 1990s we smashed crime rates by like 60% by locking up druggies and repeat offenders for long sentences and so crime went down. And liberals don’t like punishing criminals so they invented this nonsense that these poor criminals are not morally deficient people deserving punishment but victims of circumstance outside their control.
Lead doesn’t cause people to steal or deal drugs. That’s crazy towns and there’s no way it can actually be proven without starting from leftist political assumptions
I’ve been in aviation for a decade now and have experience in both small piston airplanes and jets. I have also written a report on the effects of lead in aviation fuel for a masters class. There are studies that point out that of all of the atmospheric lead emissions in the US, a full 50% of them are attributed to leaded aviation fuel alone. The jets long ago have had regulation forcing their improvements in efficiency and operational cleanliness, as they represent the lions share of aviation. The piston engines that power most of the small plane fleet were designed in the 1950s, and have had little changed to them since. Some manufactures such as Rotax and Austro have developed engines that run on unleaded gasoline or jet fuel (diesel). These have their niche in the overall market but remain a very small percentage of engines in small aircraft. The truth is that the GA market is very conservative and shrinking every year. It is simply hardly worth the unbelievable investment of time and money for someone to develop a better aircraft engine when they may only sell a few hundred units in a 10 year span. The economics are just not very convincing. Its not that it can’t be done, its that it would be hard to make a dollar from. The FAA certification process for a new engine is nothing short of herculean. The large operators of piston aircraft typically won’t adopt the new technology as lead-burning engines are “tried and true” in an industry typified by notoriously thin profit margins. Even though the replacement for leaded fuel is available, it is estimated to cost around $0.60-$0.80 more per gallon than leaded fuel, thus largely preventing its adoption due to an increase in cost and the additional infrastructure needed to support a third aviation fuel type. This leaves governmental regulation to force the change, but this has been tremendously slow for various reasons. The FAA is in the business of aviation safety, not saving the environment. The approval of an unproven replacement fuel type would represent an inherent risk to aviation safety. The certification process for electric planes has been slowed for the same regulatory reason. Every decision comes with liability risk, and the FAA is being accused by many of intentionally stifling progress on the leaded fuel issue in order to not have the risk of another regulatory blunder like what happened with the 737 Max. The EPA has known the risks of leaded aviation fuel for years, but in working with the FAA, they continue to delay their declaration that the leaded fuel is a serious issue for bureaucratic reasons. So, economics will not allow for the industry to solve the problem by new engine design, regulatory agencies are reluctant to give drop-in-replacement certification to the GAMI replacement fuel that is already developed, and the EPA is being prevented from forcing the issue. So we continue to burn lead like its still the 1970s.
Jet engines are not much different though - there is still very little alternatives to the high temperature lubricating oils that use TCP. And while it isn't really the environment being polluted, the compressor seals will always leak some and provide the cabin with "fresh air" that has good old Mobil Jet™ Oil 254 oil mist with it.
Not being combative, simply trying to get my sense of current prevailing, okay? Trying to get up to speed...
So the certitude of a known neurological toxin pales relative to projected uncertainty of "air worthiness" ("air safety" is perhaps a bit of a conflated/co-opted term in this reference?).? I'm just asking for an opinion from some who's much better researched on this topic? Thank you if you choose to respond 👍
@@patrickjordan2233 Yes, aviation is such an inheritance world - which is why the biggest airplane manufacturers still come from where aviation started. All aviation legislation about cabin air contains something along "the air should be safe for passengers", but nobody cares I guess..
@@rkan2 perhaps it's not necessarily " don't care", rather I it's so far down the list, and it's effects aren't readily/immediately apparent (ie=no death midflight) ?
Short term results > long-term consequences?
@@patrickjordan2233 Unfortunately, you are correct. Aviation is an industry that is so heavily regulated there is little room for experimentation on truly new ideas. Yes, private companies are the ones that do most of the flying, however the rule book for how to go about making aircraft, designing companies, and flying these planes is so large, so comprehensive, and so well-enforced, that there is actually very little room for anyone in the chain to actually affect any real change. In my own personal opinion, the industry that flies jet aircraft with passengers for hire is less of a culture of companies doing what they want and more of companies that are in the pocket of the FAA doing what the FAA wants them to do, almost like a state-run entity. Additionally, the FAA has a habit of being very reactive to issues facing the industry. They are typified by “writing the rulebook in blood”, as many of the most significant rules they issue come about as a result of the findings of high profile crashes and the associated loss of life.
If you ask the average “younger” pilot and almost of all of them will tell you that they believe any measure necessary needs to be taken to get the lead out of gasoline. In my experience, there is still a certain attitude being held by the older members of the aviation community that may be different. There was one time I had to go and ferry an airplane back across the desert because it had suffered a broken engine exhaust valve while a student was doing a solo flight. I arrived at the airport where the airplane was being kept to find a very old mechanic working on it and stating his frustration that, in his opinion, they never should have reduced the lead content in our fuel down to what it is in 100LL today. Back in the day, it used to have about 2.5 times the lead content per gallon than that stated in the video here. It was the mechanics opinion that the “reduced” lead content was causing issues with the valves on “modern” aviation engines. Of course, engines can be designed to run without lead, but he didn’t care.
Another anecdote. By and large, the largest operators of fleets of piston aircraft are the large flight schools across the nation. I have worked with many in my time. The management at nearly all of them carry an attitude that they will keep burning the lead as long as they can because it is cheaper than the unleaded stuff and because the engines are tried and true. If you were the boss at either the FAA or at one of these flight schools, you might have the ability to affect the change of getting the lead out of the gas. But in doing so you expose yourself to the potential for a fleet of burned-up engines if the gas proves to be long-term harmful for the aircraft. Now you are out of a job. Therefore, the management at places like this typically exacerbate the problem because they are looking for ways to get more planes in the air more to earn more money, not how to risk the business on a new type of more expensive fuel.
Another reason the FAA is reluctant to force the change in fuel is because there are some airplanes that really do need the lead to run properly. The lead, as stated in the video, helps high power engines resist knock. And leaded fuels were centerpiece in our efforts to fuel the warbirds of WW2. There, the allies had the highest octane fuel available, and used it to win the air wars above both theaters. Higher octane fuel means more boost, more boost means higher altitude and more power, and that means an edge in aerial combat. Those engines needed the lead to run as hard as they did, and the culture stuck around well after the war.
Now, there are truly very few engines that truly require the lead, but they are out there. The FAA has always certified aircraft and engines on a case-by-case basis, where each individual engine and airframe needs to be tested and proven individually. The process is laborious, but is the best way to ensure aviation safety. So the FAA, with a tradition of certifying equipment on a case-by-case basis, is now being asked to make a broad-sweeping change to allow the 100 octane unleaded fuel to go into every single airplane, engine, fuel system, etc that they have ever certified. The FAA certification process means that the ajrframe or engine is proven to be safe. They cannot do that if they are being asked to replace the certified fuel in every piston engine they have ever called safe on 100LL. And if they do, and it turns out badly and some engines or planes react poorly to the fuel, and some people die from it, it will be the FAA that is blamed for allowing the fuel as a drop-in-replacement.
Airplanes have long ago been allowed to be modified on an individual basis to use unleaded gas. Not the gas you find at the local gas station, but a more tightly controlled aviation unleaded fuel. His is where the data comes from to back up the claim that most engines can run fine in unleaded fuel with little to no modification. But a case-by-case change for each plane is not going to solve the lead issue. A broad-sweeping change in fuel sourcing is what is needed.
The certification process is very complex. Things take a long time to happen. Most people see the problem and want a solution. But the certification of every small airplane out there is like a giant house of cards. One bad move by the FAA and it all comes falling apart. So, you are correct. The FAA is truly the only one that can really force the needed change. And they won’t do it because their purpose is unrelenting, uncompromising, aviation safety. And allowing the inevitable alienation of certain aircraft that truly require leaded fuel, allowing the expected few engine issues and potential deaths that will come from a fuel change, and accepting this “for the greater good” is not something they are going to do anytime soon. Its a very hard nut to crack.
I was born in 72 and it was normal for my grandfather's and father and myself to clean any kind of greasy mess up with gas. Including cleaning our hands and arms. Looking back it was obviously not a smart idea, but it seemed like a fairly common practice. It makes me wonder about trouble I have had in learning and remembering.
I done the same thing in the late 60s 70s and 80s cause it done good getn grease off hands and arms. I have memory problems and other issues myself
Yep, Mine was an automotive family. Three body shops and one parts store / tune-up shop. We cleaned a lot of things with gasoline. I also learned the smell of asbestos getting hot or burning. We kids were told "When you smell that, don't breathe that in and go somewhere else." I guess this may explain many of my dumber ideas....
What I still do that wash hands in gas I though that was safe?
We did the same thing. It was very common in the 70s and 80s when i started helping my dad at his auto repair shop. But once unleaded gas became available, daddy would use that rather than the leaded gas because it didn’t “ash up” our skin as badly as the leaded regular.
The dentist put lead and other heavy metals in our fillings, that had to be worse than anything we breathed in or infrequent skin contact.
The main problem with aviation is the fact that regulations are extremely tight and that means changes are painfully slow and even they came about, it's often not worth it because no one will drop their old craft for a newer one.
A lot of GA planes are decades old and use engines designed in the 50's and many companies still make parts for them.
Very few aircraft company will spend dozens of millions to make a new engine, make it pass regulations and regear all tools to make it only to produce maybe 20 a year
The last time I saw leaded gas for sale was in the 80s. Maybe it was officially banned in 96, but it was gone long before that.
I was sold on Indian reservations well into the 90's. I remember seeing it and being shocked and an Indian telling me on the reservation they do what they want, They finally had to stop when they quit refining it.. And what did they replace it with? MTMBE even worse.
A decade or so later and this man is still active, making notable educational engineering videos 😁😊
This man in 1 month taught and motivated me to learn more about thermodynamics than my 2 years at school, and i don't even need it- I'm in med. That's how awesome he is!
@@SeriouslyWeirdDream It's on!
@@SeriouslyWeirdDream AIDS 💀
WHY IS HE YELLING ???
@@sambitdas9416 I would think that med school would essentially teach nothing about thermodynamics. You're not that bright.
I mean, can we believe those "studies"? Did you check the birthdate of every "scientist" there?
😂 This is the trolling I'm here for!
We must do our Personal best to get rid of lead
@@EngineeringExplained I think mobimaks is demonstrating a particular technique here called sea-lioning!
It's well known that lead is very harmful and the oil companies knew it too, but profits are more important to them.
@AJM I know. It was just a joke 🙃
AVWeb did a great video series on this. Good news is there's a product that was approved recently that could enter volume production and be certified with most or eventually all existing craft. Currently you can only use it under a Supplemental Type Certificate, but things can change on that front.
Companies have been working on developing lead free avgas for decades. Sadly the ethanol octane booster will not work because it absorbs water and can freeze at high altitudes, which would be bad. Several companies have gotten close, but nothing has been a drop in replacement for the 100 octane
Just a side note - I used to cast lead fishing sinkers and bullets. Sometime shortly after, my wife and I decided to have a child - I wanted to be proactive and see if all that "lead exposure" was an issue so I had a blood test done and it came back negative, oddly enough. What I found out is that airborne lead and "ingested" lead (i.e. eating paint chips that had lead in them) were how you actually got lead poisoning. Practicing safe handling precautions with actual molten lead (a simple mask, good ventilation and gloves) prevented me from getting any lead issues. Lead in gas? Obviously bad - it puts the lead right into the air we breathe. Remember, the Romans used lead acetate to sweeten wine and look what that got them. So yes, lead in an easily ingestible form is bad - but merely existing in its natural state as a heavy metal not so much. Don't go touching it and licking your fingers though, of course. As a precaution I also powder coat all my lead castings - which not only prevents someone from getting the lead on their fingers, but keeps them from oxidizing.
So, safe handling procedures and coatings to prevent exposure mitigate the effects of actual lead (in its metal form) - but I totally agree on airborne and other exposures (i.e. leaded paint.)
But what do I know, I was born in '73... 😓
yeah your blood levels might of dropped by the time you got tested, and probably depends entirely on where you live as id assume you wont have much exposure middle of nowhere compared to a city. you can expose urself to lead temporarily but its the continuous exposure that starts to cause more and more damage. like mercury or radiation
You're missing a key point(s). Kids absorb lead much more efficiently than adults. Adults also break down lead faster than kids. You might be taking precautions so you're not ingesting it but you could be spreading it all over your house and yard without even realizing it. The most common place for lead exposure is not paint chips, it's lead in people's backyards.
@@MrPaxio metallic lead exposure is not a significant risk, even in molten form, because lead by itself, like most heavy metals, has low bio-availability, that is, your body doesn't readily absorb it. It's the lead compounds that are a bigger issue, since they increase its bio-availability, so more of it gets into your bloodstream when you're exposed. Tetra-ethyl lead, and the compounds produced when it is burned in an internal combustion engine are examples of these more bio-available compounds.
As an added note, blood levels of heavy metals decline very slowly, as your body doesn't have good ways of dealing with them, which is part of why heavy metal poisoning is so dangerous, since without chelation treatments the metals will stick around for a long time continuing to do damage.
I'm glad to hear you are taking precautions for directly handling the lead, and I agree that elemental metals are safe.....until microbes start digesting them, and releasing organic lead compounds back into our water? We limit fish consumption in certain areas for mercury content, what about lead?
@@timeorspace Lead isn't liquid at normal temperatures whereas mercury is allowing it to be easily broken up by wave action and currents. Being heavier than water, I would imagine it sinks to the bottom and is picked up by bottom feeders which get eaten by bigger things and so on.
"its a problem we can solve but choose not to"... that sums up everything in this country
While the democrats are in office anyway.
@@discerningmind k
Yeah. It's infuriating. "We" as in the politicians in the NR... I mean, oil corporation's payrolls.
Sounds like you haven't really traveled or spent much time in other countries.
@@mediocreman2 true, only about 18 countries
I think the biggest problem is air cooled engines in small aircraft run very high head temps and without the lead you'd fry the valves and probably see higher cylinder / ring wear results. Marine fuel was also exempt from the lead removal at one time, but I don't know if that is still the case.
Ethanol doesn't work as well as the lead did hence the need for hardened valve seats on some older engines (Mopar's especially).
It is possible to convert aircraft engines to compression ignition engines that run on Jet A but consider that due to the regulatory requirements the cost to certify and install such engines would be an order of magnitude more than the cost of the entire aircraft.
The rampant idea that government regulation is the solution to all of these issues may well be a result of excess lead exposure.
I want to see evidence that lead has a significant reduction in combustion temps. This sounds like total nonsense. Lead was for knock reduction, not temp reduction. They are loosely correlated but not directly.
Thanks for making so much complicated info super easy to follow and watch in a few brief minutes! That's a real gift!
As a pilot and a small aircraft owner, none of use want lead in our fuel. It creates a ton of problem inside the engine, foils the spark plug, cause the valve seating to stick and need to change oil more frequently. And we don’t want to be exposed to lead either, yet we need to fuel our plane and sump test the fuel regularly.
Currently there’s a newly developed unleaded avgas called G100UL and according to numerous testing, it has been demonstrated to be safe to use. Yet it is the FAA that is dragging their bureaucratic BS though the past decade and still haven’t certify this fuel to replace 100LL. GAMI, the company which developed G100UL, has been dealing with FAA for certification on G100UL for over 12 years now, and this June the latest news is FAA is subjecting this new fuel to another round of safety research, which is a new process they developed for the 737 MCAS system. And they used the same procedure in general aviation fuel.
It almost feels like FAA doesn’t want to see this fuel getting approved.
I would really love to use unleaded gasoline in my plane, but unfortunately due to FAA’s incompetence, we are still stucked with poisonous TEL and it must be damaging my health already.
yet you still fly
@@klakier19901 unless you’re going to pay for my career change, I’d intend to stay flying
This is so frustrating
@@shiroyukiwang1252 You have no idea how many 6-figure jobs I turned down becasue of ethical concerns.
Your career choices, your conscience, your money.
@@klakier19901 And what about you? You cast the first stone, are you perfect yourself?
I contend a plausible reason my late alcoholic brother evolving into a belligerent and unreasonable person to deal with in the last 20 years of his life was due to lead poisoning from gasoline.
He was an automotive mechanic for over 20 years, from the1960s into the 1980s, an era when leaded gasoline was predominantly used; where he never used protective gloves.
In his younger years as a mechanic at gasoline service stations he used leaded gasoline as a hand-cleaning solvent with the grease and oil on his hands.
Doing automotive oil changes in the 1960s through the '70s, the drained motor oil was laced with lead, where again, such work was done without protective gloves.
Forty years ago I was acquainted with a guy that specialized with doing oil changes at a car dealership's service department, he was an 'oil-and-lube' specialist. The many years he did that work without protective gloves, prior to unleaded gasoline in the mid-1970s, resulted with lead poisoning. He continued on with his work after diagnosis, but had to use protective gloves to minimize the work hazard. Although the bulk of the cars coming into the service department by the 1980s were using unleaded gasoline.
"alcoholic brother evolving into a belligerent and unreasonable person to deal"... Yeah, couldn't possibly be the decades of alcohol abuse. I doubt exposure to lead helped, but come on, man!
@Glenn Pearson The first sentence doesn't really infer that the alcoholism started BEFORE the lead poisoning.
@@h8GW My late brother's involvement with automotive repair work took place as a young teen, and prior to that, working on go-karts powered by lawn mower engines that he was always tinkering with, soiling his hands, and using leaded gasoline as a hand-cleaner. That took place years before he started drinking socially; and decades before he became a full-blown alcoholic.
Yeap, sure it couldn't be ever be caused by alcohol right? So my father that is a raging alcoholic should blame too leaded gas lol
@@glennpearson3056 lead poisoning can make one crave alcohol( was a painters scourge)
This was a really good video and I’m really glad you’re using your platform to highlight and talk about these sort of issues. It helps create awareness, which starts conversations... and that’s how we make change.
He didn't really dig into why the legislation hasn't changed (aka who's pocketing money from keeping things the way they are). Probably didn't think of looking into it, because of too much lead
Yet he’s pushing cars that use lithium batteries
@@mikezeke7041 Lithium batteries are clean and are easily mined. Look up a lithium mine in Chile, it isn't the middle of the desert using saltwater pits. Now look up a picture of Norlisk Russia, that's what oil mining does.
I've always been taught that the main purpose of lead in gasoline was protecting the relatively soft valve seats in cilinder heads. Here in Europe when you wanted to switch an older vehicle to unleaded fuel, your car/motorcycle/other engine needed to be outfitted with hardened valve seats to compensate for the lack of lead.
Wonderful Iie
That's not the main purpose of lead; the main purpose is increasing the octane to allow more compression and therefore more power. But the protective effect on valve seats was a useful by-product and engines were designed taking that into account. I don't know if there is an obstacle to putting hardened valve seats in aircraft engines but I somehow believe that you can make that work.
@@soaringvulture As I said that's different from what I've been taught.
As far as I know there is no obstacle to putting hardened valve seats in piston aircraft engines, I had it done with a BMW R80 motorcycle I owned that had warped heads. The BMW dealer replaced the heads with newer types with hardened valve seats and it ran perfectly on unleaded fuel. The octane loss you mention, strange that that was never even mentioned over here, could be compensated with another octane booster if necessary, but if I remember correctly aviation engines already run on lower octane rated fuel for longevity.
On Wheeler Dealers they converted several lead gas cars to modern gas and machined the heads to put in hardened valve seals.
@@greatestevar Nope, I'm 100% sure the BMW dealer fitted heads with hardened valve seats on my BMW, not hardened valves. THEY said without hardened valve seats I couldn't run unleaded fuel, because the valves would very quickly wear out the valve seats without leaded fuel.
Imagine sitting in a traffic jam, where it is nothing but stop and go traffic for miles. And it's in the 1960s. The car in front of you is belching out lead from it's exhaust, and it's hot brakes are putting out asbestos dust as well. It's amazing anyone lived through it.
I don't have to imagine it. I lived it. I don't get the joke.
😉
The 60s sounds like literal cancer
@@runescapefan0001 but I'm fine. 😂🤣
@@runescapefan0001 Lots of people like to complain about the EPA but they have no idea what things were like before it was created. Its there for a reason.
I worked at a Sunoco gas station in 1971 when we were slowly migrating to unleaded fuel due to the release of catalytic converters on the cars for 1975.Many people were already using it prior to 1975 and reported some issues with drivability and as mechanics we realized there was more work to be done by the manufacturers before they got things right. They did not offer high octane so that was a major problem in that era due to high compression engines. Amoco offered unleaded fuel for decades and I believe it was called 'white gas'.They offered a premium version so many people started using it and reported fewer issues. Amoco also sold leaded fuel during that era. They were bought out by BP decades ago and continue sell a much-improved version of the original formula. In my area we have BP and Amoco branded stations at numerous locations and it is highly recommended by many mechanics for quality.
Everything you said is 100% true and yet not widely known to the public. As a pilot and someone with a career in aviation I’ve read the history and seen even more detailed explanations as to why we are in this position today. So yeah, there are lots of explanations but no results. It is not an insoluble problem. It’s a travesty we’ve done so little to solve it. Trivia: So why is 100 LL called low lead when it has such obscene amounts of lead? The fuels that it largely replaced; Avgas 100 and 115 had even more-roughly 2 and 3 times the lead respectively!
So that 40 to 60 times 1986 auto fuel 😱
If this kind of research interests you, I'd suggest also looking into the history of water fluoridation and the findings from recent studies showing fluoride as almost an equally potent neurotoxin to developing brains as lead is. Sodium fluoride is a byproduct from atomic weapons manufacturing and phosphate fertilizer production, and the US had WAY more of the stuff piling up than it could deal with, so the government funded research to find ANY use for it's toxic fluoride waste problem. That funding resulted in a plethora of studies finding sodium fluoride has very minor topical (NOT internal) benefits to tooth enamel hardness, so the US and the American Dental Association began convincing the public to allow dumping of diluted toxic waste into the water supply under the guise of mass medication for poor dental health. After the massive stockpiles of sodium fluoride were quickly being exhausted, cities started importing fluorosilicic acid, mostly from China, and they were more than happy to sell it because they considered it useless and dangerous toxic waste, so instead of sodium fluoride, we started dumping fluorosilicic acid into the tap water. Concentrated flourosilicic acid spills will etch concrete, and if treated tap water is not sufficiently PH neutralize, the acidity can damage old leaded plumbing and city water lines and the water will become even more neurotoxic than fluoride alone.
I agree, according to google "Lead compounds are generally soluble in soft, slightly acidic water. "
Seems the problem is quite soluble
@@K31TH3R yep seen containers of this stuff in treatment pants years ago.
Jason - Engineers Rule! You just brought a piece of medical education that I used to (less elegantly) impart to every new Medical Technology student (training to do Hospital Laboratory & medical clinic testing, blood lead testing, for example) training in our certified MT program. I now have the direct citations for some of the less traceable info in text books.
Simply excellent, and engaging (!!) presentation. Many thanks.
BUT MOST OF HIS COMENTS ARE MISLEADING IF NOT COMPLETELY INACCURATE YES IT IS TOXIC BUT HIS REASONING IS AAA WRONG
HISTORICALLY THE TERM 9MAD AS A HATTER) REFERS TO HAT MAKERS AND GETTING LEAD POISENING
The Flint water crisis proved lead is not that big of a deal. The average eye cue (sic) of the kids tested was 85, which the African American average all over the United States. It has been 85 a very long time. The Flint kids were almost all African American. But we ignore this because sensationalism sells a lot more papers and commercials during TV specials than "everything is going to be OK"
@Donovan Piko I'm sure lead isn't good for you, but I have yet to see actual good studies on lead and kids. Look at the study referenced in the video. It's kids upwind of an airport score higher than kids downwind of an airport. No accounting for income of parents (a good proxy of eye cue), no accounting for the ethnicity of the kids. No real explanation of why this would even happen. Planes go in all directions and according to Engineering explained, there is tetro-ethy-lead every where.
According to this hypothesis, the portion of Gen-X born in the 68-74 or whatever those years were, should have the lowest average eye cue in the United states.
@@tarstarkusz eye cue aka IQ
There's lead sprayed upon us from the sky, as if the whole world is Sodom and Gomorrah, also lead waste fuel is dumped on the ground, ending up in the water... That's bad for health and bad for Intelligence Quotient, no matter the point of view you look at it from.
@@soupflood I cannot post the proper spelling. My comment self-deletes in 1 minute. EVERY SINGLE TIME. The (sic) is normally left when you are quoting someone where there in an English or spelling error in the quote. But it's close enough so that anyone who reads it should know that I know it is misspelled.
I don't want to breathe in lead anymore than anyone else. I'm just telling you the data for this is weak.
You forget to mention that unlike methanol, lead also works as a lubricant reducing friction between the engine pistons rings and cylinders.
Congratulations you've been shortlisted for a prize!!! Send a text to acknowledge your prize
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^🎁
and insulate the old soft exhaust valves and seats
I used to occasionally hold lead pellets in my mouth for use with my BB gun; melted lead with my neighbour to make fishing lures; rode dirt bikes with fuel that was often on my hands.
My IQ survived, but it didn't pass to my kids. My wife would have had it even worse when she was a kid.
Corruption and psychopathic profiteering know no bounds.
Thanks for illuminating the topic. Corporations, like children, will get away with whatever they can unless policed. We all know that.
Honestly I love all your videos. But the humor in this one killed me. 😂 I’ve seen this study before but wasn’t aware we still used leaded fuel in aviation. Time to start lobbying
"It's a problem we can solve, but choose not to" is the guiding mantra of this country, I swear to god
I'm from Europe and this is one of the reasons (along with Healthcare) why I don't get the USA at all.
Like, you are probably the most advanced country in terms of technology (which breeds from military) in the world, and yet your politicians still cut some big af corners (railways, public transport in general etc)
@@cris__98 I could explain it but it wouldn't make it make sense
@@cris__98 Does Europe use leaded fuels in small aircraft aviation?
@@pisnotmynamesisnotmygame3757 I have no knowledge in aviation but I did a quick search and seems like Avgas is indeed used in the EU as well, although it's actually being banned now
@@cris__98 Thanks! I thought all lead was out of gasoline. I was surprised it is used in aviation.
Very good use of your platform Jason. I never miss a video you but this one stands out. I am in my 60's and realize how much lead must be ingested into my system and anyone in my similar situation. Hope to see more more stuff from you like this. Really enjoyed this one. I wonder how successful I could have been if I had been left with all my smarts! Thanks Jason!
Thanks for watching Lonny! And never miss a video? Touched, thank you!!
@@EngineeringExplained Theres been some studies/math worked on estimates of IQ/lead and it's inherent/implied cumulative effect on a populace and it's detriments to society and economics and GDP? It's pretty sobering....
"And this is WHY we can't have Nice things"...
Thank you for highlighting...and yes, it's infuriating 🎯👍👍
@@EngineeringExplained another aviator here! Totally agree with the first guy... don't think there's a single aviator that would care if we could eliminate lead from our fuel, without harming its octane rating. Among other things it can cause valve and spark plug buildup and damage. I'm aware that lead isn't good for anyone, however I don't think it's nearly as harmful as suggested, but hey, maybe I'm wrong there. Also like he said the main obstacles to getting un-leaded fuel is the FAA. So this time at least, corporate greed isn't the bad guy. It's a WAY too slow regulatory agency... that is admittedly very safe because they don't change too often.
Also I'd love to see a study done on flight instructors (what I used to do), with what level of lead is in their blood. Because these are the people who are literally sitting in and round those fumes literally ALL day. So if anyone is gonna be effected, it'll be the pilots. So yeah, I'd love to see the scientific effects of lead in the blood of the people most effected by this problem.
@@catawallupinbass the FAA controls any changes made to anything involving aviation, so you can't legally put car gas in your plane even if it could run on it. There is an exception to this called an STC (supplementary type certificate) which allows you to modify your aircraft in a specific way. Like you want to put a different type of light, or tire or whatever... you need an STC for each modification. These are very expensive. So not many people have them (and most aviation engines won't accept them anyway) the only thing the EPA can do would be to ban it. But unfortunately any replacements that have been developed are not FAA approved. So if the EPA bans it (leaded fuel), then the vast majority of small aircraft are grounded. This would actually be terrible for the entire industry, because all pilot training happens on these small aircraft, and there's a MASSIVE pilot shortage rn. (Also I am in agreement with you! I don't want lead in avgas either, but until the FAA allows new fuels or new engines into the market, we are stuck with 50's tech as pilots)
Question, I can buy ethanol and non-ethanol gasoline at more than one local gas station. I purchase non-ethanol gasoline for my carbureted small engines. What is being used in the non-ethanol gas to help the octane?
Unicorn piss.
100LL is ridiculous. I flew behind the Rotax 912 aircraft engines for 24 years about 1000 hours over that time using automotive premium, alcohol and lead free fuel. Never, ever had one problem with it. The people who are dragging their heels on changing need to be held accountable. They've been working on a different fuel for 30 years. Engineers/scientists getting grants and doing nothing.
This has to be one of your best videos ever!!! I was born in 1972 and my grandfather would have me (he taught me) siphon gas out of his Chrysler to put in the lawn mower! 🤣 Can’t even imagine my exposure level!!! Fantastic video. ❤️
That's because your grandfather didn't know how to siphon gas. The safest and easiest way to siphon gas is to use a long hose like you learned but also a short hose and a rag. With the long hose in the bottom of both tanks, insert the short hose just a few inches in the the donor tank. Then shove the rag around both hoses to create a seal. Blow as hard as you can into the short hose and the tank will pressurize causing the siphon to begin. easy peasy and no gas in your mouth.
You're kidding right?
You can't hear all the spin in this?
This is absolutely ridiculous. Just like pretty much everything treehuggers and Zillenials come up with 🙄
@@MadScientist267 What are you saying? This doesn't provide anyone with any useful information.
@@ZanderX10 Seems to fit then 🤷♂️
I was born in 52 and helped my dad deliver Standard oil products. Undoubtedly I was exposed to a lot of lead along with dad. He passed away last April at the age of 100 and was still sharp mentally and lived on his own until shortly before his death. Anyhow...another great video.
My father used bulk petrol in trucks, hand pumping from tanks into the trucks and tractors and he only made 93!
My parents ran a gasoline jobbership for 40 years. Mom made 73 and Dad made 79... Dad died of multiple myeloma. I worked there for a few months... the evaporative AC's would bring the vapors right in. I'm very glad we lost the lead.
At the end of the day it all comes down to genetics and the luck of the draw. My grandfather worked in the Philadelphia steel mill as a foreman for almost 30 years(all the way until they closed), breathing through an asbestos rag for who knows how many hours a day, he is 92 today and still going strong however, almost all of his 8 brothers who worked with him at the mill, died of cancer in their 50s and 60s; most of whom died before their own father and mother who lived to 88 and 99 respectively.
His formative years were during that lead hiatus it sounds like
i think they went over board on leaded gas...i was born in 52...still here lol
I'd love to get lead out of avgas, but I do question these findings of children's lead levels near airports. I have been a small aircraft mechanic for 42 years. I became very concerned about my own lead levels a few years ago, so I went to a doctor and got a referral to a reputable testing facility for evaluation. Under the test they administered, I showed no discernable lead levels in my blood. This surprised me, considering my near daily exposure to avgas and piston engines running on it.
Midgely know that TEL was toxic when he invented it, but there was nothing else that could raise octane levels so high. Light aviation fleets are not only old on average but the market for new engines is small and the cost of producing new engine blocks is large. Very old block designs are still being used and the craft sail on with 100 octane leaded gas.
I remember visiting the old aviation museum in Toronto and reading that the avgas used during WW2 had so much lead that it coated the exhaust with lead. I can only imagine the effect it must have had on the ground crews who had to contend with refuelling vapors, let alone exhaust emissions.
Saw a video of someone landing a b25, I think with an engine out, and commenting that if the plane was using the 130 octane fuel that it was designed for he would have had an easier time landing safely. Think it was a TH-cam channel called fly wire. Don't quote me though, it was several years ago.
I can tell you the same happens with race motors. I have a small block Mopar that runs on the verge of 93 octane pump fuel, if the tune is soft. Sometimes, I turn it up and blend leaded race fuel with pump gas. I can immediately see the yellow-ish coating on the spark plugs. The valves also turn yellow, from the lead.
You forgot to visit the section about bleed air and jet engine lubrication which still use the very same oils with TCP ;) (where said bleed air is provided to the cabin)
All leaded fuel leave a grey exhaust pipe,, darker is too rich. Leaded fuels prolongs exhaust life as well.
130 octane needs the lead. Those engines now are detuned and far from ideal to run on 100
In WWll they had Purple fuel... 115/145. It was the real lead monster.....well more so than green 130
I was born in 1966 right in the "beef" of the "leaded kids!"
I worked in the same industrial coatings/adhesive lab from 1987-2008. From about 1987-1990, I worked on coatings formulations that used leaded pigments and a liquid lead drier additive. The lead drier was added to oil based paints to help oxidize the oil for proper drying/curing. The handful of leaded raw materials I used were banned from use around 1989-90. Somewhere around that time.
The banned leaded pigments were durable if anybody cares!
Anyway, it looks like I should be able to donate my blood so all the lead in my blood could be utilized in lead fishing weights, etc...
Look at some of the other metallic compounds also used for pigments.
Dioxin = Purple
Arsenic = Green
Chrome = Red, yellow, orange and green.
Cadmium = Red and yellow
Etc, etc, etc.
Oh, the lead (or copper napthenate) driers help oxygen to polymerize the alkyd resins in the coating.
Straight oxidation would be more akin to burning it.
We have Epoxy and Polyurethane now. Still not easy on the environment, but at least it doesn't poison you (after it's cured)
@@ThaJay Now...
Whooo boy! I remember the early days of Imron.
Nobody knew anything about forced air respirators. People were dropping like fly's.
Hell, many guys were spraying nitro lacquer with a dust mask and enjoying the head rush back then! 🙄
Epoxy is a show stopper if you end up sensitized to the hardner.
All around the industry is _much_ safer now.
@@jimurrata6785 Hahaha what a ride. Polyester definitely is something special too and I'm super glad we don't use it on every street corner any more like we did for a while in the 70s and 80s.
I've been lucky so far when it comes to epoxy. We'll see if it lasts ...
The VOCs in anything spray on probably did much more brain damage than the lead ever could. The filings put in teeth were heavy metal poison in a daily delivery form.
But yeah let go nuts over a little lead in the air.
A lot of other stuff, not only gasoline, also had lead in it. So it is important to note that not only gasoline is to blame but also paints and many other common household items. Probably at some point it was difficult to find anything that didn't have lead in it.
It was the gas, not the paint or the fact that pops worked In a led mine and came home in his underground closes before regulations required a shower and changeing closes to decontaminat.
Absolutely amazing video. The comparison between Flint and local airports is horrifying and puts this in great context. Love your videos, Jason!
Flint water isn't that bad either. Don't believe anything you hear if it's been influenced by politics.
8:46 "Tiktok or Lead, what's worse for your brain?" Love that 🤣
"I'm trying to think but nothing happens!" - "Curly" in The Three Stooges.
TikTok is worse.
Ethanol does not raise octane levels. We use it as an additive because it is subsidized to be cheaper than gasoline even though it makes our cars LESS efficient
I was born in 1974, I lived for 20 years by a small airport. In our subdivision we were are far away as possible from the airport itself. We lived close to the main road. My grandfather had storage tanks on his property, as he delivered fuel oil to peoples homes.He also had his own gas pump and storage tank. My generation ate lead paint, I don't think I did.
Grams per gallon? We're slowly getting to the metric system one gram at a time.
Inching our way closer. ;)
@@EngineeringExplained How "imperial"istic...
It's really great to see how far he's came. In his early videos, he was stiff, and just pretty much spitting out facts and ending the video, but now he actually does a decent job at being entertaining as well, and is more open in his videos.
It takes awhile to get comfortable in front of the camera. You have to be much more exaggerated than you'd think in order for it to come off on camera. Your average person can't read a teleprompter or follow a script without a lot of practice. I still screw up my voice over scripts a few times per recording.
Even in his old videos, he was the only exception where I could say that the content was of such a high quality and so insanely interesting, that I never cared how stiff or “uninteresting” the host might’ve seemed, because even though it might not be up to the caliber of entertainment and liveliness he is today, it was by no means un-interesting at all! This dude was just good quality through and through for years imo!
I don’t mean to say stiff and uninteresting in such a rude way, because he really wasn’t at all to me, but just for example’s sake. I know he was just camera shy in his earlier TH-cam days and that’s fine :)
He's got the sense of humor of a true engineer!
@@hectichive889 Yeah, in his old videos, the script made the videos great, but in the new videos, his blossomed personality and scripts make them great.
this guy's a real tool. working in the manufacture of TEL is not the same as putting gas in your tank.
obviously in the 1920's there were no safety standards for workers. I worked in the chemical industry in the 1970's and 80's and as I look back, it's hard to believe the way things were done. i.e. a quick check to determine solvent type was a smell test. xylene, toluene, ........... I'm sure others developed sicknesses because of that.
I have no research to support this - but my mom died from multiple myeloma. Affected bones and blood. She grew up in El Paso and her house was in the direct path of the ASARCO copper smelter smokestack in the 1950's and 1960's. She used to tell us how there would be ash falling like snow from the refinery and it is well known about the lead pollution from ASARCO. I think that's what got her in the end.
I was literally talking about the difference between the fuels for cars and planes with my cousin who insisted that the aviation fuel didnt have any lead in it and somehow it just had something to do with the temperature at which the fuel would freeze due to the changes in altitude but thanks for confirming that I was right... plus it gets cold as hell down here on the ground in a lot of places in the united states and cars still are able to run so I doubt its anything to do with the liquid fuel freezing lol I guess my cousin was exposed to too much of that aviation gas because he was running it in his motorized bicycle!
40,000ft is around -70F, also the lower air pressure at higher altitudes can be a problem for fuels too.
Lol did he not look at the lable on the pump? It's called 100LL, AKA 100 Octane Low (not no!) Lead.
@@forrest225 Low lead is in comparison to the huge amounts of lead that the turbo-charged, super-charged radials needed to keep knock under control. 100LL is much higher in lead than autogas ever was.
@@ulbuilder You're not flying a piston engined small aircraft at 40,000ft
@@ulbuilder You are not flying at 40,000 feet in a naturally asperated piston aircraft.
Impossible to have 100% of population be poisoned. Or an accurate enough study to claim that. So that makes me skeptical of that study
Also, most reciprocating airplane engine manufacturers have confirmed that almost all of their engines can run on pump gas with minimal or no notable reduction in lifetimes. It is a matter of recertifying the engines and would involve an STC from the FAA for each engine and each configuration of engine-plane.
Same sort of regulatory nonsense if you were to build an improved, but strictly drop-in replacement for any of the legacy engines. Every engine to airplane configuration would need to be certified. If you were lucky, the FAA might let you group sufficiently similar models in the process, but for a company like Cessna you still end up with loads of nonsense.
A few planes are already authorized to use pump gas, but I don't think any of the legacy engines currently have approval. Doesn't stop some people from putting pump gas in their Cessna 150s
While there may be no emissions regulations on small air craft, I think the regulation issue lies on the aircraft themselves. If the manufacturers update the small aircraft (newly designed engines included) they must recertify the entire aircraft which costs huge amounts of money. So they just keep the same old design to avoid recertification.
I've been working at the airport for the past 22 years, and I've always joked to myself that I feel dumber now a days than I did when I joined the AF back in 2000. Learned about the effects of leaded gas and civilian avgas a few months back, and maybe I'm not just imagining things after all....
In all seriousness, it might be a good idea to see a doctor and get a blood test. 😐
OMG your videos are getting better and better and better and better!! Loving the content and the comedic relief on incredibly serious conversations. Appreciate all your hard work
NASCAR was still allowed to use leaded gasoline. They finally switched to unleaded fuel in 2007. Communities surrounding NASCAR tracks also had elevated lead levels, which might explain a lot about NASCAR fans...
Why did we use lead rather than ethanol in the 1920s?
Methanol requires 26 lbs (about 12 kg) of grain to make one gallon. And back in the 1920s the world was in a food shortage. Millions of people were literally starving to death in places like China, India, Russia, and Africa every year. Even in the USA, malnutrition was quite common. (Almost 30% of US army draftees in WWII were rejected for being underweight.)
We didn't have enough excess corn and wheat back in the 1920s to make enough methanol to spike our fuel supply. It took the results of the "Green Revolution" (ie. specialised hybrid seeds, intensive fertilisation and irrigation, etc.) to make enough surplus grain that methanol became a viable economic alternative to tetraethyl lead.
Lead is very bad. But there actually was a reason it was used rather than methanol.
The lead was in fuel because engines didn't have hardened valve seats, though when catalytic converters were being put on cars you couldn't use leaded gas anyways.
He didn't mention why the lead is important for the old engines :)
@@LisasexgeilesLuder lead keeps hot exhaust valves from welding & breaking away from a soft cast iron seat!
The reason alcohol based additives aren't used in piston engine aircraft is ethanol is hygroscopic, it attracts moisture. Water in the fuel is not a good thing when flying.
My father had this block of lead in the house that he used to balance his radio control planes.
I didn't know better when I was a child and would chew on it because I found it fascinating that it was soft.
Fast forward to today and I'm a fairly smart guy but just imagine what kind of a mad genius I would've been!!!!???
You could have solved world hunger
I bought an old IBM computer once ... Covered in lead sheets glued to the case and painted black, finished off with little copper trim. Suited up to clean the poor thing and ended up with a bag of several kilogrammes of that crap. Some people ...
You would've solved the worlds energy crisis
How about lead sinkers used for fishing. Easiest way to crimp the inline sinkers was to bite down on them. In older houses we are talking about lead paint, even if it was removed would end up as chips or powder on the ground. Before power washers were common, the usual way of scraping old paint was to use a scraper and a torch for loosening old paint. A childhood friend working as a painter had a lot of exposure, and ended up with severe mental illness. Bonus points if the house had asbestos siding, which was very common up until the 1970s. Either way a homeowner or unlicensed painter left a lot of lead paint on the ground before lead and asbestos removal became a specialist trade.
I blended gasoline from ‘69 to ‘79 adding the lead and unloading the lead from rail cars was a very hazardous and complicated process. You could not pump it, rather transfer it using a vacuum created by an induction valve while circulating gasoline thru special pipes and flanges. A vacuum was created in the storage tank which was on a large triple beam scale and the rail car tank which was shipped under vacuum would transfer its contents to the storage tank. Then the tank car would be flushed with gasoline and again be put under vacuum. Most blends would require about 4,000lbs of TEL for an 80,000 barrel tank. Any octane deficiency would be made up by adding propane.
I know the EPA is always a party killer in the USA, but it's seriously saving lives because companies don't make changes unless they're forced to. They play the game, so you need the EPA to set the rules for that game.
This made to one of the best videos in my entire life... laughed like a dumbass the whole time
+1
Yeah, very shouting for even the thickest of skulls full of lead xD
Hmm I need something that looks like a radio mic…. Oh perfect, a filter for a 3M respiratory mask and a curly cord. Lol love it.
Did you feel like you were really flying?
@@EngineeringExplained Hahaha nice
My carboard box just took me over the ocean
I've been watching the aviation industry stumble about the quest to replace 100LL for decades. It's tedious. Thanks for shining another light.
many other private pilots have already made the statement about leaded fuel. It's due to the older aircraft engine construction and certifications. As for the toxicity of lead, do not forget that all paint made back in the day contained lead. In fact.. those lines on all of your roads, still contain leaded paint. What about asbestos? used in every house since WW2. The lead in our systems wasn't helped by gas but it came from everything else as well.
If you want to really rage: look up the legislative history of hearings where the petroleum industry argued that lead was not harmful.
But republicans will claim all regulation is bad and all CEOs are good. Lol.
Lead was introduced to soften the impact of the valves to their seat. Removing the lead didn’t harm newer seats after 73 or so because the seats were hardened and the impact didn’t harm a hardened valve seat. So why can’t air craft engines be retrofitted?
That is what I heard. Older motorcycles I have are impacted by unleaded. Valve recession is real. And how many carbs messed up by alcohol fuel? There has to be a safe way to navigate this.
@@teamground0229 Glad this little "Detail" was brought up, ethanol sucks and destroys a lot of engines, a gallon of ethanol requires a gallon of oil to produce.
The valve seats in aviation piston engines have been hardened for a couple decades now. That's not why we still use 100LL in general aviation. Detonation and vapor lock at altitude are problems that 100LL solves.
The reason I believe that they call it ‘Low Lead’ in 100LL fuel is because when compared to avgas fuel grades of yesteryear, 100LL has horrifying low lead content. When I did my aircraft maintenance training in the late 80’s we were taught of the 4 grades of avgas and their colours for easy identification. Red avgas is 100LL, green avgas 115/135 octane rating, then there was blue and finally purple. Back then, green and red avgas was the available products. I don’t fully remember the octane ratings for blue ( I think it was 130/ 145 octane rating) and no idea what purple was. What scares me is how much lead did these other avgas grades have in them to achieve these incredibly high octane ratings.......
Also, the reason for the two octane rating numbers in the fuel grade is it’s rating with a rich mixture / lean mixture. Maybe I forgot blue and purple octane ratings due to lead exposure....LOL.
I hate to think how brilliant I'd be had I NOT been exposed to lead most of my life.
The amount of 🧂 in this video had me laughing the whole time. Although on a serious note I have just recently discovered this topic myself and it is DEEPLY concerning that the country/world is still dragging their feet on removing lead fuel and even pipes. In response, I invested in a high quality air filtration unit and a RO water filtration system for my apartment. Hopefully it helps at least a little.
lead pipes can be used safely if the water has certain additives to create a protective layer, flint used water in lead pipes with additives that destroyed this protective coating which caused a lot of their elevated lead levels
@@frostjune6072 if that's true that's great and I'm glad I know that now so thank you for sharing... but my common sense can't help but still think that we shouldn't be using a toxic material to transport a vital substance we drink every day. The world isn't perfect and Flint did happen even though "it wasn't supposed to." My engineering background will always say it's better to design for worst case scenario than best case, especially when it is safety critical.
@@ConorV your engineering instinct would have prevented flint from swapping water sources to save a few bucks. they were using a perfectly fine source from another city and therefore paying a little extra, but they swapped to the dangerous source that damaged their pipes to get a little money in politicians pockets
True, but mistakes happen. Also a fact in Flint is that the city population has dropped by 50%. That means a water system designed for 200,000 is not serving 100,000, and there are lots off amandine homes. This means water stagnates in the system longer giving lead longer to leech into the water.
Another issue is that lead lines are generally owned by the homewner. The city only owns the line from the main to the curb stop or outdoor meter box. A contractor or home built installed from that point on private property. It can cost many thousands to do replacements that Homowners can't or won't afford. Federal funds are changing that now, but some homes have lead inside the home and embedded in concrete slabs.
Dupont being a spearhead is totally not a surprise in the use of lead. It's the same company that ignore the dangers of pfoas and now it can be detected in the bloodstream of almost every human on earth.
Sad isn't it. C8 is in all of us. You know we wouldn't want our eggs to stick to the pan smh
It’s a shame that people only know about DuPont from a few bad things and not all the great products they’ve brought to market. I’m not defending the pfoa debacle and lead in fuel. But those make up very little of Dupont’s products. Chances are you have multiple items that have DuPont products in them near or on you right now. Everything from iPhones to leggings
no worries, thanks to the baby formula shortage,
they have found a new use for recycled nuclear fuel rods. ha it worked with fluoride.
If the auto industry hadn't gone to catalytic converters for emission control, we'd still be using leaded gas in cars. The switch to unleaded was solely because leaded gas poisoned (and clogged) catalytic converters. The fact that leaded gas is still used in small piston-engine planes is proof of this. They don't have catalytic converters.
Higher octane DOES NOT mean more power. Higher octane levels make the gas harder to combust, and that’s why they use high octane levels in race gas, because the engines are high performance-high compression engines. Basically, the higher octane level, the higher compression you need to efficiently burn said high octane fuel.
As a 58 year old professional mechanic, not only have I been exposed to exhaust fumes my entire career… but I’ve also done allot with Motorsports. Think 🤔 of how high the lead levels are at a racetrack!!!
Also heard that exhaust fumes kill vitamin B, in your system and make you angry.
Good information and thanks for sharing.
JT: Orlando FLA
Dumber, and more violent.
Banning leaded gasoline was the greatest thing we've EVERY done to curb not only gun violence, but all violence.
Overlay a graph of leaded gasoline use, and violent crime rates, and you can see that not only did violent crime increase at a very simialar rate to TEL use, but when we started reducing leaded gasoline use, violent crimes also dropped.
People were confused as to why gun crime started dropping before the assault weapon ban in 1994, and then leveled off in the middle of the ban, slowly continuing to drop even after the ban lifted in 2004.
Correlation does not equal Causation
@@JediOfTheRepublic We knew the affects of lead, before we allowed it in our gasoline We knew the affects of lead before this country was a country, we tested blood lead levels for decades, and allowed the use of lead to continue.
We knew exactly what lead did, and we know that is why the violent crime rate rose, IQs dropped, and lead related diseases like heart, artery, lung, brain, and developmental diseases rose, including some autism disorders. But we let it go on for 70 years because $$$$
With the increase in violent crime today would mean ? Too many small planes , global warming , or bidens speeches ?
@@joelstanhope7231 financial unrest
@@denvera1g1 ahh answer #3 bidens speeches !
Born in 68 and my dad was a street mechanic. I have 100% exposure to lead. Explains my D average in grade school. However there is good news. I'm much more intelligent today than most.
Leaded paint is supposed to taste sweet, which was part of why it is so dangerous around kids, especially teething toddlers. When it tastes good and feels good to gnaw on the window sill because your teeth are coming in... This was why many efforts to prevent eating paint chips, etc, revolved around foul tasting additives to the paint. Amazing what you learn when you have a 3 year old and find leaded paint on your house. 🤦
Thank you Jason for making this video. I'm hoping it will help bring more attention to this problem that has been hiding in plain sight for decades. The collective loss of smarts by the mass poisoning of pretty much everyone is astounding. I was born in the 60s and worked in a gas station as a teen while leaded fuel was still the norm. I'm sure some folks who know me could draw a straight line from that to the person they know. :-/
I also worked at a full service Sunoco gas station in the late 70s. Fortunately only 2 years. We had a large portion of customers still using leaded gas due to muscle cars at the local drag strip. No gloves used except for the cold winters in Ohio :)
Leaded gas did serve another purpose in the early auto industry. The issues has since been resolved but before automakers used hardened valve seats in the engine the valves would grind away and recess into the seat and eventually burn valves. The lead would coat the seats and offer lubrication that exhaust glasses couldn't, prolonging the life of the engine. Also serves for better upper cylinder lubrication etc. Not making a defense case for leaded gas, still a horrible idea, but just dispelling the idea that the only reason it was there was for octane, which simply isn't true
Though the 'soft metal' issue was far from as universal as people were led to believe. It was just the simplest safe assumption to make and pass around.
That and lead works better with higher compression engines, no? This video is great but would've been better if it didn't sidestep some of the efficiency advantages of leaded gas.
@@vultureguy33 that's mostly the octane argument. High compression engines need higher octane fuel to decrease preignition, detonation, and knock. That's assuming everything else is the same. An engine with a better controlled ignition and fuel injection system can run on a lower octane fuel, it just won't be able to make as much power with the lower octane fuel as with the higher octane fuel. One reason tetra-ethyl-lead was so cost effective is it took very little of that compound to increase the octane rating of the fuel significantly.
@mjasz4341 right, and by leaving out that argument it makes the video seem disingenuous. I'm not saying that it is disingenuous, mind you. If I'm trying to rebut an opposing position/argument I'm going to start with setting out what their argument is before knocking it down. Not just skipping over large parts of it entirely. Maybe I missed the part in this video where he does that but it felt skipped over.
@@vultureguy33 it's been a long time since I've watched it so I don't remember if he mentions it or not, but on similar videos and articles they generally mention that it increases octane so I dubbed that the "octane argument" but the lubricity effect is often overlooked
Just fyi. The FAA just approved a “drop in” replacement fuel that doesn’t have lead in it. The reason it took so long is because the FAA refused to allow other types of fuels to be used. There are alternative fuels that work but you are not allowed to use them according to the FAA. The issues now is getting airports stocked with that fuel all over the country and the infrastructure for it. Most (if not all) GA pilots haven’t been happy with the state of LL fuel but it seems to be improving… slowly…
Thomas Midgley. Responsible for leaded gas, and CFCs as refrigerants.
He ended up disabled and designed himself a frame to assist his mobility. He died due to a malfuntion of that frame which caused him to asphyxiate.
omg this is by far my favorite video from Engineering Explained. Probably because i can't remember any other videos in details. I wonder why.
😂😂 Thanks for watching!
So do I.......
Barely remebering was born in 1971...... 🙂
Thank you for making this video, Jason. I'm sure you're aware that Derek Muller recently did a video on the history of leaded gasoline. It was fantastic and had some very important and compelling information in it, but your video is extremely important because it is much more easily watchable and understandable compared to Veritasium's.
I don't think it's that much of a stretch to say that one reason the 1940-1949 cohort has a lower percentage of people with blood concentrations above the threshold is because there's a significant number of people in that cohort already dead because of lead, and the number is skewed downward by people those who weren't exposed to lead. The proliferation of automobiles _definitely_ isn't helping those born after 1949, but cars weren't exactly uncommon by the time the U.S. threw its hat into World War II.
Hmm, lead paint. You would be right that pure lead white used in paint tastes metallic, the problem was the incomplete conversion of Lead Acetate, which has a sweet taste. It’s so sweet that it used to be called “sugar of lead.” It is as sweet as white sugar. Flakes of white paint containing lead acetate taste like candy to infants and toddlers who, as we all know, have a habit of putting all sorts of stuff in their mouths. This leads to this poem on the wall in the cellar of a house in Richmond, London, which was used as a Bomb Shelter:
"Little boy
box of paints,
sucked the brush
and joined the saints"