Early Leaded Gasoline Ban

As I said that is exactly what you get at many an American gas pump. Would you care to clarify, in view of the fact that a hundred million US motorists are burning exactly that mix every day?

Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, and several other farm states grow a lot of corn. More than America can eat or export (even after we stuff our faces with corn-fed hamburger meat, corn chips and high-fructose corn syrup.)

Hey, wait: you can make ethanol out of corn. And everyone is worried about Peak Oil. If the government mandates "renewable" ethanol be added to gasoline, farmers in those states (and megacorps like Archer Daniels Midland) will make more money.

Iowa and those other farm states have a disproprtionate influence on Presidential elections, thanks to the Electoral College and the way we do primary elections.
 

kernals12

Banned
Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, and several other farm states grow a lot of corn. More than America can eat or export (even after we stuff our faces with corn-fed hamburger meat, corn chips and high-fructose corn syrup.)

Hey, wait: you can make ethanol out of corn. And everyone is worried about Peak Oil. If the government mandates "renewable" ethanol be added to gasoline, farmers in those states (and megacorps like Archer Daniels Midland) will make more money.

Iowa and those other farm states have a disproprtionate influence on Presidential elections, thanks to the Electoral College and the way we do primary elections.
The vast majority of corn isn't fed to people, it's fed to cows and chickens.
 
The vast majority of corn isn't fed to people, it's fed to cows and chickens.

Stipulated. But the point is, E10 and E15 fuels aren't at the pump because consumers craved them, or because they're better for your car or the planet; they're there because of Iowa politicians and ADM lobbyists wanting to sell more corn.
 
Stipulated. But the point is, E10 and E15 fuels aren't at the pump because consumers craved them, or because they're better for your car or the planet; they're there because of Iowa politicians and ADM lobbyists wanting to sell more corn.

Plus less toxic than what MBTE, the first fuel oxygenizer added to fuels as TEL was phased out
Federal Pollution emission laws meant that some type of additive would be needed to be added. Ethanol was just available, cheap, and had political backing. Just one of those wouldn't have been enough for getting nationwide adoption
 
The public did want smaller cars, as shown by the enormous success of the Volkswagen and the Rambler. The problem was that the resulting design looked awkward.
I think what he was referring to was Chrysler downsized its cars on the outside with the same amount of interior space in the late 60s and it cost them a lot and GM did them in 77 and they were a big hit Chrysler was just too early. And even from GM as late as 78-77 if you wanted air conditioner on a compact like a Nova you had to get the 350 cubic inch V8 you couldn't use the 250 cubic inch straight 6 which I had in my 79 Nova with air conditioning and it was more than powerful enough. I may be wrong that's the way I interpreted what he was saying.
 
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kernals12

Banned
I think what he was referring to was Chrysler downsized its cars on the outside with the same amount of interior space in the late 60s and it cost them a lot and Chevy GM did them in 77 and they were a big hit Chrysler was just too early. And even from GM as late as 78-77 if you wanted air conditioner on a compact like a Nova you had to get the 350 cubic inch you couldn't use the 250 cubic inch straight 6 which I had in my 79 Nova with air conditioning and it was more than powerful enough. I may be wrong that's the way I interpreted what he was saying.
And I was saying the problem wasn't size (the wheelbase was only 2 inches shorter than 1961), it was styling.
 
And I was saying the problem wasn't size (the wheelbase was only 2 inches shorter than 1961), it was styling.
Sorry I thought you were talking about the late 60s when Chrysler downsized their cars I didn't realize it was 1961 and it was just the styling not the fact that they were smaller cuz it's the late 60s Chrysler full-size product to look smaller
 

kernals12

Banned
Sorry I thought you were talking about the late 60s when Chrysler downsized their cars I didn't realize it was 1961 and it was just the styling not the fact that they were smaller cuz it's the late 60s Chrysler full-size product to look smaller
The only downsizing was for the 1962 model year. There wasn't one in the late 60s.
 
And I was saying the problem wasn't size (the wheelbase was only 2 inches shorter than 1961), it was styling.


They weren't ready for 'Cab Forward' as your smaller 'Full Sized' Dodge cost the same as the 'longer, lower and wider' Chevy.
didn't matter that both could seat six comfortably. You were getting less car!

Styling didn't help, but it was mostly the size, where Fullsize was the same as Intermediates from Ford or GM, and Intermediates little bigger than the Compacts.
They tried to band-aid both by making the Dodge 880, a Chrysler Newport(that wasn't downsized) with a Dodge styling on the front end
 
We look at “old” technology and sometimes can’t imagine how unsafe and crude it was, but in fact, it replaced practices that were worse. The Model T was crude by modern standards but kept the streets free of animal waste. In cities, people often stripped and abandoned dead horses right in the streets! Leaded fuel was unsafe, but lead was also used for water supply plumbing in some cities.

In many ways, the environmental awareness of the seventies was quite remarkable. Earth Day started in 1970 when the world realized we had a problem. People were getting sick from soot in London, the Cuyahoga river had an oil slick that caught fire in Cleveland, and more. We should be proud the air is so much cleaner today.

But wait, we’re not done. The issue of the day is now un-recycled plastic.
 

kernals12

Banned
We look at “old” technology and sometimes can’t imagine how unsafe and crude it was, but in fact, it replaced practices that were worse. The Model T was crude by modern standards but kept the streets free of animal waste. In cities, people often stripped and abandoned dead horses right in the streets! Leaded fuel was unsafe, but lead was also used for water supply plumbing in some cities.

In many ways, the environmental awareness of the seventies was quite remarkable. Earth Day started in 1970 when the world realized we had a problem. People were getting sick from soot in London, the Cuyahoga river had an oil slick that caught fire in Cleveland, and more. We should be proud the air is so much cleaner today.

But wait, we’re not done. The issue of the day is now un-recycled plastic.
4DDB665F00000578-5910011-image-a-23_1530557514115.jpg

90% of the plastic waste in our oceans comes from just these 10 rivers. All are in Asia or Africa.
 
Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, and several other farm states grow a lot of corn. More than America can eat or export (even after we stuff our faces with corn-fed hamburger meat, corn chips and high-fructose corn syrup.)

Hey, wait: you can make ethanol out of corn. And everyone is worried about Peak Oil. If the government mandates "renewable" ethanol be added to gasoline, farmers in those states (and megacorps like Archer Daniels Midland) will make more money.

Iowa and those other farm states have a disproprtionate influence on Presidential elections, thanks to the Electoral College and the way we do primary elections.

Having mentioned the political lobby aspect of American practice of blending in alcohol myself, I think you can see you miss the point of what I said--which is that low percentages of alcohol mixed into gasoline is quite normal and widespread today. If it were so direly harmful as @marathag implied, people would either be forced to recognize the sacrifice and only agree to purchase mixed fuel like that because it was much cheaper, or out of patriotism, or some other extraneous motivation, and be aware of a major price they are paying for the tradeoff. And others would simply flatly refuse to buy the inferior and allegedly damaging fuel mix, at any price, and make a big legal and political stink about it if lack of availability of alcohol-free gasoline due to market conditions leaving them none or still more due to legal banning of the pure stuff deprived them of their preference. They might lose, and protest the tyranny of the ethanol lobby.

What would not happen is that we all just quietly accept it, as perfectly equivalent to other gasoline options, and drive on for the lifetime of a car, decades or more, without running into any extraordinary mechanical issues involving the engine or fuel system that our ignorance failed to warn us of.

I am not a particularly technically savvy motorist, and could have been abusing my cars with a bad fuel mix in dumb ignorance, but in my experience, none of many issues various cars have presented me with ever seem to have emerged from using the wrong fuels. I've had loads of other issues, but never that.

Or let me backtrack a bit--I can think of two serious and costly issues that might conceivably have some bearing on the fact that I will indifferently put fuel with ethanol in it. But first of all, I suspect all my current car's problems relate to being a terrible design by a terrible company that did lots of stupid and bad things in making it; I suppose this might involve failing to alcohol-proof it as well as other designs typically are. But secondly, I am not such a dummy as to not ask my mechanics whether I did something wrong and what they recommend to avoid the same problem in the future, and none of them ever say "don't buy gas with alcohol in it." I'd pay attention if they did.

The sorts of problems that could conceivably relate to using alcohol in the fuel never bothered me in a few decades of motoring with four other cars by different makers, one of them a 1975 Chevette.

And meanwhile, if I am a fool about proper care and maintenance, others would not be. And I just don't hear any general chorus of complaint about the evils of alcohol in gasoline, in modest amounts. I've certainly heard a little bit of naysaying, but from sources I don't consider particularly savvy.

In the presence of the ongoing prevalence of gas being sold with ethanol additives, and the near total absence of any clamor against it, it is hard to think marathag is not exaggerating the problematic aspects of ethanol with his sweeping, absolutist denunciation. Or rather, since I myself did suggest that alcohol might indeed have been seriously problematic in the 1920s and its ubiquity today is due to having made some effort to solve the problems as @Workable Goblin said has been done, it is the universality and totality of marathag's condemnation I question. He's saying it a bad solution in every context, and that seems not to be the case given the acceptance of it by a huge percentage of American drivers--I am tempted to say "all of them" but I have hardly surveyed the landscape. All I know is that if I pop into a random gas station for a fill up, I am quite likely to find a notice saying I am putting some alcohol in, and this never seems to be a problem. Since I am not seeking out a particular brand nor always striving for the absolute lowest price, just pulling in at the next station unless something seems egregiously wrong with it, I suppose most everyone does pump in some ethanol in the mix sometimes unless they have a bee in their bonnet about it or live in a region where this practice is less common.

But I don't live in the tall corn country either; my experience is with the markets of California and Nevada, and I think the ethanol is in there not because of some almighty corn lobby being strong in my region but because it is a cost/effective solution that does not cause harm...today. God knows how bad it might have been in the 1920s, or maybe you, marathag and Workable Goblin all do know exactly how dumb it would have been back then.

The question on the site is, what could have been done in the 1920s and '30s or anyway long before the 1970s to get the lead out. If alcohol is no good as an answer to that question, it was not my only or first suggestion.

Which was to use diesel instead of Otto cycle engines.
 
The question on the site is, what could have been done in the 1920s and '30s or anyway long before the 1970s to get the lead out. If alcohol is no good as an answer to that question, it was not my only or first suggestion.

Which was to use diesel instead of Otto cycle engines.

That's an excellent point. This would have big implications down the road (pollution, slower development of motorcycles and aircraft) tho.
 
Having mentioned the political lobby aspect of American practice of blending in alcohol myself, I think you can see you miss the point of what I said--which is that low percentages of alcohol mixed into gasoline is quite normal and widespread today. If it were so direly harmful as @marathag implied, people would either be forced to recognize the sacrifice and only agree to purchase mixed fuel like that because it was much cheaper, or out of patriotism, or some other extraneous motivation, and be aware of a major price they are paying for the tradeoff. And others would simply flatly refuse to buy the inferior and allegedly damaging fuel mix, at any price, and make a big legal and political stink about it if lack of availability of alcohol-free gasoline due to market conditions leaving them none or still more due to legal banning of the pure stuff deprived them of their preference. They might lose, and protest the tyranny of the ethanol lobby
....
But I don't live in the tall corn country either; my experience is with the markets of California and Nevada, and I think the ethanol is in there not because of some almighty corn lobby being strong in my region but because it is a cost/effective solution that does not cause harm...today. God knows how bad it might have been in the 1920s, or maybe you, marathag and Workable Goblin all do know exactly how dumb it would have been back then.

The question on the site is, what could have been done in the 1920s and '30s or anyway long before the 1970s to get the lead out. If alcohol is no good as an answer to that question, it was not my only or first suggestion.

Which was to use diesel instead of Otto cycle engines.

I'm from Minnesota, so still plenty of Corn around.

Thing was, it was that harmful when introduced, on old vehicles with natural rubber gaskets, lines and diaphragms with cork floats
10% Ethanol ate those right up.
Those same vehicles also would have needed manual changes to the jetting and ignition timing(and more compression), and under 30 degrees, you start seeing hard starting problems, it doesn't vaporize as well.

But did work on oxygenizing the fuel, and tailpipe emissions were better.

Fast forward near 40 years, most of those old vehicles are off the road, and new engines are resistant to degradation and corrosion, and have fuel maps to be optimized for whatever fuel grade, checked at high frequency with fuel injection.

But it is sold for cheaper, some places over 35 cents a gallon cheaper, and it's a bonus that some think they are help local small Farmers in the process of saving money on a fillup, even though mileage will be worse.

Personally, wish those acres were in Soybeans for biodiesel, as that's actually a better fuel, unlike ethanol blends. It's main downside it's a summer fuel, gells up when cold.

For the '20-30s, the only real choice is better refining for higher octane fuels(more $$$), or switch to diesels

I bust on Ethanol, as I went thru the introduction of it and all the probles that came with it. Alcohol can be a great fuel, just not a fuel additive.

With 1930s materials, it's easy to make alcohol resistant materials, or gasoline resistant.

Materials resistant to both, that was much harder
 
Alcohol had not only technical/mechanical limitations, but a stigma and over-regulation from prohibition. The ice did not break until 1978 when licensing was relaxed for the energy issue. Today, we have legitimate microbreweries and micro distilleries in American towns, each collecting liquor tax as required. But the normalization of alcohol laws did not happen overnight and there are still places in Mississippi, Kentucky, Alaska and no doubt other states where it is illegal to possess beer in the privacy of one's own home. Into the eighties, elderly church ladies spread fear crime and corruption that might come with liquor, casinos, etc. Other old-timers recalled stories of people who went blind over methanol-contaminated moonshine. Some progress won't come until older generations pass on.
 
Alcohol had not only technical/mechanical limitations, but a stigma and over-regulation from prohibition. The ice did not break until 1978 when licensing was relaxed for the energy issue. Today, we have legitimate microbreweries and micro distilleries in American towns, each collecting liquor tax as required. But the normalization of alcohol laws did not happen overnight and there are still places in Mississippi, Kentucky, Alaska and no doubt other states where it is illegal to possess beer in the privacy of one's own home. Into the eighties, elderly church ladies spread fear crime and corruption that might come with liquor, casinos, etc. Other old-timers recalled stories of people who went blind over methanol-contaminated moonshine. Some progress won't come until older generations pass on.

Speaking as someone who sometimes drinks to excess (though I can also go weeks without as much as a sip of beer) and has long been in favor of decriminalizing drugs generally, with some being quite relaxed and most regulated only in a medical/public health and safety framework, not criminal, I actually have some mixed feelings about Prohibition. I am very sensitive to the fact that it, and the private teetotal movement generally, was pushed by people with very valid concerns, and the modern wave of tighter regulation of impairment relates to very valid concerns regarding operation of motor vehicles. Ironically we might have a sociological parallel to the whole "lead kills people and rots everyone's brain? Who says so and who cares...oops it hurts the catalytic converters IT MUST BE BANNED IMMEDIATELY!" sequence--the booze could not be banned (in most places) for good, never mind how much physical abuse and medical costs and generally ruined lives it so often causes...gotta let people choose for themselves don't you know...stop talking at me about addiction and the corruption of law by vested interests, I'm trying to watch the Jim Beam hour!...(fast forward through a couple generations of rising outrage about people killed and maimed by drunk drivers)...(what do you think is going to happen?)" Well, this might be derailed by the development of robotically driven vehicles; if we can automate the driving process well enough it will clearly surpass the safety standards of even the most alert and intelligent human drivers and after that a legal ban on human vehicle operation might permit safer than ever road transport at considerably higher average speeds as cooperative traffic routing optimizes the use of the road network and automated "valet" service whisks parked vehicles off to out of the way highrise parking structures until smart algorithms summon them to pick up the owners and take them to their next place--in really congested cities where people rely on public transit anyway, auto-taxis will simplify things even further I suppose. Then we can relapse right back into typical American habits of being buzzed all the damn day long on various kinds of booze as far as traffic safety goes, so the social trend to cut back on drinking just to avoid a DUI rap might be aborted.

But while I am all in favor of a nice chemical buzz every now and then, and even stick to my hoary old hippie years story about "Opening the Gates of Perception" with weird stuff, I am keenly aware of "why they call it dope" and also that it is one thing to open the doors of perception, quite another to stand in the doorway and never step through. So I don't favor an across the board hard ban on psychoactive stuff, but I do think we need a new social compact balancing its use with the medical and social best interests of the people involved.

Much substance abuse is a predictable response to social stress which if dealt with forthrightly and directly would result in massive civil war and either the dust settles on a revolutionary new triumph of social justice amid the ruins from which a new and better society than ever will be built, in part in memorium of the people killed in the great revolutionary struggle, or we wind up in the depths of the deepest Dark Age humanity has ever plunged itself into yet, starting over from 4000 BCE or so. Or the crisis is braked with all revolutionary potentials aborted and checked, and a long age of extra repression follows. And people go on self-medicating when society does not force it down their throats by convention or compulsion instead, to lubricate a society that otherwise would scream to a white-hot engine lock of stinking injustice unnumbed.

So while a whole panolpy of self or prescribed medication of social pain might be philosophically inferior to forthright sorting out our social mess, we might want to think twice about putting the world on cold turkey. And hurry up with that automating of driving stuff, we need it!

So I have a pretty ambivalent view of what the people behind Prohibition, who they were and what they were about accomplishing, were driving at. I wouldn't want to perpetuate rather cruel stereotypes about them, however many reali life examples there were of them and still are. There are good arguments for banning the booze. Maybe not good enough to be allowed to prevail, considering other things, but certainly good enough to respect in debate and credit at least some proponents with serious good intentions and good will. Perhaps the experiment was indeed a noble one.

Not that any of my ancestors thought so!
 
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