Comment by S_A_P | Hacker News Reader

Comment by S_A_P | Hacker News Reader

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Jalopnik used to be full of car enthusiasts- this doesnt seem to be the case anymore. This guy has a decidedly anti big oil slant. Thats fine. I think big oil does need to be replaced by something renewable and cleaner, but I still dont really enjoy reading his series. Its a bit smug and virtuous for me. There are still a few good writers at Jalopnik. Jason Torchinsky, despite his extreme desire to see tesla/elon musk burn writes a lot of great stuff about the quirks of cars that you may otherwise overlook. David Tracy seems to be a glutton for the punishment that only rusty jeeps can supply. Mercedes Streeter has had a few articles I liked. By and large it seems that most of the regular staff writers hate cars, or at least cars that arent non tesla electrics/hybrids.

Now about leaded fuel. Back before say, 1970ish a lot of gas had an octane rating of between 40-70[1]. Refining oil was still an emerging technology. That being the case it seems like one of the by products of Natural Gas Liquids(called Natural Gasoline) was being used as pump gas. Lets pretend that you built a time machine and took your brand new 2022 camry with you to have a laugh that a consumer commuter car would be a super car back in the 1940s. If you managed to find fuel that was unleaded you would likely do irreversible engine damage on the first tank. If you filled with leaded, your catalytic converter would foul and then you would need to remove it to run leaded fuel. Lead was an additive because it prevents detonation in sub-optimal gas. After lead was outlawed they started boosting octane to do the same function. Fuel sucked, and it wasnt until lead was outlawed that refining higher quality fuels on a large scale became possible. I see the clean air act as a great example of successful regulation.

[1]https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-940-august-29-2016...

> Fuel sucked, and it wasnt until lead was outlawed that refining higher quality fuels on a large scale became possible

You seem to be arguing your point backwards to me. Lead was only outlawed when refining advanced to a level to permit economically viable high octane fuel without it.

The author would seem to argue they stopped looking for viable methods to avoid the problem when lead arrived, because its costs were pure externalities. Most of the problems with ICE are externalities. The NO burden in diesel for instance, or the PM10 thing, is not really any different to the lead problem. If you own stocks in Oil you don't care that its causing cancer to anyone who lives close to a road, or dumbing down kids, or causing global warning. Why would you?

I can't really disagree with your first point, But I suspect the future of jalopnik is to convince Americans (and it is mainly about Americans) to spend disposable income on either EV, or EV conversion of classic cars. If it sticks to its cylinders, it will become sidelined by the market shift: They'd rather try to define the shift and be part of the shift.

I love steam engines btw. I would totally love to have a stanly steamer, or the air pressure modifed 4-cylinder cars which started off silently because one cylinder was air forced and drove it until the other 3 started up some distance from your fine castle... But I don't see anyone selling me "Jalopnik for steam" which maybe is realistic, but sucks if you like steam.

If you love ICE, you won't like the future. It's going to be niche. Maybe Jalopnik is 25+_years ahead of the game here, which is (I freely admit) stupid.

> You seem to be arguing your point backwards to me. Lead was only outlawed when refining advanced to a level to permit economically viable high octane fuel without it.

Ethyl alcohol was an option, but:

> Kettering himself had designed the self-starter a decade before, wrote James Lincoln Kitman for The Nation in 2000, and the knocking was a problem he couldn’t wait to solve. It made cars less efficient and more intimidating to consumers because of the loud noise. But there were other effective anti-knock agents. Kitman writes that Midgley himself said he tried any substance he could find in the search for an antiknock, “from melted butter and camphor to ethyl acetate and aluminum chloride.” The most compelling option was actually ethanol.

> But from the perspective of GM, Kitman wrote, ethanol wasn’t an option. It couldn’t be patented and GM couldn’t control its production. And oil companies like Du Pont "hated it," he wrote, perceiving it to be a threat to their control of the internal combustion engine.

> TEL filled the same technical function as ethanol, he wrote: it reduced knock by raising the fuel's combustability, what would come to be known as "octane." Unlike ethanol, though, it couldn't be potentially used as a replacement for gasoline, as it had been in some early cars. The drawback: it was a known poison, described in 1922 by a Du Pont executive as "a colorless liquid of sweetish odor, very poisonous if absorbed through the skin, resulting in lead poisoning almost immediately." That statement is important, Kitman wrote: later, major players would deny they knew TEL to be so poisonous.

* https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leaded-gas-poison-...

> If you love ICE, you won't like the future.

I’m an ICE fan but I think the opposite. Let every soccer mom and commuter use electric cars, even self driving cars if we have the technology. Electric is perfect for them.

For those of us who like combustion engines, we’ll be happy that the remaining supply of fossil fuels is kept around for enthusiasts and collectors, and not wasted. With expiring patents and less competition from the big automakers we might even get to see increasingly interesting technologies. Heck maybe in 2040 we’ll be able to 3D print replacement engine parts at home. The future could unlock all sorts of possibilities.

Of for fans? Sure. There are clubs for people who like penny farthings and special licences for cars without seatbelts. Maybe ICE cars will be on the shriners parade being driven by men in silly hats (ww2 vehicle owners do LARP on memorial day here, some people do the same on horses)

Prices for fossil fuel will be shockingly high though when the vast majority will use electricity.

In that case it opens up the opportunity for synthetic gasoline which could be carbon neutral.

How does high octane fuel for aviation figure into the history of gasoline? If I remember correctly 100 octane gasoline was used for aviation during World War II before the rise of jet engines shifted aviation to using jet fuel.

This is the green-dyed 130 octane which is basically blended from stocks somewhat similar but cleaner than high-octane unleaded "conventional" automotive gasoline.

The base stocks without lead could be about like the blue 100LL and lead is added to bring it up to 130 on a "supercharge" rating not exactly like the Research and Motor methods are conducted on the test engines.

Both Jason and David just left jalopnik to start www.theautopian.com

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