A century of hair samples proves leaded gas ban worked
109 points
4 days ago
| 2 comments
| arstechnica.com
| HN
Spooky23
1 hour ago
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I can’t wait until some bored rich dude funds a trad-gas influencer campaign.

“With universal income, most people simply don’t need surplus IQ. But we waste billions on repair of engines suffering with substandard gas”

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adrianN
1 hour ago
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It’s probably a bit late for that. BEV will have taken the market four new cars before such a campaign could take root.
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Spooky23
35 minutes ago
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We can charge those batteries while we drive, with generators powered by Freedom Fuel.
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kazinator
1 hour ago
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We should be using leaded solder though! Campaign away ...
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tokyobreakfast
1 hour ago
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We already have trad-gas.

It's called ethanol-free and people gladly pay a premium for it.

It's far better for your engine, it's what the car manufacturers use to determine the gas mileage, and Californians can only dream of having it.

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vlovich123
1 hour ago
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Ethanol free fuel in an engine designed for ethanol blend can result in incomplete combustion, leaving deposits in fuel injectors and valves. The car companies don’t care about this for the purposes of determining gas mileage.

Californians I think still remember the smog of the 90s in LA that kicked us to make our air pollution standards the highest in the nation. Going away from that I think sounds more like a nightmare than a dream for most Californians.

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tokyobreakfast
15 minutes ago
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Sorry but this is complete horseshit. Ethanol is corrosive to engine and fuel system components. It is also hygroscopic and will suck water in which is bad news for your fuel system. The less the better. There is a reason modern cars will tolerate up to 15%. With modern DI engines you are getting buildup no matter what and it is completely unrelated to the presence of ethanol in the fuel. Ask any BMW owner.

Flex-fuel vehicles run on E85 are required to run a tank of regular gas every few months per the manufacturer. Which is literally the opposite of what you are suggesting.

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Spooky23
1 hour ago
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That’s different. My newish snowblower has to meet California standards to avoid smog in Los Angeles. It’s super sensitive to any gas issues and basically needs a carb cleaning annually.

My previous machine ran for about twenty years with normal ethanol mix.

Putting it in almost any car made this century is just wasting money.

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cortesoft
1 hour ago
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As someone who remembers the smog that we used to have here in Southern California, I don't mind leaving the trad-gas in my dreams if I can keep the massively improved air quality in my reality.
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tokyobreakfast
4 minutes ago
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This is a myth. While tailpipe emissions are lower, evaporative emissions are higher. At best it's a draw.

You're seeing less smog because people are driving modern cars with modern emission systems because we live in the future, smog-producing vehicles have been taken out of service, and drawing conclusions based on mere correlation of the two. It has nothing to do with ethanol.

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ChrisArchitect
3 days ago
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antonymoose
4 hours ago
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Dumb Question: Why do you do what you do and or are you a bot? If the latter, why doesn’t HN just automate this?
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Brajeshwar
51 minutes ago
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LOL! I also found that our dear friend ChrisArchitect, sees them (maybe s/he uses a tool), and I just refer to them to see duplicates I might have missed/submitted. I see no harm, and it is a thankless job. We also know that sometimes duplicates are the only way to resurface interesting and curious articles.
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Fezzik
21 minutes ago
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It’s a common HN practice. I’ve done it once or twice. Mods will do it often, especially with highly active topics. I imagine it started as a method to avoid duplicate posting thereby consolidating conversation and, also, so that karma attribution goes to whoever the original poster was.

I imagine automation would be difficult because the same topics come from different sources and occasionally there is additional/novel information in similarly titled postings.

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gundmc
2 hours ago
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In this case it's not a direct duplicate of the link, but another post on the same topic. I find there is value in reading through the previous discussion that I may not have otherwise seen.
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tokyobreakfast
1 hour ago
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I've seen this account dupe-post twice on a story that was flagged, then later vouched.

Which is a telling bug for a bot to have.

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mulmen
2 hours ago
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HN does dedupe on a timer. If it has been a little while reposts are allowed to get a chance of reaching new eyeballs.
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permo-w
2 hours ago
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Probably angling to curry favour with the site
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