this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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It's enough to be a big deal for communities near airports. Probably half or more of lead exposure if you live under the low-altitude landing/take-off areas
I read this article about it, and it's a much bigger problem than I thought. Imo, given this, the Republican option is untenable, but the Democrat solution is probably not fair either.
The goal imo should be a dramatic reduction in leaded fuel use until an alternative is available, not a fixed time in years. So perhaps airports could be allocated certain amount of leaded fuel or leaded fuel takeoffs per day, and that amount would be set based on the population within a 1 mile radius of the airport.
To me that seems the most reasonable. I don't know if a fuel can be made available by 2030, I don't think banning all takeoffs is acceptable, and forcing airports to allow it is certainly unacceptable.
The thing about unleaded aviation gas is that its availability is regional right now. You can buy it in some parts of California, but not everywhere yet. Somebody needs to light a fire under the refiners to make them produce it, and a deadline is a good way to do that.
It's one way, another way to is reduce demand, either by taxing the crap out of leaded fuel or by restricting how much of it airports are allowed to sell.
Setting a deadline just delays the fight because refineries know they can postpone the drama for another few years. Let's say they already know how to make unleaded aviation fuel with enough octane for these older engines, but that it's more expensive to produce, why would they make it available before the deadline? Just keep producing the old fuel until the last possible moment.
The Senate version does one more thing besides setting a deadline: it requires airports to switch to unleaded fuel when it becomes available. For any location served by more than one refinery, that creates a powerful financial incentive to shift: if you don't, your competitors might, and take a market away from you.
I'd say it's well-designed
Maybe. I'd rather just see leaded fuel being penalized instead of threatening to ban it. That should have the same incentive, but with financial instead of legal pressure.
I'd rather not have a world where rich dudes can pay extra for the privilege of wafting lead into kids lungs, but I think we're going to just have to disagree on this.
Nobody wants lead in kids lungs. However, eliminating that completely eliminates a long standing privilege because there currently is no cleaner fuel. So we have three options:
Both Democrats and Republicans are proposing the second option, with Democrats switching to the first after a few years. I'm proposing the third.
Last year, the FAA approved the first unleaded fuel that works for all existing small piston-driven propeller aircraft.
It's available today on a regional basis. Taking it national is basically a matter of forcing refiners to produce it (or one of the equivalents currently in development)
Reduce flying until it's more widely available would be a great move too.
Cool, so I think we should tax the use of leaded gas a lot higher than unleaded to encourage ramping up production of the new fuel. If we follow the Democrat plan, there's no real reason to ramp up production quickly, they'll just take their time.
There is reason to ramp up though: as the unleaded fuel becomes available locally, airports are required to switch. So in any location served by more than one refinery, one refinery can grab market share by starting production of unleaded aviation gas.
Maybe? I guess it depends on how quickly the competition will step up. I guess one argument is that a refinery could lock out competitors if they're the first to convert in a region, but i don't know how competitive those contracts actually are. I know oil companies fix prices to an extent, so I'm just assuming that refineries are similar. So I guess I'm not optimistic that refineries wouldn't just agree to convert slowly.