#ethanol blending

[todayworldnews2k21]

Data | Why Centre’s denial of rice through OMSS hits Karnataka the most

Picture used for representational purpose | Photo Credit: Nagara Gopal Ever since the Congress-led Karnataka government came to power, it has been struggling to meet one of its major pre-poll promises — the provision of five kg of rice to Below Poverty Line (BPL) and Antyodaya card holders. This would have been in addition to the five kg of rice that is provided under the National Food Security…

[gauricmi]

Flexfuel Cars: The Future of Flexible Fuel Technology

Introduction:

Flexfuel cars, also known as flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs), represent the future of flexible fuel technology, offering drivers the ability to utilize a variety of renewable fuel options.

This blog explores the potential of flexfuel cars in revolutionizing the automotive industry and contributing to a more sustainable transportation system.

Advancements in Flexfuel Technology:

Flexfuel cars are equipped with advanced fuel system components and engine management systems that enable seamless transition between different fuel types.

Ongoing advancements in flexfuel technology aim to improve fuel efficiency, performance, and compatibility with a broader range of ethanol blends.

The future of Flexfuel Cars involves the integration of smart technologies and innovative materials to enhance fuel flexibility and optimize engine performance.

Expansion of Ethanol Infrastructure:

The widespread adoption of flexfuel cars is driving the expansion of ethanol production and distribution infrastructure.

Ethanol-blended fuels, such as E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline), are becoming increasingly available at fueling stations across the country.

Investments in ethanol production facilities and distribution networks are essential for supporting the growth of the flexfuel vehicle market.

Environmental Benefits of Ethanol:

Ethanol is a renewable fuel derived from plant sources such as corn, sugarcane, or cellulose-based materials.

Compared to gasoline, ethanol produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions during combustion, contributing to reduced air pollution and mitigating climate change.

By using ethanol-based fuels in flexfuel cars, drivers can reduce their carbon footprint and support the transition to cleaner energy sources.

Get More Insights On This Topic: Flexfuel Cars

[made-by-moon]

Marauders in the kitchen

James Potter is the master of all things savoury. Since he was little, he learned from his parents how to peel, fry, blend, chop, and season all kinds of food. He is in charge of everything when the gang decides to occasionally cook something. His only weakness is sweets. He can not bake for shit.

That's where Peter Pettigrew comes in. Since he likes to munch on cookies and cakes, and those can be expensive sometimes, he taught himself how to bake to save some money. It also gives him time to charge his social battery from long days of mischief with the gang.

Remus Lupin CAN cook, that's why he's usually the one who helps James, as he's got the basic skills. He can make scrambled eggs, toasts, and pancakes if he's feeling fancy, but nothing too complicated (he treats food purely as energy source, not pleasurable experience). He lives for snacks tho and he'll make the best sandwiches in Hogwarts.

Sirius Black is absolutely not allowed anywhere near the kitchen. As someone who grew up being fed already prepared 5 star meals on a silver plate, he can not cook for shit and will even burn water if he has a chance. However, he has incredible bartender skills. Every time there is a party and they don't want to drink straight up liquor, he puts his skills to use. He can make straight-up ethanol taste like juice (it's scary).

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil signs Fuel of the Future programme into law

Although the bill does not stipulate targets for the use of blended SAF, airlines must work towards a 10% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions between 2027 and 2037.

Brazilian president Luiz Inácio de Silva has signed a national ‘Fuel of the Future’ law, previously approved by the Brazilian Congress, into law.

As approved by the lower house of Brazil’s National Congress in March 2024, the bill – alongside establishing ethanol and biodiesel blending increases for commercial gasoline and diesel – will also create a new mandate for SAF. Starting in 2027, airlines will also be required to reduce their emissions 10% by 2037. The bill was approved by 429 to 19; a large majority.

“The main goal of the Fuel of Future Program is to propose measures to increase the use of sustainable and low carbon intensity fuels, as well as the development of national vehicle technology with purpose to decarbonise the transport matrix,�� explained the Brazilian government.

Embraer CEO Francisco Gomes Neto praised the decision, stating: “Our country is already a global leader in biofuels and now well-equipped to be a leader in sustainable aviation fuel…. This value chain will generate employment, income, technology and exports for the country and expand Brazil’s contribution to mitigating climate change”.

Continue reading.

[mudwerks]

(via The 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 will do 0-60 in just 1.66 seconds | Ars Technica)

Dodge is seeing out the Hemi V8 muscle car era with a 1,025 hp version.

Dodge has been on something of a farewell tour for its Hemi V8 muscle cars. It has built a series of "last call" versions of the Charger and Challenger, limited editions with callback paint colors and retro liveries that refer to muscle-packed Dodges of old. Now it really is getting ready to end the car design and is doing so with a bang, via the 2023 Challenger SRT Demon 170, a production car so fast it can even show a Tesla Model S Plaid a clean pair of shoes with a 1.66 second 0-60 mph time. Dodge's engineers have performed quite a bit of work under that bulging "Air-Grabber" hood compared to lesser Demons. There's a new supercharger with a larger throttle body and a pulley that increases boost pressure by 40 percent compared to the Challenger Hellcat Redeye Widebody. You'll get the best results by feeding it E85 (a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline); on this fuel, the Demon 170 generates an enormous 1,025 hp (764 kW) and 945 lb-ft (1,281 Nm). On the more common E10 fuel, the engine will generate a slightly milder 900 hp (671 kW) and 810 lb-ft (1,098 Nm).

jeebus - they’re not fucking around

[rjzimmerman]

Bank of America Bets on Carbon Capture With Big Tax-Credit Deal. (Wall Street Journal)

Excerpt from this Wall Street Journal story:

A climate technology that has struggled to get off the ground is getting a boost from a landmark tax-credit deal with Bank of America that is one of the largest-ever investments in carbon capture.

The bank is providing $205 million in exchange for tax credits from an ethanol producer that captures the carbon produced at a plant in North Dakota. It is the first deal of its kind since the 2022 climate law increased the tax credits available for capturing carbon and storing it underground.

Carbon capture has a dismal record but is being pursued by governments and companies as a way to reduce emissions from industries that can’t easily switch to renewable energy. The tax credits are attracting renewed interest in the technology from companies such as Exxon Mobil. 

“You can only do so much renewables build-out,” Noah Zerance, a director on Bank of America’s sustainable finance team, said in an interview. “There has to be an element of trying to address the emitters that are in the market today and helping them decarbonize.”

Harvestone Low Carbon Partners, the company that raised the money, says it started capturing carbon from its plant near Underwood, N.D., last October, joining a handful of operational U.S. projects. The plant produces corn ethanol that is blended with gasoline to comply with regulations for reducing fuel emissions. 

The company says the facility can capture all of its carbon emissions, totaling more than 200,000 metric tons annually. That is roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of about 42,000 gas-powered cars. 

“To have a successful project speaks to the ability for us as an industry and as a nation to do these types of initiatives,” said Jeff Zueger, Harvestone’s chief executive and a longtime renewable-fuels executive.

Tax-credit funding lets project developers tap subsidies even if they generate little or no profit. While the government funding reduces risk, the deals represent a vote of confidence. Bank of America is betting the North Dakota plant will continue to operate for at least a decade and meet the criteria to qualify for subsidies.

The deal highlights how investors are betting that some parts of the Biden administration’s climate spending will withstand potential policy shifts in Washington. 

[artemisbarnowl]

I tried my new perfume from the workshop (the woman taking us through said it wait 2-3 weeks but I was impatient. Normal perfumeries wait a while year to age their scents! It softens the ethanol and helps blend ingredients or something I wasn't listening) to see what it was like and it's good! The basil top notes are Powerful but should settle as the perfume ages, it didn't really have any ethanol sharpness until a few hours in, and I could still smell the jasmine and cypress. Now right at the end it's still soft and creamy amber. It's different to what I expected but I like it! And I'm looking forward to how it settles in a month! I'm going to take it on my little spontaneous home visit this weekend but I'll have to wait til mid aug to test it for real because of work trip, or even later because I'm getting my wisdom teeth out then and won't care at all about perfume when I'm mourning the loss of crunchy food and my TEETH.

[nuwildcat]

Surprise Snippet

Heyyo! So during productivity corner this week I got cracking on another installment of the Vampire!Kinn Werewolf!Porsche series inspired by @moerusai‘s amazing gif edit. If you haven’t seen it you should check it out here!

I’m working my way through the next installment after Scotch and Blood and I’ve decided to treat you all to a little sampling of the next one!

Enjoy!

Last Wednesday, during a particularly slow shift at the bar, he decided to look into Kinn. Big mistake. Now, Porsche is all too aware of how much he has stepped in it by sleeping with that particular vampire. 

The earful that he had gotten from Yok when she caught sight of who he was googling , literally twisted his ear till he confessed like a pup, was loud, lengthy, and slightly scarring. There were allusions to the only functioning part of his body being between his legs and the fact that she could solve that problem for him. Porsche had made himself scarce for a while after that conversation.

Still, two weeks later, after spending the previous night snuggling with Chay on the couch watching trashy television, Porsche is in a particularly good mood. This is, of course, when the universe decides to dump a whole lot of drama in his lap.

The man who comes into Hum Bar is rather unassuming. He’s well dressed in a nice emerald sweater and grey slacks, with a benevolent smile on his face. The three men who enter after him, do not share his disposition, with their stone-cold looks, and eerily familiar uniforms.

The man comes right up to the bar after surveying the rest of the room and perches on one of the stools. There’s only one other small group in the bar. Interns from the dodgy law office down the street who are desperately trying to drink away their shitty work schedule are hiding in a booth in the back. Porsche approaches his newest customer with caution and his most courteous service worker smile.

“What can I do for you, sir?” 

The man eyes the bottles behind him with a piercing gaze before settling on Porsche. He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “What are your best scotches?”

Porsche just manages to control his eyebrows before they can display how ridiculous he finds that question. Besides walking into a cocktail bar, the man is asking for a liquor, that when done really well, comes from the opposite side of the world from Bangkok. He has a decent selection, but probably nothing this man usually drinks.

“What do you look for in a scotch?” 

This surprises the other man enough for him show it on his face. The smile that follows is a lot more genuine. “Something smokey but with notes of spice.”

That narrows the field a lot, they don’t have a lot of peated scotches. “More cinnamon and clove or something complex like licorice?” Porsche has two options in mind.

“Hmm,” the man pauses and considers for a moment. “For today, let's go with the cinnamon and clove notes.”

Porsche nods in response and immediately turns to grab the bottle of 14-year-old Oban, on their top shelf. He brings it to the man to show him the bottle.

“It’s a peated single malt scotch from the highlands. It’s distilled in copper and then aged in oak barrels,” he explains.

The man nods, “Yes, that will do.”

“Neat?”

Again a sharp nod. Porsche turns to grab a tulip glass.

“Not a snifter?” the stranger inquires. Porsche can’t tell if he’s testing him or genuinely doesn’t know.

“No, sir. Snifters have too small of a rim for their body and tend to release more of the ethanol aromas that will overpower the flavor of the scotch.” 

Porsche takes his job seriously. He isn’t just a prime bartender because of his looks, he’s good at this. The super nose helps, he picks up on smells humans won’t ever get, but even without that, he likes it. It’s interesting to learn the different mixology theories and understand the way that alcohol and flavors blend and can be enhanced.

The man swirls the scotch in the glass before taking a sniff and finally sipping. Porsche watches him swirl the alcohol in his mouth to get the flavors hidden in the scotch. This man is not an occasional drinker.

“Quite nice,” it’s not a raving review, but then again something tells Porsche he’s used to much higher-end stuff. And if he is who Porsche suspects he is, this kind of scotch wouldn’t make the cut. “What’s your name, young man?”

“Porsche,” He replies, there isn’t much else he can do.

“Ah, so you are who I’m looking for.” A sense of dread washes over Porsche, likely stealing some of the color from his cheeks. “It’s come to my attention that you know my son, Anakinn.”

[todayworldnews2k21]

15% Ethanol Blending In Diesel Research In Advanced Stages, Says Nitin Gadkari

The research around blending 15 per cent Ethanol in Diesel is in advanced stages, and the government is exploring the prospects around on how to prioritise it based on sound evidence, said Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, at 12th CII Bioenergy Summit 2024 “Fuelling the Future-Securing India’s Green Growth Goals,” on Monday in New Delhi. Ethanol blending in India has…

[kicksaddictny]

Saucony Peregrine RFG: A Game-Changing Sustainable Sneaker

Get ready for a footwear revolution! Mark your calendars for April 22nd, when Wolverine Worldwide's renowned brand, Saucony, drops its latest innovation: the Peregrine RFG. Crafted with the modern adventurer in mind, this eco-friendly sneaker is designed to tackle daily trails and casual treks with ease.

Here's why the Peregrine RFG is a game-changer:

Responsibly sourced mesh construction provides optimal debris protection, ensuring a clean and comfortable experience on any terrain.

Featuring an Austin Rubber outsole crafted from a 50% blend of recycled tires, this sneaker offers responsible grip and traction without compromising performance.

Say hello to supreme comfort with PWRRUN BIO+ cushioning. Made from 30% sugarcane ethanol-based foam, it reduces our dependence on plastic while delivering unmatched support and cushioning.

Available in four sophisticated colors, the Peregrine RFG collection will be up for grabs exclusively on saucony.com. Priced at $140, it's a small investment for a big impact on both your adventures and the planet.

[thebreakfastgenie]

science blues ofc

dammit I just posted two excerpts of that one because I couldn't choose. oh well I will just have to post a third how terrible <3

The new glass was identical to the old one, but the drink itself was a perfect Science Blue. Jim had spent enough time staring at the back of Spock’s tunic to commit the color to memory. Well, it wasn’t exactly the tunic he was staring at. It was just in the way.  No. Jim refocused his attention on the glass in front of him.  “It won’t get you drunk if you just stare at it,” Carmel remarked dryly, and Jim startled as if awakened from a trance.  He examined the drink, sniffed it, but besides the tell-tale whiff of ethanol found nothing recognizable. He drank slowly, savoring the first sip, allowed it to settle on his taste buds.  Was this what Spock’s lips tasted like? He scolded himself for asking the question, even in his own head. It was completely… well, completely illogical.  Jim took another careful sip. There was no Earth analogue for the flavors that blended together to create the Science Blue.  He had visited a planet, once, with a perfectly blue lagoon. He didn’t remember the name of the planet, but he remembered being mesmerized by the way the light hit the water. Maybe there was a scientific reason, or maybe it was just a hot day, but he’d decided to investigate, and he’d waded halfway across before he realized the bottom was quicksand. Spock had pulled him out; dragged him, exhausted and sputtering, to the shore, where Jim had quite gracefully collapsed on top of him, coughing up saltwater.  Carmel’s concoction tasted something like that. 

The important thing about this fic is Jim is maximum pathetic and emo. And the Andorian drag queen named Intergalactica.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil changes mandatory biodiesel blend requirements

The Mines and Energy Ministry on Wednesday raised the minimum percentage of biodiesel in diesel blends sold in the country from 10 to 12 percent. The change will take effect on April 1, and the minimum requirement will increase by one percentage point each year until it reaches 15 percent in 2026.

The move panders to Brazil’s ailing biofuels industry, which suffered during the former Jair Bolsonaro administration. 

In fact, Mr. Bolsonaro enacted several policies that angered the sector, such as increasing tax-free quotas for American ethanol, reducing mandatory biodiesel blending requirements (from 13 to 10 percent), and, most recently, postponing targets for the purchase of carbon credits by fuel distributors.

Continue reading.

[rlyehtaxidermist]

fuck it, midgley discourse in my notes, we ball.

Time to talk about one of my favourite regulatory archdevils, Dr. Robert Arthur Kehoe.

I love that this is his Wikipedia photo. The slightly raised eyebrow. The faint but noticable cheekbones. The level, slightly superior expression. Even just the angle of the shot. This is a man who’s about to give a gloating monologue to James Bond.

Kehoe was a medical doctor with a specialty in toxicology and one of the early lions of what we now call “occupational health” - that is, what does and doesn’t make a workplace a safe place to work in. At the time, this was basically an open question - the first worker’s compensation laws only went on the books in the 1880s, and were often scrambling to respond to health risks. OSHA isn’t even a twinkle in the eye of the ten-year-old and politically uncomplicated Richard Nixon, whose family lemon plantation just failed.

The Background

This lack of occupational health standards is rapidly becoming a big problem for a “little” company called the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation (actually a corporate chimera of General Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey - who you now know as Exxon, and DuPont - who you now might still know as DuPont but is also a few other companies, it’s complicated). Workers at Ethyl’s plants were suffering from neurological disorders, which culminated in the deaths of five workers, injury to many more, and at least one worker, Joseph G. Leslie, being secretly committed to a psychiatric institution by the company, who publicly declared him dead.

See, Ethyl (through GM) owned the patent to a little chemical called tetraethyllead, which was being promoted as the solution to engine knocking - a performance issue in older automobiles. Ethyl’s CEO, Charles Kettering, had previously been GM’s head of research, where he had tasked a talented but retroactively very unfortunate chemist by the name of Charles Midgley, Jr. with developing a compound to combat knocking.

Midgley first figured out that a blend of ethanol with the gasoline would help solve the problem. GM did not like this, because ethanol was so easy to make that they’d never turn a profit on producing ethanol-blended gasoline. So Kettering told Midgley to try again, and he did - he found a tellurium compound that would work great for solving knocking. It stank to high heaven, so GM said no, try again, and finally Midgley settled on tetraethyllead, and GM immediately patented it for use in fuels.

Tetraethyllead had some downsides. It is mostly known today for its environmental effects, particularly the massive scale of lead poisoning from lead and lead oxide emissions caused by TEL combustion. These weren’t really in the picture in the 1920s, where concerns about large-scale environmental impacts of industrialisation were considered a fringe view or even outright pseudoscientific. Instead, the issue was the toxicity of TEL itself - it was already known to be far more poisonous than lead or lead oxides, as the organic structure of the compound allowed it to pass the blood-brain barrier, where it would then break down and cause lead poisoning to set in extremely quickly.

It’s this exposure to TEL that caused the initial controversy, and lead to things like the infamous publicity stunt where Midgley dunked his hands in leaded gasoline and took a big ol’ sniff to prove how safe it was, never mind that he had just been recovering from lead poisoning weeks earlier. Even if TEL is dangerous, claimed Midgley, finished Ethyl gasoline was perfectly safe for consumers - officially, the problem was that workers weren’t following adequate safety standards. He would also repeatedly deny the existence of any appropriate alternatives to TEL, including the two that he had previously suggested to GM and the several other alternatives used by rival fuel companies domestic and international.

Kettering and Midgley’s public statements are contradicted by private correspondence, which detailed several alternatives including ethanol. That said, these concerns were all about the toxicity of tetraethyllead, not the combustion byproducts which would later give it its infamy. There is some also dispute as to the extent that Kettering and Midgley viewed TEL as the ultimate solution to knocking, or an intermediate fuel to allow the economic development of high-compression motors that could be converted to run on ethanol - though this was motivated not by environmental concerns, but the growing belief that gasoline supplies would soon be depleted. (Of course, that wasn’t the case.)

My general view of Midgley as a scientist is that he came up with genuinely brilliant solutions to the problems he was posed, that happened to have large-scale ecological effects he couldn’t have anticipated. But he certainly wasn’t some hapless victim in this either, and was at the very least the direct architect of TEL’s version of the “no alternatives” narrative, which helped shut down early investigations into the dangers of TEL.

But this isn’t about Midgley. Let’s introduce our main man.

The Safety Doctor

“During the entire history of man on this earth, he has had lead in his body. He has had lead in his food, he has had lead in his drinking water... the question is not whether lead per se is dangerous, but whether a certain concentration of lead in his body is dangerous.“

- Robert A. Kehoe, Antiknock compounds and public health.

If the official line at Ethyl was that the workers were to blame for everything, the private line was clearly that they needed better safety standards. To this end, Kettering hired a toxicologist named Robert Arthur Kehoe as the company’s chief medical consultant. Kehoe’s job was to research the impact of TEL on workers and improve safety procedures - which he did. This made him a leading figure in the emerging field of occupational health - working for a major chemical company was less a conflict of interest and more proof of expertise.

Kehoe would found the Kettering Laboratory of Applied Physiology, touted as the “first university-based laboratory devoted to toxicological problems peculiar to industry”. Named for Kettering, it would be financed primarily by Ethyl, DuPont, and GM, and it would come to define the early approach to science and occupational health.

After Kehoe’s changes were implemented, experts studied garage workers who were expected to be exposed to TEL. The review found some concerns with blood health, but no major signs of lead poisoning; while the question of environmental exposure was raised, the study was grounded in Ethyl’s own laboratory results, which claimed that only 15% of the lead in gasoline could be found in emissions (with another 15% being found in engine oil, and the remaining 70%... assumed to stay in the engine). This was accepted at face value without any independent sampling of street-level lead.

The committee concluded there was no reason to ban leaded gasoline - however, they called for continued investigation, as well as research into alternatives to tetraethyllead - particularly ethyl alcohol. These requests were ignored.

Kehoe soon became the go-to expert for the lead industry, and developed the early doctrine for testing dangers of exposure in the workplace. Kehoe worked from the baseline assumption that, if a compound existed, people would naturally be exposed to it in some capacity - the burden then lay on determining the dose where this became a problem.

The origin of this doctrine is sometimes attributed to Midgley, but its application in a legal and regulatory sense would become known as the Kehoe Rule: regulation is appropriate “if it can be shown that an actual danger is had as a result on the basis of fact”, but that technology should not “be thrown into the discard on the basis of opinions”. Kehoe’s “facts” were rooted in a simple chain of deductions:

As lead exists in nature, people are exposed to it naturally.

As people do not all have lead poisoning, the body must then have means to counteract lead poisoning.

Thus, there is some baseline level of lead exposure which the body is capable of handling without lasting harm.

Thus, leaded gasoline is only a risk if it can be shown that emissions exceed that baseline level.

Environmental samples seemed to support Kehoe’s argument. There was a baseline level of lead in the environment, even using ice and soil samples deep enough to predate industrialisation, and people had greater exposure to lead from food or drink than from the atmosphere. Kehoe and his colleagues conducted studies on human subjects to determine the “safe” threshold - defined as the blood lead level when a physical examination could detect symptoms of lead poisoning.

Kehoe’s group dominated the discussion of lead in the medical field to an almost unprecedented extent. His laboratory - named for Kettering and funded by Ethyl, GM, and DuPont - essentially monopolised peer review of lead-related health research, allowing them to reinforce their results and dominate the medical field, including redefining the medical definition of lead poisoning to match the blood lead thresholds set by Kehoe’s lab.

The lead industry owned lead health, and it wasn’t even a secret.

Clair Patterson With A Meteoric Iron Chair

“It is not just a mistake for public health agencies to cooperate and collaborate with industries investigating and deciding whether public health is endangered - it is a direct abrogation of the duties and responsibilities of those public health organizations.”

- Clair Patterson, addressing the U.S. Senate

Modern academia prides itself on the self-correcting nature of science. There’s a lot of things that could be said about this principle in practice - I keep telling my mother (a research quality expert in her field) to write a book on it, now that she’s retired and the university couldn’t do anything about it. But Kehoe’s research wasn’t challenged from within medicine. Or biology, or chemistry. The challenge to Kehoe’s medical Mordor came from the humble discipline of geophysics.

Clair Patterson, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, set out to answer a relatively simple question, and one nominally unrelated to issues of occupational health and fuel use: how old is the earth? What about the Solar System?

Patterson’s approach was simple: using samples of uranium taken from meteorites, use the ratio of lead to uranium isotopes in the sample to determine the age of the rock (and from this, the cosmic time frame between it being released by supernovae and landing on Earth). The problem was that Patterson’s data kept coming back wrong: there was too much lead in his samples. He had to develop a whole new clean room paradigm to avoid lead contamination - and in this clean room, he found something he wasn’t looking for.

The same contamination - in the air, in the water, even in Patterson’s own hair - that thwarted his study also influenced the studies of pre-industrial environmental lead concentrations. The assertion that “lead exists in nature” which was the foundation of Kehoe’s entire medical and regulatory paradigm was rooted in flawed data. The industrialised world didn’t have a natural baseline level of lead - it exceeded that concentration by over one thousand times.

In 1965, Patterson published his findings. Of course, Kehoe - a leading expert on lead exposure - was called upon for peer review. Kehoe didn’t squash the findings - actually, he supported Patterson’s paper, though not out of respect for his findings, but because he believed they would be of scientific value as an example of just how wrong a researcher could be. He told the journal to publish the paper so that he and his team could “face and demolish” it. (Seriously. I’m not joking about the Bond villain thing.)

Patterson’s work would see most of his research funding withdrawn, and the oil industry would attempt to influence CalTech’s board to get him fired. But the same meticulous procedures that he needed to build his cleanroom were reflected in his research notes and data, and reviewers outside Kehoe’s group of lead experts validated Patterson’s conclusions. New samples were taken from Arctic glaciers and the depths of the ocean, and when protected from contamination like Patterson’s meteorites, they supported him, not Kehoe: lead concentrations increased dramatically with industrialisation.

Patterson and Kehoe would face off before the U.S. Senate in a 1966 hearing. Kehoe was called as the medical expert on lead poisoning, while Patterson spoke for the new conclusions - and denounced Kehoe’s monopoly on lead research and the government’s sometimes-tacit, sometimes-explicit support for his findings.

Afterwards

If this were a morality play, this is where Kehoe’s career would end, but it didn’t.  Kehoe retired from academia in 1965, a year and was granted the title of Professor Emeritus of Occupational Medicine by his long-time employer, the University of Cincinnati. He would withdraw from public life in 1979, but not before championing the unproven-but-not-disproven safety of another Midgley-made environmental disaster, Freon.

Patterson’s work shook faith in tetraethyllead, but it took another, ten years for the government to finally regulate it. Pediatrician Herbert Needleman found a link between neurodevelopmental damage in children and elevated lead levels, which was soon linked to air pollution. Despite a lawsuit from the Ethyl Corporation, the U.S. government officially began phasing out the use of leaded gasoline in automobiles in 1976. Ethyl Corporation shifted to international markets, and lobbied many governments in the developing world against banning leaded gasoline.

While the United Nations declared that leaded gasoline was eliminated worldwide in 2011, it remained available for purchase until 2021, when it was officially removed from sale in Algeria, the last country to produce it. The United Nations once again declared that this marked the worldwide elimination of leaded gasoline. Tetraethyllead is still produced in the United States and China for use in aviation fuel.

The Kehoe Rule’s stranglehold on public health discourse was shaken by the erosion of its namesake’s work, but it lingers, especially in the United States. The example set by Kehoe became the scientific shield for much of the scientific malpractice of the mid-20th century, from the proliferation of asbestos to the U.S.’s use of defoliants as chemical weapons in Vietnam. In many ways, it remains active today, as Monsanto (now Bayer) relied on a variation of the Kehoe Rule as their primary defense against lawsuits regarding their Roundup pesticide’s possible status as a carcinogen.

Endings

Perhaps the ironic symbol of Thomas Midgley’s career is his death in 1955. Suffering from polio, Midgley developed a sophisticated system of mechanical mobility aids, only to be killed when the device malfunctioned, making him one of the unlucky few to have invented their own cause of death. He was 55.

Clair Patterson died on December 5, 1995 at age 73. The cause of death for the champion of air pollution regulation was a severe asthma attack.

Robert A. Kehoe died in 1992, shortly after his 99th birthday. The University of Cincinnati’s archives house a collection of his papers, though none I could find had been digitised (at least for public view). In the archive’s introduction, they describe him as a “renowned occupational health expert”.

There is a private university in Flint, Michigan named for Charles F. Kettering. Yes, that Flint.