>For example, leaded gas improved car performance and arguably key to economic performance
This is not true. We currently use ethanol to boost octane, and that additive was known at the time by the company that invented TEL, and they did not use it because they did not control the market for ethanol like they could control the market of a new and patented chemical.
TEL was never actually necessary, and we poisoned ourselves for most of a decade to enrich a corporation. Large scale ethanol (as beer) production was one of humanity's earliest industries.
Indeed, after we banned leaded gas, we tried using yet another stupid poison additive, MTBE, for a decade or so, and that continued to poison people because gas tanks leak and that chemical was toxic. Most of Asia actually still uses MTBE, to their detriment.
Ethanol has never had this problem. Arguably, when Bush required all US gasoline to include 10-20% ethanol, he wasn't even trying to fix the poison problem of MTBE, he might have just been greenwashing and kicking more subsidies to corn growers, but it definitely solved the poisonous additive problem for octane boosters.
Indeed, zero additives for octane are "required" at all. You can produce high octane gasoline just by choosing different refined components but this results in less gasoline produced per barrel of oil.
This is not true. We currently use ethanol to boost octane, and that additive was known at the time by the company that invented TEL, and they did not use it because they did not control the market for ethanol like they could control the market of a new and patented chemical.
TEL was never actually necessary, and we poisoned ourselves for most of a decade to enrich a corporation. Large scale ethanol (as beer) production was one of humanity's earliest industries.
Indeed, after we banned leaded gas, we tried using yet another stupid poison additive, MTBE, for a decade or so, and that continued to poison people because gas tanks leak and that chemical was toxic. Most of Asia actually still uses MTBE, to their detriment.
Ethanol has never had this problem. Arguably, when Bush required all US gasoline to include 10-20% ethanol, he wasn't even trying to fix the poison problem of MTBE, he might have just been greenwashing and kicking more subsidies to corn growers, but it definitely solved the poisonous additive problem for octane boosters.
Indeed, zero additives for octane are "required" at all. You can produce high octane gasoline just by choosing different refined components but this results in less gasoline produced per barrel of oil.