| Every teacher of chemistry and every physical science teacher knows the story of “ethyl gasoline”, gasoline containing tetraethyllead as an antiknock additive. It seems a good assumption that the public must surely know by now the story of the most famous public health hazard, one introduced in the name of better automobile performance.
Since 1986 there has been, to my knowledge, no leaded gasoline sold in the United States, and since the 1990s this health hazard has been eliminated in most of the world. Why is it then that television reporters announce the lowest gas prices in our city as “only $2.25 per gallon for unleaded”? Doesn’t this imply that the more expensive grades of gasoline are leaded? If, as is the case, none of the gasoline of any octane rating contains tetraethyl lead, why do we continue to say “unleaded”? Why do the signs at gas stations continue to say “unleaded $2.249—diesel $1.949”?
I ask these questions of JCE readers because I would like to know if this means that all our efforts to teach science and real life have been a failure. Didn’t we teach this generation of students that chemists (good chemists) took the lead out and made it unnecessary? So why do gasoline companies continue to remind us of chemists’ past mistakes? Do they think this sells more gasoline?
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