I don't think there's realistically any likelihood of leaded gas returning. More modern antiknock agents are less damaging to the vehicle, more effective at their job, and cheaper.
A lot of people point towards aviation's continued use of tetraethyl lead as an example of it being something that oil or aviation companies like, but that's not true at all. When people hear that leaded gas is still in use in aviation, they tend to assume that means that all or even most airplanes are using this fuel. Nope. Only about a third of "gasoline-powered" prop planes and helicopters use leaded gas, and no jet planes use gasoline. Leaded avgas is still a thing because a number of airplanes still flying are basically from the 1930s and 1940s, and the FAA considers it too much of a dick move to just tell everyone who owns one of these very old planes (or, old designs at least) to either buy a new plane or stop flying.
Old cars mostly ran fine (if a bit low on lubrication) with unleaded gas, but a handful of aviation fuel requirements, like the very high octane needs, have made it difficult to create an unleaded avgas for these old planes. For people who are particular sticklers about continuing to drive their classic car and retain its original configuration and condition, it's still possible here in Canada to find gasoline with MMT as the additive, and other sandwich compounds are being researched as options for replacing leaded avgas as well, although this is a controversial topic because it's been "coming soon" since before Reagan was president.
A big problem with running leaded gas in any car manufactured since 1975: it destroys the catalytic converter. As little as two tanks of leaded gas can completely destroy the cat, meaning that bringing back leaded gas would mean that every catalytic converter would need to be removed, and every car would need to be retuned, in exchange for... Literally no noticeable benefit to your driving experience. The higher octane rating you could get with leaded gas would not in any way improve your current car's driving experience, and auto manufacturers would have to basically restart from scratch with new engines if they wanted to take advantage of the different fuel chemistry, largely working off of 50 year old technology to try and even reach parity with modern engine optimization.
However, for most cars, ethanol is now used as the antiknock agent, and it's functionally free for oil companies in the US and Canada thanks to AG subsidies for corn. I think there's a high possibility that we'll see an increase in the amount of ethanol added, with E15 becoming more popular. E85 actually has a higher AKI (octane rating) than leaded race gas, meaning it's able to be compressed more before detonation.
Tldr: leaded gas will destroy catalytic converters, is incompatible with other anti-smog measures, offers zero improvements to your driving experience unless you're a tuner trying to make 1000 hp with a crazy turbo setup, is worse than e85 for those tuners trying to make 1000 horsepower, and most importantly for the capitalists: it costs more for the oil companies than current additives, while simultaneously being worse in all these ways. The handful of prop airplanes that still use it only use it because they have to.
I think the biggest possibility if someone does try to bring leaded gas back to trigger liberals is that it becomes "legal again" but is just not available anywhere. The possibility of a gas station selling leaded gas which almost instantly fucks up every single car that fuels up with it would be a nightmare for everyone involved.
Something I forgot to mention, the gas pump nozzles are legally defined in the US and the diameter of a leaded gas nozzle is larger than that of an unleaded nozzle. Sure, somebody could just using unleaded nozzle with leaded gas, but that would be a second thing that's illegal and would have to be changed... Assuming you could actually get someone to change the law specifically so that you could sell people more expensive gasoline which also destroys their car.
And the second thing that I entirely forgot to mention is it's entirely legal to sell leaded gas in the US right now and you could go buy it right now if you wanted to. What is banned is utilizing leaded gas in a road vehicle operated on public roads (because it is incompatible with legally mandatory catalytic converters). You can continue to use it for aviation, off-road dirt bikes or quads, farm equipment, Marine engines, racing cars not destined for public roads, generators, or really any other thing that isn't intended to be a road vehicle... But of course it's not widely available because these are all fringe uses and literally the only scenario where it's not actively worse and more expensive than the alternatives is in small prop aviation. Today, you can legally go to an airport or some drag strips and purchase good old 100LL, just like in the 70s... For $6-8 a gallon. The additives genuinely are that much more expensive, the taxes on avgas are cheaper than road fuel.
Yep, strangely one of the rare places where a market-based solution would come to the same answer as everyone else. Literally nobody involved would want to deal with the fallout of actually going through with it, so if somebody really wanted it sold, it would have to be something that they made mandatory to sell, which would likely result in lawsuits from automakers and gas stations who themselves don't want to be sued, and then no one would end up wanting to buy it because it's three times the price of regular gasoline and the only "coal rolling" you could do with it is in the tow truck bringing your ass straight into the shop to buy a new catalytic converter after you broke your car and now it won't turn on anymore.
deleted by creator
they're probably already sneaking it back in and the court will just rubberstamp it, as is their purpose
I don't think there's realistically any likelihood of leaded gas returning. More modern antiknock agents are less damaging to the vehicle, more effective at their job, and cheaper.
A lot of people point towards aviation's continued use of tetraethyl lead as an example of it being something that oil or aviation companies like, but that's not true at all. When people hear that leaded gas is still in use in aviation, they tend to assume that means that all or even most airplanes are using this fuel. Nope. Only about a third of "gasoline-powered" prop planes and helicopters use leaded gas, and no jet planes use gasoline. Leaded avgas is still a thing because a number of airplanes still flying are basically from the 1930s and 1940s, and the FAA considers it too much of a dick move to just tell everyone who owns one of these very old planes (or, old designs at least) to either buy a new plane or stop flying.
Old cars mostly ran fine (if a bit low on lubrication) with unleaded gas, but a handful of aviation fuel requirements, like the very high octane needs, have made it difficult to create an unleaded avgas for these old planes. For people who are particular sticklers about continuing to drive their classic car and retain its original configuration and condition, it's still possible here in Canada to find gasoline with MMT as the additive, and other sandwich compounds are being researched as options for replacing leaded avgas as well, although this is a controversial topic because it's been "coming soon" since before Reagan was president.
A big problem with running leaded gas in any car manufactured since 1975: it destroys the catalytic converter. As little as two tanks of leaded gas can completely destroy the cat, meaning that bringing back leaded gas would mean that every catalytic converter would need to be removed, and every car would need to be retuned, in exchange for... Literally no noticeable benefit to your driving experience. The higher octane rating you could get with leaded gas would not in any way improve your current car's driving experience, and auto manufacturers would have to basically restart from scratch with new engines if they wanted to take advantage of the different fuel chemistry, largely working off of 50 year old technology to try and even reach parity with modern engine optimization.
However, for most cars, ethanol is now used as the antiknock agent, and it's functionally free for oil companies in the US and Canada thanks to AG subsidies for corn. I think there's a high possibility that we'll see an increase in the amount of ethanol added, with E15 becoming more popular. E85 actually has a higher AKI (octane rating) than leaded race gas, meaning it's able to be compressed more before detonation.
Tldr: leaded gas will destroy catalytic converters, is incompatible with other anti-smog measures, offers zero improvements to your driving experience unless you're a tuner trying to make 1000 hp with a crazy turbo setup, is worse than e85 for those tuners trying to make 1000 horsepower, and most importantly for the capitalists: it costs more for the oil companies than current additives, while simultaneously being worse in all these ways. The handful of prop airplanes that still use it only use it because they have to.
deleted by creator
I think the biggest possibility if someone does try to bring leaded gas back to trigger liberals is that it becomes "legal again" but is just not available anywhere. The possibility of a gas station selling leaded gas which almost instantly fucks up every single car that fuels up with it would be a nightmare for everyone involved.
Something I forgot to mention, the gas pump nozzles are legally defined in the US and the diameter of a leaded gas nozzle is larger than that of an unleaded nozzle. Sure, somebody could just using unleaded nozzle with leaded gas, but that would be a second thing that's illegal and would have to be changed... Assuming you could actually get someone to change the law specifically so that you could sell people more expensive gasoline which also destroys their car.
And the second thing that I entirely forgot to mention is it's entirely legal to sell leaded gas in the US right now and you could go buy it right now if you wanted to. What is banned is utilizing leaded gas in a road vehicle operated on public roads (because it is incompatible with legally mandatory catalytic converters). You can continue to use it for aviation, off-road dirt bikes or quads, farm equipment, Marine engines, racing cars not destined for public roads, generators, or really any other thing that isn't intended to be a road vehicle... But of course it's not widely available because these are all fringe uses and literally the only scenario where it's not actively worse and more expensive than the alternatives is in small prop aviation. Today, you can legally go to an airport or some drag strips and purchase good old 100LL, just like in the 70s... For $6-8 a gallon. The additives genuinely are that much more expensive, the taxes on avgas are cheaper than road fuel.
deleted by creator
Yep, strangely one of the rare places where a market-based solution would come to the same answer as everyone else. Literally nobody involved would want to deal with the fallout of actually going through with it, so if somebody really wanted it sold, it would have to be something that they made mandatory to sell, which would likely result in lawsuits from automakers and gas stations who themselves don't want to be sued, and then no one would end up wanting to buy it because it's three times the price of regular gasoline and the only "coal rolling" you could do with it is in the tow truck bringing your ass straight into the shop to buy a new catalytic converter after you broke your car and now it won't turn on anymore.