Lead for life - the history of leaded petrol

This is the shocking story of how the big oil companies sought huge profits by adding lead to petrol from the 1920s onwards in full knowledge of its negative effect on health and despite the existence of healthier alternatives such as bio-fuel. Although lead made petrol more efficient, it had been known to be poisonous since Roman times. The hundreds of thousands of tons of lead that have been spread around the world can be proven to have impaired the brain function of millions around the world.

In their early days motor cars ran on a variety of different fuels. The competition between the rival fuel suppliers was fierce. But this all changed when two new fuel formulations were discovered that banished the “knocking” effect that had plagued high compression engines. One was to add alcohol, distilled from farm crops, to petrol. The other was to add lead. After a fierce battle it was the lead formulation that won the day, thanks in no small part to the higher profits it delivered to the oil companies.

Unfortunately lead had a major drawback, it had been known to be poisonous since Roman times. However political power-play steamrollered over the concerns raised by the public.

Health problems associated with lead exposure started with the factory workers who produced the fuel. They then spread to people and animals that lived in polluted areas. Finally research studies in the 1960s and 1970s proved that the world’s population was being poisoned, with a measurable drop in IQ of those affected. Leaded petrol was banned shortly afterwards but its effects live on in the brains of all those who grew up in the leaded era.

The two most shocking revelations of this balanced film are:

(1) that leaded fuel remains in use in some developing countries to this day; and

(2) that the addition of agricultural ethanol to petrol (bio fuel) was proposed as an alternative to lead right at the very start by the same scientist, but was discounted because it was less profitable for the oil companies.

National curriculum links:           

·          Geography KS3: 1e, 4b, 5a, 5b, 6j, 6k

·          Geography KS4: humanities entitlement statement

·          Design & technology KS3: 3e

·          Design & technology KS4: 1d

·          Citizenship KS3: 1i, 2b

·          Citizenship KS4: 1j

·          Science KS3: 1c

·          Science KS4 (breadth of study): 1a, 1c