Nexus - 0225 - New Times Magazine-pages

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costly. The companies were refining increasing amounts of the cheaper, high-sulphur, high-nitrate oil, but using the same old processes. This in turn led to ever higher levels of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide in vehicle emissions, and people were starting to complain—if not about the environmental effect, then at least about the smell. The smog banks over the bigger American and Australian cities during this period were not, as most people believe, the result of so many more cars on the road, although this, of course, was a contrfbuting factor. The main cause was the vast- ly increased levels of sulphur/nitrogen oxides in the vehicle emis- sions because of the higher levels of contamination in the fuels themselves. The oil companies were once again faced with the dilemma of cleaning up their product or finding another solution that did not affect their profits. The chemical theories and prac- tices of catalytic conversion had been known for many years. It had always been known to the oil companies that they could use these processes to further refine their petroleum products. This, however, would have meant major upgradings of their refineries. Far better if they could get somebody else to foot the bill. Even better if they could get somebody to meet the cost of total responsibility for all the oxides. In the ‘fifties, a lot of work was done trying to utilise the CO: from such fixtures as coal and oil electric power stations to increase plant growth. These efforts failed because of the harmful effects of the concentrations of other pollutants in the exhausts. These were principally the same sulphur/nitrogen oxides. At the time of these experiments, it was discovered that passing the exhaust gases through a filter of platinum caused a catalytic con- version of the oxides to other products which could then be pre- vented from escaping into the greenhouses used for food produc- tion. The problem at the time was that it was not economically feasible to do this: platinum converters are very expensive things, and they do eventually wear out and require replacing. There was an added problem that the eventual by-products were in many cases even more harmful than the original oxides. This informa- tion then remained unused for some decades. Table 2 was not presented to the meeting. trol. It is food industry and water sup- LIES; DAMNED Ean Itis the full sey fre which the 1976-80 ply." STATISTICS section was lifted to produce Table 1. The One source of lead in children’s diets full story shows iH lead a Lia 7 Bled has been the solder of baby food tins and "It's a trick," said Barry Carbon, %¢¢lined continually, unaffected by 4 other canned goods. One industry esti- Director of the Pacis marked rise and fall of lead in petrol, mate is that the amount of lead in Environment Protection Agency. Professor Roger Perry, Professor of Australian baby-food cans has declined to He was looking at the table of US fig- Raviccnmene ane vet Lad about 20 per cent of what it was 15 years ures on blood-lead levels and lead in gaso- ig pa eelogy aed Medicire, 980- Such sources of orally ingested lead line (Table 1) which was used at last July's ©. °\ences | CCDnO OBY An ne; are recognised as being of much greater Lead Roundtable, chaired by then- Pan acre by aeeeetre significance than airborne lead. Recent Environment Minister Ros Kelly and by the Press.” Australian research bears this out and attended by her state counterparts and "The rise and fall of lead levels in blood Shows that airborne lead is very unlikely industry representatives, is related to a whole range of phenomena © cause an Australian child's blood-lead He called ita trick when he was shown, —Jead in paint, in water, in dust, in solder, levels to exceed safety levels adopted by for the first time, another table which food canning, and the like—and it is very the National Health and Medical Research showed the long-term relationship easy politically to ignore these major Council. between US blood-lead levels and lead in sources. None of these high lead levels was gasoline (Table 2), "If you look at the graph relating to linked to airbome lead. Table 1 shows what appears as a clear blood leads, it has no correlation whatso- (Source: Simon Grose, The Canberra link between lead in petrol and blood. ever with the changing levels of lead in Times, 26 March 1994) Million Pounds of = lead per year in gasoline GASOLINE LEAD vs. BLOOD LEAD FOR USA Source: Annest (1983) 1925 1930 19351940 1945 1950 19551960 1965 1970 1875 1980 1985 Table 1: This table appears to show a strong correlation between Table 2: The dots in the shading cover about 76 studies of blood- blood-lead levels and lead content of fuel in the US. lead levels. The 1976-80 section was used to produce Table 1. STATISTICS 46 » NEXUS APRIL - MAY 1995 1925 1930 19351940 1945 1950 19551960 1965 1970 1875 1980 1985