8 ms·
Wow, Thomas Midgley, Jr. died from his own Heath Robinson contraption for lifting him out of bed but not before he put lead into petrol and created CFCs. Should
by bogle 7y ago
Wow, Thomas Midgley, Jr. died from his own Heath Robinson contraption for lifting him out of bed but not before he put lead into petrol and created CFCs. Should have done those the other way around and saved us all a whole lot of grief.
- probably_wrong 7y agoFor those that didn't follow the link to Thomas Midgley Jr.'s Wikipedia page, the "Legacy" section is definitely worth a read: > Midgley's legacy has been scarred by the negative environmental impact of leaded gasoline and Freon. Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history", and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny". Multiple sources seem to agree that the reason he chose to add lead to gasoline rather than ethanol (which was both greener and cheaper) was due to profit: his company could patent leaded gasoline, but not ethanol. That's an interesting lesson that we should learn any day now.
- shoo 7y ago> "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history" Interesting! Fritz Haber & Robert Le Rossignol (who are both out of the running for being killed by their own inventions) might have a reasonable competing claim to their shares in "most impact on the atmosphere" for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process > Due to its dramatic impact on the human ability to grow food, the Haber process served as the "detonator of the population explosion", enabling the global population to increase from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7.7 billion by November 2018. [...] Nearly 50% of the nitrogen found in human tissues originated from the Haber-Bosch process. Being responsible for removing a bottleneck that enabled +100% more biomass of tool-using fossil-fuel-burning* primates arguably may have been a much larger indirect impact on the atmosphere (and many other things, for better or worse), leaving aside the direct impact on the nitrogen cycle. * also, for various subsets of primates, perhaps add: airplane-flying, meat-eating, truck-driving, aircon-running, tree-planting, fish-catching, land-clearing, television-watching, hackernews-reading, list-enumerating, ...
- alexanderdmitri 7y agoIf I remember correctly, Haber freed up a great deal of labor to be put into the Germany's military complex which empowered the country for WWI which embittered the country leading to WWII. I think nitrogen run off from soil has had quite an impact on changing water habitats as well, eutrophication and fish getting beat out by algae for limited oxygen resources.
- InitialLastName 7y agoOn a (slightly) smaller scale he also figured out how to weaponize chlorine gas and heavily evangelized its use (to the extent of bringing a tank to the front against orders and releasing it at Ypres).
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoAs father of chemical weapons he oversaw their use on the battlefield and gave the world Haber's rule for more effective mass gassing. Mustard gas too, and I think he even had some part in development of Zyklon B. He was completely unapologetic about it - he thought gas a better form of killing. Both his wife and daughter seem to borne some guilt from his poison gas work. His wife committed suicide a week after Ypres - though some have disputed if it was connected. His daughter's suicide was on learning her research into poison gas cures couldn't be continued. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber's_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber's_rule
- InitialLastName 7y agoYeah that dude killed people and damaged the earth on a whole bunch of different scales.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bredren 7y ago>Multiple sources seem to agree that the reason he chose to add lead to gasoline rather than ethanol (which was both greener and cheaper) was due to profi And profit for what? His immediate use? I’m not seeing any indication of a family in his bios. Where did all of that wealth go?
- probably_wrong 7y ago> Where did all of that wealth go? According to "The secret history of lead" [1]: > With a legal monopoly based on patents that would provide a royalty on practically every gallon of gasoline sold for the life of its patent, Ethyl promised to make GM shareholders–among whom the du Ponts, Alfred Sloan and Charles Kettering were the largest–very rich. (...) In April 1923, (...) the General Motors Chemical Company was established to produce TEL, with Charles Kettering as president and Thomas Midgley as vice president. So it seems most of it went to GM, Du-Pont, and Standard Oil. As for who inherited his personal fortune, he had a wife and two children [2]. [1] https://www.thenation.com/article/secret-history-lead/ https://www.thenation.com/article/secret-history-lead/ [2] https://www.nndb.com/people/727/000205112/ https://www.nndb.com/people/727/000205112/
- bredren 7y agoWell, I suppose there was value for some people in these atrocious inventions.
- bubblewrap 7y agoThe lesson being that we should let companies profit from stuff? After all, if they could have profited from Ethanol, they would have chosen that...
- hyperpallium 7y agoIf ethanol was better and unpatentable, competitors could have used it instead of paying patent licensing fees.
- jandrese 7y agoEthanol has downsides too, like eating up the rubber bits in your fuel system.
- mhh__ 7y agoI thought that was methanol or is it both?
- jandrese 7y agoEthanol too. That's why you need to be careful if you have an older car and live in one of those states that does E85.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoE85 pumps are clearly marked. It's E15 that is the threat.
- _jal 7y agoAre you claiming that history Did It Wrong, because econ-101 says so?
- shawnz 7y agoNo, they are claiming that history did it right: Obviously leaded gasoline actually did appear to be the better choice at that time, or else people would have just used the non-patent-encumbered ethanol. The grandparent is the one claiming history did it wrong, by using leaded gasoline even though ethanol gasoline would have been the better choice.
- refurb 7y agoSlightly unfair to condemn a man for risks nobody knew about, no?
- duskwuff 7y agoHe gets a pass on CFCs. Lead, though... the acute toxicity of lead compounds was known at the time. Workers making tetraethyllead were frequently poisoned, often fatally.
- smacktoward 7y agoMidgely absolutely knew of the risks of lead, or at least he should have -- he had to take a leave of absence from his work to recover from a case of lead poisoning, and so many workers in the plant that made tetraethyl lead (TEL) developed inexplicable odd behaviors from their own cases that locals referred to the plant as "the loony gas building." Worse still, Midgely worked actively to cover the risks of lead up. He even held a press conference in 1924 where, to assure reporters that TEL was safe, he washed his hands in a bowl of the stuff (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40593353 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40593353)! Deborah Blum covered the whole story in her excellent 2011 book, The Poisoner's Handbook (https://www.amazon.com/Poisoners-Handbook-Murder-Forensic-Medicine/dp/014311882X https://www.amazon.com/Poisoners-Handbook-Murder-Forensic-Me...). Blum excerpted the story of TEL for a piece in Wired, which can be read here: https://www.wired.com/2013/01/looney-gas-and-lead-poisoning-a-short-sad-history/ https://www.wired.com/2013/01/looney-gas-and-lead-poisoning-...
- refurb 7y agoSure, but just because it’s dangerous to manufacture doesn’t mean you can’t use it. Otherwise we’d never have nuclear power.
- ncmncm 7y agoHmmmm. Insight almost dawning.
- vkou 7y ago
- hef19898 7y agoYeah, legendary guy. Not technically an inventor but this guy had his share of fuck ups as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Dyatlov https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Dyatlov Still, he didn't get killed by it right away...
- abrookewood 7y agoSlightly off topic - there is a dramatisation of the Chernobyl disaster that looks riveting: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7366338/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7366338/
- hef19898 7y agoWatched each Episode twice already, episode 5 is only airing Sky next week over here!
- mesofile 7y agoI've watched it all now, and I think it's a great dramatic work, well worth seeing. I would also urge anyone who watches it to read some nonfiction around the event; there are a number of recent articles about the series that provide some factual context and corrections. Here is a good one: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-hbos-chernobyl-got-right-and-what-it-got-terribly-wrong https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-hbos-cher...
- HNLurker2 7y agoIt is on my watch later list: thank you for reinforcing it.
- ivl 7y agoI mean, lead is a fantastic lubricant for petrol. Of course the consequences of it are not typically worthwhile, but there's a reason 100LL is still quite commonly available. It just works better.
- sokoloff 7y agoIt's not for its lubricating properties, but rather for increasing detonation margin [commonly expressed as a higher octane rating], particularly on high-effective-compression engines [whether high static compression or turbo/super-charged applications]. There are a lot of "old wives tales" about the lead being useful for lubrication or "cushioning the valves" or other nonsense that has been substantially debunked.
- ncmncm 7y agoOne of the reasons GM was bullish on lead was it made engines wear out very fast. Good for sales.
- mhh__ 7y agoThe alternative to CFCs as a refrigerant was Sulphur Dioxide and Ammonia etc., using it saved lives (With obviously unforseen consequences that we now know about)
- refurb 7y agoThis is true. CFCs were a HUGE improvement over past refrigerants. And during their discovery, nobody knew what they would do to the ozone layer.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]