BPA Replacement Is Like MTBE All Over Again

In the 'something else is better than what we are hysterical about' world of environmental crackpottery, there is no better example than ~~DDT~~, ~~Alar~~, ~~MTBE~~, BPA irrationality.

But it isn't the first. California, with its zeal to raise octane and cause fossil fuels to burn 'cleaner' gave us MTBE, methyl tertiary butyl ether - (CH₃)₃COCH₃.

This oxygenate was added because leaded gasoline was eeeevil and so Congress even jumped on board, setting oxygenate requirements in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments that only MTBE could fulfill. Because smog is worse in the winter, some cities even had higher requirements for MTBE so gas could burn cleaner.

The problem became that the cure was worse than the disease. MTBE was believed to be harmless in the quantities used but vague numerical models did not account for how much gasoline accidentally gets spilled when people put gas in their cars. We got contamination of public and private drinking water supplies and the oil companies who were forced to switch to that nonsense were suddenly on the hook for billions in cleanup costs.

BPA, this is your future.

What is the problem with BPA? None that I can find but people wouldn't be hysterical about it if they did not know something science does not know, right?

Old NID

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