The phasing out of 100LL, a process that is sadly only beginning now, is an opportunity to cast light aviation, a segment that overwhelmingly still uses leaded gasoline, as clean. The point is, we don't really have to be clean, no more than cars and trucks do. We just need to be no dirtier than they are, at least in terms of emissions. It's something that the creators of our most common aviation gasoline, 100LL, got. Without saying so, the name implies that the lead content of our fuel is really, really low. It's not. In fact, as I've pointed out previously here, 100LL is lower in lead than only the leaded 100 octane that high-performance piston-powered aircraft used. It actually has more lead than the old 80 octane that was no longer widely available. The net outcome of our switch to 100LL means that our flying is possibly more full of lead than before.
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