On leaded and unleaded gas

In a letter to The Jakarta Post of Oct. 24, 1997, we were invited to enlighten the public with unbiased scientific information on unleaded gasoline. For good reasons, practically all countries in the world are eliminating or have already eliminated lead in gasoline. Only OCTEL in England, the last major producer of lead additives for gasoline, still strongly supports leaded gasoline in various ways and with obvious motivation. The Ethyl Corporation and Du Pont in the USA were forced to stop the production of lead additives around 1980 because of their high toxicity.

In Jakarta, nearly one million kilograms of lead will be used in gasoline this year. Leaded gasoline is the main source of lead poisoning and the elimination of leaded gasoline in other countries has reduced lead pollution drastically.

We push for lead free gasoline not only because of the toxicity of lead, but also because it allows the use of catalytic converters, which reduce CO, NOx and hydrocarbon pollution to about 10 percent in cars and to about 30 percent in motorcycles.

Every vehicle sold without a catalytic converter pollutes at an irreversibly high level for its entire life cycle. This is why it is important to have unleaded gasoline and catalytic converters as quickly as possible, to stabilize pollution at the lowest possible level. The Association of Indonesian Automotive Industries announced it will equip new vehicles with catalytic converters as soon as unleaded gasoline is widely available.

Unleaded gasoline will allow the use of modern engine management that reduces fuel consumption by about 15 percent, as well as reducing maintenance costs. This not only offsets the approximately Rp 60 higher production cost of unleaded gasoline, but also reduces the emission of the greenhouse gas CO2 by 15 percent. The recently introduced ultra-lean direct injection engines, which reduce fuel consumption and pollution by a further 30 percent, depend also on unleaded gasoline. Thus the potential in cost, pollution and natural resource savings with unleaded gasoline is huge.

The aromatics that were described as problematic in unleaded gasoline are already high in Indonesia's leaded gasoline, and unleaded gasoline does not necessarily lead to a further increase. In any case, we agree that aromatics like benzene can and should be reduced by isomerization, alkylation, oxygenation or polymerization processes in the refineries. The future use of catalytic converters in new vehicles will progressively reduce residual benzene in exhaust gases.

The Segar Jakartaku (my fresh Jakarta) campaign for cleaner air in Jakarta has no vested interest except the health of Jakarta's population. The project, executed in collaboration with Indonesian authorities, is financed by Swiss taxpayers and strives also for cleaner buses as well as improved inspection and maintenance of all vehicles.

DAVID KUPER, HUGO SAGER

Swisscontact

Jakarta