The Eliminate Aviation Gasoline Lead Emissions (EAGLE) group says there is no congressional mandate to have an unleaded alternative fuel to replace 100LL by the end of 2030 or any other date. In response to our commentary on the subject and numerous reader comments, the organization issued a statement to AvBrief Tuesday to clarify what it says is a “common misconception” about the process to get rid of leaded avgas.
“There is no federal ‘mandate’ in law. The 2024 FAA Reauthorization does not specially set a date in stone. In Sec 827 the law says that the FAA shall continue the EAGLE initiative thru 2030 and ‘facilitate’ (word pulled from the law): The safe elimination of leaded aviation gasoline by the end of 2030 without harming the safe and efficient operation of the piston-engine fleet; approval of unleaded fuels for all piston aircraft and engine models; broad availability of approved unleaded fuels at airports and development and publication of a formal transition plan.”
EAGLE also said Innospec, the British company that is the lone supplier of tetraethyl lead used to boost octane in 100LL, has never said it is going to stop making TEL by 2030. He said that notion came out of a misquote attributed to an EAGLE board member. The board member never made that statement. AvBrief has tried numerous times to contact Innospec on this topic but has never received a response. We tried again Tuesday but haven’t gotten an answer yet.
A simplified understanding of how reduced or eliminated TEL works within the industry can be represented here:
There is a great deal of overlap with these organizations but the demand by EPA is the real motivator. Using the transition to 100LL from 100/130 as an example, FAA involvement is more oversight than anything else. They play a role in ensuring EPA emission standards are met and verify that TC holders meet those requirements in a manner that compliments established safety standards.
The two main protagonists in this story can be defined as the EPA and collective body of political theorists. The former moved ahead with an ideal in spite of its own formal airborne lead testing, and the latter did what all politicians do.
Current EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin was recently willing to repeal the endangerment finding for greenhouse gas emissions, which was the underpinning of all Clean Air Act regulation of those emissions. Given that, it would appear repealing the endangerment finding for leaded aviation fuel would be unlikely to find any significant opposition within this Administration or Republican-controlled Congress.
Indeed. It seems Mr. Zeldin would be inclined to repeal the Clean Air Act in its entirety which would basically dismantle the reason for the EPA’s existence. But lowering the bar has never been an inspirational target, unless you own a fleet of Cessna 402s or just laid down a tidy sum for that new SR22T.
As much as I disagree with the EPA’s proclamation to users of leaded Avgas, the Clean Air Act does have value, and does exist to push technology to higher levels of achievement. At leasts that’s what it says in the brochure.
Anything Mr. Zeldin does is a short term solution, and will be undone by an equally zealous visionary from another camp.
What we need is an acknowledgement from those manufacturers producing the need to burn leaded fuel that they are engaged and engineering remedies to allow for unleaded fuel to be burned in the stuff they sold, and the stuff they continue to make.
“What we need…”
That could have been written much better but you get the point, I’m sure. Too early this morning.
“EAGLE also said Innospec, the British company that is the lone supplier of tetraethyl lead used to boost octane in 100LL, has never said it is going to stop making TEL by 2030″.
What is guaranteed is that at some point they will stop making TEL, whether by choice or economics or some other factor. To pretend that is not the case is to ensure that the aircraft that truly do need 100LL will be without a fuel at some point, unless a replacement becomes available.
Perhaps I stand corrected on my comment a few days ago about the manufacturer of TEL stopping production in 2030
Memory fades as to exactly where I read that they would, but I did read it somewhere written by what at the time I would consider a responsible source.
Given the magnitude of this situation I would think it would only be appropriate for the sole provider of the lead additive “Innospec , specialty chemical company “ would respond to “AvBrief.com “ who currently is the premier reporter for General Aviation news and information, and put to rest all this drama!!
It seems the comments I posted disappeared, but I was saying that even if Innospec isn’t stating they will stop production of TEL, at some point that will happen. And if there isn’t a widely-available replacement fuel, those aircraft that require 100LL will be grounded, so we should proceed as if they will stop producing it after 2030.
I, too, was wondering where I read that Innospec wanted to get out of the TEL business. I did a Google news search on “Innospec Tetraethyl Lead”. There were many hits, but only one specifically said they wanted out. It was an AvWeb article from last year (04/03/25) where then AOPA President Darren Pleasance spoke at Sun ‘n Fun. Pleasance [said] the company [Innospec] told him it will continue to make TEL at least until the congressionally mandated end date for 100LL availability of 2030. He also said Innospec wants to get out of the TEL business and “is motivated for the transition to unleaded fuel to be successful.”
The article went on to explain that producing TEL is hard on the equipment and that Innospec is likely facing costly maintenance to continue producing TEL past 2030. So, if the market is going away they’ll likely not make the investment and let production die out.
I am glad to see this and in some ways hope 100LL remains available as necessary. As a long time turbocharged-engine race car guy (40 years now) I know just how difficult it is to achieve unleaded high octane fuel. We’ve been able to pull off very high octane and high boost ONLY with difficult to deal with fuels. Until GAMI, there has never been an unleaded, non oxygenated ‘normal’ fuel that can do the job. The aviation world is no different, conventional hydrocarbons simply can’t do it without some form of octane booster. Practical reality, 97 octane is what we can achieve R+M/2. Here’s my prediction: GAMI’s fuel will require aircraft fuel system modifications due to the amine meta-toluide’s harshness towards O-Rings and sealants. Binary fuels like Swift’s original 100 octane (TMB and Isopentane) will require a turbine engine-like high energy ignition system for cold weather light-off. At the moment, there are no other adequate octane options.
…and as must be getting old for other readers here but yet addressed by stakeholders…given oft quoted majority by population of GA does not require 100LL…
How about a technically easy win that shows progress towards addressing lead concerns?…pony up grants for adding unleaded/non-alcohol fuel to airfield infrastructure. In those states that do not currently support alcohol free mogas, highlight that allowing alcohol free mogas supports immediate lead reduction…and us bottom feeders don’t pay a premium for something we don’t need and may attack our fuel system (especially experimentals).
Addressing the majority of the fuel burn as requiring 100LL, there’s an economic incentive to provide a solution and the smaller fleet size is perhaps more uniformly equipped and with fewer fuel system variations impacted by material incompatibility…though if different fuels are incompatible, that’s either a no go, an authorized monopoly or a directed licensing agreement.
“given oft quoted majority by population of GA does not require 100LL…”
The basic statistic is that 20-30% of the fleet consumes 70-80% of avgas produced. And those 20-30% are engines that require 100/130 octane fuel. Think big piston singles and twins, both normally-aspirated and turbocharged. So the stat that most planes don’t need 100 octane is true, but they’re consuming less than a third of the fuel produced.
This stat comes from the FAA’s Unleaded Avgas Transition Aviation Rulemaking Committee, dated Feb 17, 2012
UATARC [faa.gov]
The link is to a collection of reports in one PDF. Skip down to the “FAA UAT ARC – Final Report”. Page 14 of that report (page 22 of the whole document) has this quote:
On page 24 of the report (page 31 of the document) they go to explain further:
Some have argued that the stat is old. One argument is many of those big piston singles and twins have been replaced by turboprops. But there hasn’t been a commensurate drop in avgas sales to reflect such a massive sea change. Hand in glove with the above is the argument that the training fleet has increased, offsetting the loss of fuel sales made by big piston singles and twins. And so more (even most?) fuel sales are now made to planes that could happily burn mogas or low-octane avgas.
Yes, training has picked up. We’ve all seen or heard of flocks of 172s droning around the pattern carrying students and CFIs toward their aviation careers. Looking at the FAA survey data found here (General Aviation and Part 135 Activity Surveys [faa.gov], back in 2012 (the date of the UATARC report), about 48% of piston engine hourly travel was private, and 23% instructional. In 2024 (the most recent data available), they were roughly equal at 29 and 28% respectively. The number of private flight hours remained about the same, but instructional hours more than doubled.
However, that still wouldn’t be enough. Consider, for example, a Cessna 172 has an average fuel burn of 8-9 gallons per hour. A Cessna 210, on the other hand, burns almost twice that amount. And Cessna Twins can burn twice that again, with some turbo models consuming up to 50 gallons per hour. And, according to the FAA study, they flew “far more hours” than light singles, burning a lot more gas each hour. A 172 would have to fly up to five hours to equal a one hour flight in a Cessna 421.
So, while the consumption difference between big engines requiring high octane and small singles may be closer to 70/30 than 80/20, it’s still the case that most of the avgas sold is used by engines that require 100 octane.
A partial solution of freeing up availability of ethanol-free mogas would be a step in the right direction in terms of overall lead-emissions reduction. But it’s a divide-and-conquer strategy. Airports would need to add a second or third tank and pump (in addition to Jet-A and 100LL). However this would only be dispensing less than a third of the fuel but with all the expense of an additional tank/pump. Environmentalists would simply say it’s not enough and target that now reduced fleet of remaining “polluters” for elimination. For getting rid of 30% of the fleet is easier than all “rich boys’ toys”. And once they’re gone, the anti-airport types can then point to reduced operations at the local airport because the commercial operations are gone and all that’s left are “rich boys’ toys” and why does that airport even need to exist…? As Ben Franklin once put it, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
PS – I’ll add one anecdote. I briefly helped wrench on a fleet of Cessna T206 survey planes with camera pods in their bellies. They flew all day, every day, for around a month before moving on to survey another region of the country. Between the four planes we were doing a 100-hour inspection every couple of days. There are a lot of such commercial aircraft out flying without notice or fanfare, going about their business Monday through Friday when most weekend warriors are not at the airport. They don’t appear in the usual flying magazines and so go unnoticed. It’s somewhat like cars vs tractor-trailers – if you only drove on weekends and rarely on highways it’d be easy to think there aren’t many semis out there at all.
Yes there is a divide conquer risk. But those of us bottom feeders are also at economic risk of higher fuel costs and tbd fuel system impacts (more $$) forcing us out of aviation.
If the argument is cater to those that burn the most, that seems like an argument for Jet A and nothing else.
If it’s about democracy by population (not economics), then us non-100LL’rs deserve the same carve out as the 100LL’rs want vs Jet A.
Sounds like a continuation of the same BS government-industry “initiative” where the only real deadline is the next funding cycle. Committees stay busy, studies keep getting commissioned, research dollars keep flowing, and the finish line somehow always remains just over the horizon.
The question that should be asked ask of Inospec is “will their plant be certified to manufacture beyond 2030”. It may already be “out of hours” and already on an extension. One has to ask “why would any management board spend shareholders money refurbishing a plant whose product is obsolete?.