from Hacker News

EPA Approved a Chevron Fuel Ingredient That Has a Lifetime Cancer Risk

by Trisell on 8/5/23, 1:17 PM with 19 comments

  • by MostlyStable on 8/5/23, 2:45 PM

    Hard to know what to think about this when we know that the estimate is too high, but we have no idea _how much_ too high. From the jet fuel mentioned in the article that has the "1 in 4" cancer risk, the EPA had this to say about it's risk model:

    The agency assumed, for instance, that every plane at an airport would be idling on a runway burning an entire tank of fuel, that the cancer-causing components would be present in the exhaust and that residents nearby would breathe that exhaust every day over their lifetime.

    This seems to support their assertion that the modeled risk is unreasonable. But that unfortunately doesn't tell us what it actually is. Also, I'd love to know: was it EPA scientists making these assumptions in their models? If so, then why? The cynical part of me wants to say that it's to create exactly this scenario: They can dismiss the results as unreasonable, and since that's the only version they ran, they don't have reasonable numbers to give us.

  • by EAtmULFO on 8/5/23, 2:09 PM

    The actual process followed and the EPA's summary of the decision: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23863526-epa-hq-oppt...

  • by sneilan1 on 8/5/23, 2:11 PM

    I read the article and missed the ingredient name that is so toxic everyone gets cancer from it. What is the name of the new ingredient that was approved?

  • by gruez on 8/5/23, 2:15 PM

    >That calculation, which was confirmed by the EPA, came out to 1.3 in 1, meaning every person exposed to it over the course of a full lifetime would be expected to get cancer.

    That's not how probabilities work. The average person might be expected to get 1.3 cancers over their lifetime (assuming they don't die early), but that doesn't guarantee that every person exposed to it will get cancer.

  • by hanniabu on 8/5/23, 1:55 PM

    This link is impossible to read on mobile, can't even scroll

    Edit, actually it's a full screen ad that's really difficult to get around

  • by midhhhthrow on 8/5/23, 2:21 PM

    They said t was a boat fuel. So how do you avoid it? Just don’t eat seafood??