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As I understand it, there are increasing restrictions and calls to ban 2-stroke marine engines for smaller lakes, because the exhaust contains a fair amount of oil mist that settles on the water.

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If nothing else, the noise is a nuisance on small lakes. I grew up next to a small community-governed lake on which all gas was banned. People have been using electric on that lake for ages, which is particularly feasible since it's a small lake (300 acres or so iirc). Electric for small stuff makes a ton of sense and has for a long time.

My parents-in-law also live by a lake where all ICE's are banned. Mostly people row, and a few have electric outboards.

It's really wonderfully quiet, even though it's close to a city.

Besides the oil, the carbureted 2-strokes emit 25%+ of their fuel unburned.

A long time I read about some "next generation" 2-stroke thing, where they had fuel injected directly into the cylinders, after the piston had already blocked the exhaust port. The intake port was only used for air. A bit like those behemoth 2-stroke marine diesel engines.

Evidently it didn't really work out well enough, considering most outboards they sell these days are 4-stroke. I've always had a soft spot for 2-stroke engines, seems so wasteful to "waste" half of the strokes on a 4-stroke. Oh well.

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