Global Warming and what you can do to against it
in [Mac Systems]
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From: Richard Maine on 19 Jan 2010 14:47 Kurt Ullman <kurtullman(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > In article <1jck9jm.1pv5h8o8br0acN%nospam(a)see.signature>, > nospam(a)see.signature (Richard Maine) wrote: > > > And that's not even counting the fact that the mercury emitted from > > coal-burning plants is in a far more dangerous form than that in a CFL. > > It isn't as though anything we do is actually creating or destroying > > mercury. The total amount of mercury in the world stays the same (to a > > very good approximation; I think it safe to neglect meteorite impact, > > transmutation, etc.). But coal-burning power plants put it into the air > > in a very bioactive form; yes, that makes a big difference. > I have seen this expoused, but never actually backed up with actual > research. (Haven't seen the opposite backed up either in the interests > of full disclosure). Any place I can go that would be give me an > authoratative discussion of this? I didn't keep the citations, so I can't point you at anything definitive right now, but I once did trace it down. Being a retired engineer and thus into that kind of checking, I even did some back-of-the-envelope calculations to verify that the orders of magnitude made sense. They did. I also played enough with balls of mercury as a kid to have some notion that there must be forms of it that aren't all that horrid or there would have been a whole generation of retards (one could argue... :-)). Our high school, and I think most high schools of the era, had a jar of it in the chem lab and I think everyone played with rolling balls of it around on their hand, as it was sort of odd. Teachers even encouraged it as an illustration of diferent liquid properties. I probably wouldn't really sugest doing that, but we got by with it because it isn't very bioactive that way. If mercury in your house and eventually landfills really upsets you, go after thermometers and thermostats. Not that they use a very bioactive form, but the amount of mercury involved is indeed quite substantial. The amount in a single mercury-switch thermostat is far larger than the amount in all the CFLs you will likely see in your lifetime unless you work in a warehouse of them or something. I've checked that calculation also. Heck, I had a mercury switch thermostat until a few years ago. I don't think they do that for new ones, but there are still an awful lot of existing ones installed. I could look and see the fair-sized blob of mercury in it. I could then do my back-of-the-envelope volume and weight computations from that; if you do such estimates, recall that mercury is heavy. Specific gravity about 13.6 IIRC. So a small-looking blob weights more than you might think. And people would stick mercury thermometers in their mouths; still do. Again, you probably won't find much if anything in the way of new mercury thermometers, but the odds of a diligent search finding one somewhere in the average household must be pretty good based on my observation. Remember to check all kinds of thermometers: air, medical, cooking. -- Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience; email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment. domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain
From: Richard Maine on 19 Jan 2010 15:22 Richard Maine <nospam(a)see.signature> wrote: > Kurt Ullman <kurtullman(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > In article <1jck9jm.1pv5h8o8br0acN%nospam(a)see.signature>, > > nospam(a)see.signature (Richard Maine) wrote: > > > > > And that's not even counting the fact that the mercury emitted from > > > coal-burning plants is in a far more dangerous form than that in a CFL. > > I have seen this expoused, but never actually backed up with actual > > research. (Haven't seen the opposite backed up either in the interests > > of full disclosure). Any place I can go that would be give me an > > authoratative discussion of this? > > I didn't keep the citations, so I can't point you at anything definitive > right now, but I once did trace it down. Being a retired engineer and > thus into that kind of checking, I even did some back-of-the-envelope > calculations to verify that the orders of magnitude made sense. They > did. Responding to my own post, I know, but I just noticed the snopes article cited by Michelle. Sure one can argue that snopes isn't authoritative (though on the whole, it beats the average net stuff by a lot), but go the next step and check out the 2 additional information links in the snopes article, which are to EPA and energystar documents. I just did and those look pretty decent. They even go through some of the rough calculations that I mentioned (for example, showing an older thermostat as having about 1,000 times the mercury of a CFL). They also discuss the bioactive issue a bit and mention that as why you should avoid vacuming broken CFLs. Looks to me about as authoritative as you are going to get easily. If one is into the "anything from the government is tainted" movement, then I suppose one could go after proper scientific publications, but those tend to be harder to track down casually and also harder for the layman to read. Of course, if one also thinks that all scientists are "in on the plot", I can't do much to help. That's particularly so as I used to work for the government (NASA) and could at least loosely be called a rocket scientist (more of an engineer, but then "rocket science" has more to do with engineering than science), so I'm a doubly suspect source myself. -- Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience; email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment. domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain
From: Steve Hix on 19 Jan 2010 16:18 In article <Hc6dnQ2hSKLgnMvWnZ2dnUVZ_tVi4p2d(a)earthlink.com>, Kurt Ullman <kurtullman(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > In article <1jck9jm.1pv5h8o8br0acN%nospam(a)see.signature>, > nospam(a)see.signature (Richard Maine) wrote: > > > > And that's not even counting the fact that the mercury emitted from > > coal-burning plants is in a far more dangerous form than that in a CFL. > > It isn't as though anything we do is actually creating or destroying > > mercury. The total amount of mercury in the world stays the same (to a > > very good approximation; I think it safe to neglect meteorite impact, > > transmutation, etc.). But coal-burning power plants put it into the air > > in a very bioactive form; yes, that makes a big difference. > I have seen this expoused, but never actually backed up with actual > research. (Haven't seen the opposite backed up either in the interests > of full disclosure). Any place I can go that would be give me an > authoratative discussion of this? Look up bioactivity of metallic mercury versus various mercuric compounds. IIRC, for instance, the Minimata disaster was tied to methyl mercury in the diet of victims. Same goes for lead and other heavy metals. Metallic lead isn't much of an issue at all, while lead oxide and other more soluble lead salts are much worse from a public heal standpoint.
From: Greg Buchner on 19 Jan 2010 16:38 In article <190120101023379268%fake(a)notreal.net>, "Ed H." <fake(a)notreal.net> wrote: > But then ALL fluorescent bulbs have a small amount of mercury in them. > That means virtually all office buildings, factories, retail stores, > etc. that are illuminated with fluorescent tubes. I seriously doubt > most of these entities have been disposing of them properly over the > past decades. They have been in widespread use for more that fifty > years, so why the concern now? Once upon a time, before this was a big environmental concern, I worked for a company that handled the lighting at many office building and stores. They would replace any burned out fluorescent tubes and bring them back to the warehouse where they were eventually hauled away (and not by the garbage company, I just didn't pay attention to who did it.) And every so often, a crew would go through an office or a store and wash the fixtures and replace all of the bulbs. Usually when they were getting close to their recommended lifespan. I would figure that these days, those bulbs would be handled far better than the common household CFL. Greg B. -- Actual e-mail address is gregbuchner and I'm located at gmail.com
From: VAXman- on 19 Jan 2010 16:38
In article <1jck9jm.1pv5h8o8br0acN%nospam(a)see.signature>, nospam(a)see.signature (Richard Maine) writes: >Ed H. <fake(a)notreal.net> wrote: > >> In article <00A97BDA.E5B03378(a)SendSpamHere.ORG>, < @SendSpamHere.ORG> >> wrote: > >> > FWIW, something for the "greenies" to consider. It takes considerable more >> > energy to create the typical compact fluorescent lamp. Also, these compact >> > fluorescents have mercury in them. How much more toxic mercury will be in- >> > troduced to the environment when people carelessly toss them out with their >> > typical rubbish bound for the landfill. >> > >> >> But then ALL fluorescent bulbs have a small amount of mercury in them. >> That means virtually all office buildings, factories, retail stores, >> etc. that are illuminated with fluorescent tubes. I seriously doubt >> most of these entities have been disposing of them properly over the >> past decades. They have been in widespread use for more that fifty >> years, so why the concern now? > >Because someone with an axe to grind started a FUD campaign. > >There is more mercury put into the environment by incandescents than by >CFLs. That's because the largest source of hazardous mercury in the >environment is from coal-burning power plants. The higher energy use of >an incandescent is enough to put well more mercury into the environment >through the coal plants than is in a comparable CFL. > >And that's not even counting the fact that the mercury emitted from >coal-burning plants is in a far more dangerous form than that in a CFL. >It isn't as though anything we do is actually creating or destroying >mercury. The total amount of mercury in the world stays the same (to a >very good approximation; I think it safe to neglect meteorite impact, >transmutation, etc.). But coal-burning power plants put it into the air >in a very bioactive form; yes, that makes a big difference. Mercury (Hg, atomic number 80) is an element. There is no other kind. -- VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG http://www.quirkfactory.com/popart/asskey/eqn2.png "Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?" |