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Working Towards an Eco-Friendly Fireworks Display
phobos13013 writes "Here's an article just in time for 4th of July fireworks shows! The ACS's Chemical and Engineering News provides a fairly technical discussion about the hazardous chemicals in modern fireworks displays. Perchlorate is currently the oxidizer of choice in fireworks, but it is also known to be a thyroid blocker. Since perchlorates are water-soluble anions, they dissolve into groundwater quickly. A study performed last summer over a lake in Ada, Oklahoma showed that less than a day after a fireworks display, the lake's chlorate levels jumped by a factor of 1,000. It took weeks for the levels to drop back down to their baseline. On the other hand, heavy metals are used to produce the pretty colors typically associated with the best fireworks. The trend is to start using nitrogen-based oxidizing fireworks; they produce less smoke, which means a smaller amount of colorizing agents can be used in displays."
I was thinking that it wasn't "just in time" but instead a moment of opportunity because the rest of the year no one would care.
Fireworks drive away evil spirits, so, you know, really, the more poisonous the better.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
How about **watching** the fireworks instead? Yeah I know that's an outlandish idea, but try it some time... you see all these pretty patterns!
Compared to all the tailpipe emissions of people driving to the firework display, the chemicals used on the lawns they are sitting on, the peroxide the "blonds" all used to bleach their hair etc etc, the chemicals in the actual fireworks are insignificant.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...if these levels are affected by the show I just saw.
I'm currently in Barcelona, Spain and witnessed the best July 4th Fireworks show I have ever seen, including any Disney display.
But the most relevant part was that they shot fireworks off the pier into the mar, sea, which exploded off of the water, something I doubt they would do in America...
A once a year, thousand times spike in a trace amount chemical, and it dissipates within a month? Let's get a little perspective? How many plastic water bottles and cigarette butts find their way into the same lake, and how long does it take them to dissipate? How much waste comes out of the nearest McDonald's location in a single day? From the nearest coal fired power plant? There are bigger problems to deal with than a dubious annual spike in a trace chemical.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The only reason that activist is bothered by it is because she doesn't like fireworks. She had no problems with vacuuming, even though that's another loud noise that her dog doesn't like.
SRSLY.
I just plum don't give a fuck.
But green's my favorite color!
Actually I'm really enjoying the new innovations that don't have to do with color. Every year at the fireworks display at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, VA near where I live they usually show a new concept. One year was the rocket that bursts in a ring. Then they made a smiley face using two blue dots for eyes and several pink dots for a mouth inside the circle. Then they came up with a circle with a heart in it and last night they had rockets that burst in a star pattern. The star pattern wasn't as well-defined as the smiley and the heart, but it was still really cool.
My 12-year-old joked that soon we'd start hearing reports about how fireworks contribute to global warming. I'm all for environmental considerations, and the idea of eliminating heavy metals and perchlorates is really great, but I am so sick of the uninformed hysteria that usually accompanies the topic.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
This is *not* insightful (and I'm wasting my change to mod it overrated to try and correct it).
1) Nitrogen is one of the most available chemicals on the planet.
2) *Nitrates* are the biologically available form of nitrogen.
3) Farmers dump hundreds of pounds to tons of fertilizer on their fields; depending on crop, soil, etc.
4) As far as I can tell, nitrates are not a major combustion product of nitrocellulose. You can get some
nitrogen dioxide as a seconday byproduct, but no more so than anything else burned in
the atmopshere at high temperatures, including perchlorate fireworks. The main effect of which would
seem to be some minor acidification; NO2 -> N2O4, N2O4 + H2O -> HNO2 + HNO3.
Were that I say, pancakes?
"How many people ACTUALLY have hunting dogs? Really? What percentage?"
That depends on where you live. Many people in rural and semi-rural areas ("flyover country" to the Slashdotian Urban Sophisticates) have hunting dogs. I don't hunt with dogs so I don't have a "percentage" figure, but packs are quite common in the Southeast.
"Sure, animals should be for food, and skins, but killing them for shits and giggles is kind of dubious."
We don't need the skins for survival and meat is optional, so why exempt those uses? Bossy is just as dead when the pneumatic bolt shatters her skull as Bambi is when the broadhead crashes through her heart.
Why, exactly, should we as apex predators not hunt if it we wish to do so?
If you prefer not to hunt, then don't. It is that simple. There are cities, where those who like urban life should stay so as not to be confronted with anything different. There are other areas for those who like a different lifestyle. We need never meet or affect each other.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."