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Surprise! More Than Twice As Much Mercury In Environment As Thought
sciencehabit writes The most comprehensive estimate of mercury released into the environment is putting a new spotlight on the potent neurotoxin. By accounting for mercury in consumer products, such as thermostats, and released by industrial processes, the calculations more than double previous tallies of the amount of mercury that has entered the environment since 1850. The analysis also reveals a previously unknown spike in mercury emissions during the 1970s, caused largely by the use of mercury in latex paint.
Compared the coal-fired electric plant, that's nothing.
Except CFLs are regulated to have less than 2.5mg of mercury in and some will no doubt have a lot less.
CFLs prevent more mercury from being released into the environment via coal than they release: ...
How much Mercury is in Compact Fluorescent ( CFL ) bulbs , watch
Of course LEDs are better, do you have an argument against those?
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Correct, mercury is mined from fish. (sarcasm)
Mercury is 'mined'. It was locked up nicely in rocks that were below ground. Once released it is then in the air, water soil etc - not where you want it.
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Also, the 48" straight florescent bulbs that everyone use to have in their garage and above their workbench contained 85 mg of mercury (per bulb) up through 1990; are now limited (!) to 25 mg. Haven't heard any complaints about those from the rolling coal set.
sPh
... ca. 1953, my daddy worked in a oil refinery and he'd bring home small sample bottles full of mercury.
We puzzled at it, amazed at how heavy the bottle was and stuff. We poured some in our hands and rolled it around.
Then we coated dimes and pennies with it to make them look like silver and played with those.
Fast-forward 25 years and I'm an instrument man in an oil refinery lab and I'm calibrating a pneumatic gauge with a manometer that uses lots of mercury and I get a case of the dumbass and blow mercury all the way to the ceiling, all over counter tops and on the flour.
They evacuated the entire lab and sent in the hazmat team and stuff.
It's funny how things change with education and I never experienced any fallout from the big white letter E on my keyboard with the bluetooth that clasps to the ballpoint pen of my mother's daisy.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.