On Thursday, January 5, 2017 at 10:50:21 PM UTC-5, Mike Spencer wrote:
writes:
The other eye-catcher was quenching a heat of coke. Did you ever see
that done? It blackened the sky for miles. Not long after, doing it
without filters was outlawed in the US and most of Europe.
Saw that done at Sydney, Nova Scotia, early 70s. Whole flaming rail
car drenched, spectaular at night. A few years later, the mill closed
and the "tar ponds" that collected the runoff became the province's
biggest environmental nightmare.
People who live downwind of those operations in China and India die
at an early age.
AIUI, the health/mortality consequences of decades of coking in Sydney
are still being litigated here.
--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
I find it strange that the health consequences of breathing carbon particulates, which was recognized and a major issue back in the years of political activism for clean air, decades ago, had fallen off the radar again until fairly recently.
When I was a medical editor I saw frequent reports from Europe that identified the health risks presented by diesel automobiles. I remember one study that concluded that 11,000 people per year die prematurely in Europe from that cause alone.
In the meantime, the US had tighter particulate limits on diesel cars than Europe did, which is the main reason we still don't have many diesel cars in the US. But we haven't made a big deal about it, otherwise. Stack scrubbers and other filters helped a lot with power plants and other big coal burners, but the push for diesel cars kept moving forward. The thought was that we could reduce the output to a "safe" level with advancing technology.
Now, it's widely recognized that diesels are killers, even with filtration. It appears that even small additions to the carbon particulates in the atmosphere results in more people dying. There apparently is no "safe" limit.
I think that diesels are about done in the US. And you and I probably are among the last generation to watch a major-scale open quenching of coke.
I hope that you're able to reach a clear conclusion about the health effects people have suffered up there.
--
Ed Huntress