First post, hopefully not the last.
Ok, so I already have another blog, but this one is going to be about science and science things that come to mind.
I was talking with a co-worker earlier today about the dangers of mercury (those real versus imaginary). No time to get into details on that, but mercury is not as dangerous as people sometimes say. Yes, I'm a heretic. But we got talking about other pollutants such as PCBs and arsenic. Also there's the story about the Sudbury ON nickel smelting stack that killed all the trees around the city. Their solution was build the smoke stack higher. Low and behold the immediate damage of the pollution was abated. And it got me thinking: we can divide atmospheric pollutants into two kinds, those that specifically benefit from being dispersed (type A) and those which ought to be contained (type B). Examples of type A pollutants are sulfur dioxide or ozone (though debatable). In trace enough quantities some chemicals are not harmful, but at higher doses can kill readily. Type B include carbon dioxide, which is not harmful when condensed, but of course when dispersed globally causes planetary warming. Type A might also include aerosols, as the more finely divided they (in air) are the more dangerous it is to breathe.
The challenge then is to decide what other chemicals cause more damage from being condensed rather than dispersed. Are radioactive isotopes more dangerous sitting in barrels under bedrock, or should we to slowly dilute them with time? Recall U235 is quite harmless at trace quantities, but at 100% purity...
A lot hinges on how dangerous trace quantities of these materials are. These are very empirical numbers that get revised constantly. Still, it could be a nice launching point for policy making, assuming it hasn't been done already. Note to self: update this post after a more thorough online search.
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