IIRC NY Thruway Authority was using in their bridge concrete. The small particle size made for stronger concrete and made it less impervious to water thus reducing frost damage.


Hmmmmm...........

we make a lot more flyash than anyone can use. A bit of it also goes in asphalt. It is a bit too radioactive, and loaded with heavy metals and arsenic, for other potential uses. Duke energy is not dumping anything it could sell.

Doesn't say where they are going to put it.

Wonder whose back yard?

Not the best but better than just leaving it as is.

BTW coal fly ash is one of the reasons that all the power plants have switched to
natural gas.

FGD = Flue Gas Desulphurization (sludge)

It is a product of stripping SO2 and SO3 from the exhaust gasses to prevent acid rain. It is done by water spray extraction creating sulphuric and sulphamic acids. These are neutralized with powered lime creating an acidic gypsum sludge, and a coal fired power plant makes a lot of it. It is better on the ground than in the air, but only so much better unless you dispose of it well.

It also has the problem of being mildly radioactive and containing some mercury and arsenic. Lovely stuff.

Don't dig up and burn the coal in the first place.

gas is far easier on the equipment and leaves little if any residue to deal with. If you make the coal operators cover the expense of properly dealing with the waste, conversions will happen faster and faster. My experience as an environmental scientist in FL included R&D for remediation of this stuff and the quantities are huge.

gas is cheaper
gas is easier to use
gas is cleaner ... still a potent green house gas producer
gas is easier on the equipment
and as you pointed out it doesn't produce tons and tons of dirty byproducts ... fly ash and so on.

This crap has breached before!

We used to call the reddish crap spewed out from the mills: Red Dog (don't know why-don't ask). I recall literally mountains of it on the way into Pittsburgh. Only good use it had, I heard, was in mixing it with this and that to make some very durable roads. Is that the same as Fly Ash I wonder?

We get to pay for it. But at least it's something worth doing. Unlike when we had to pay for Duke's nuclear power plants.

and, yep, Duke sticks it to the rate payers with the government's blessing.

They shouldn't get a choice in the matter.

-- Mal