Mercurical
Friday, Jan 6, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
Several stories appeared today about the Governor’s plan to force coal-fired power plants to reduce mercury emissions by 90 percent. This is one example.
Lawmakers and industry officials made it clear Thursday that Gov. Blagojevich’s proposal to drastically reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants is hardly a done deal.
Concerns about the cost and feasibility of Blagojevich’s plan — as well as the need for it — were some issues surfacing in the wake of the governor’s unveiling Thursday of tough new controls on mercury, a neurotoxin released into the air that settles in bodies of water, contaminating fish and the people who eat them.
I haven’t had a chance to follow up on it yet, but a commenter pointed out this potentially significant story yesterday. [emphasis added]
…two Illinois state government scientists claim that most of the mercury found in the environment is natural, not of anthropogenic origin. This finding flies directly in the face of controversial federal regulations designed to reduce environmental mercury by cutting power plant emissions.
The paper by Derek Winstanley and Edward Krug, titled “Comparison of mercury in atmospheric deposition and in Illinois and USA soils,” appears in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Science. Winstanley and Krug are with the Illinois State Water Survey, which Winstanley heads. He is also a former director of the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program, so is no stranger to controversial coal-fired emissions issues.
The background for the study is a long standing problem with the theory that coal-fired power plant emissions are the leading cause of mercury in fish, namely that there is no correlation between power plant locations and high mercury levels. To overcome this lack of evidence the proponents of the theory, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, have claimed that mercury circulates nationally and globally via a process of general atmospheric deposition.
Winstanley and Krug have tested this theory by comparing the estimated anthropogenic emission levels against newly-measured levels of mercury in Illinois, U.S., and world soils. The result, they say, is that human emissions cannot possibly explain the observed amounts of mercury. They conclude that there must exist a natural global mercury flux that is significantly larger than human emissions. Much of it may be water borne, not airborne. If so, then reducing the estimated 50 tons of mercury emitted by U.S. coal fired power plants might have little or no effect on environmental mercury levels.
As Winstanley and Krug put it, “It has been reported that most mercury (Hg) in USA soils is from atmospheric Hg deposition, mostly from anthropogenic sources. This paper compares the rates of atmospheric Hg deposition to amounts of Hg in Illinois and USA soils. The amounts of Hg in these soils are too great to be attributed mainly to anthropogenic Hg deposition.” Their conclusion is succinct — “The hypothesis that most Hg in Illinois and USA soils is of anthropogenic origin is rejected.”
The Illinois State Water Survey, according to its website, is “a division of the Office of Scientific Research and Analysis of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and an affiliated agency of the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana, [and] is the primary agency in Illinois concerned with water and atmospheric resources.”
UPDATE: There’s a good rebuttal to the above article in comments by Truthful James.
- Anon - Friday, Jan 6, 06 @ 9:16 am:
Anthropogenic? Does this mean we can look forward to the Governor standing at a microphone to denounce anthropogenic toxins?
I can’t wait.
- LittleEgypt - Friday, Jan 6, 06 @ 11:14 am:
Rich, your article is WAY above the Governor’s level of intelligence AND comprehension. With the quality of “kids” he has hired in his front office and his campaign staff, I’m equally sure that they don’t have a clue as to the meaning of what you just wrote either.
- Jon Musgrave - Friday, Jan 6, 06 @ 11:26 am:
The study matches what I’ve been told over the last 15 years or so covering mercury warnings in Southern Illinois lakes.
- Spfld_wonket - Friday, Jan 6, 06 @ 11:38 am:
In my research of coal gasification (and it’s immediate necessity) I discovered the same exact thing. Mercury’s relation to coal is near nil. What we need to concern ourselves with is the sulfur content of Illinois coal which makes it valuable but also exceptionally dirty and expensive to burn. I don’t see how he (the guv) can play to both sides (greenies and the coal industry/miners/southern Illy) by tackling Mercury…he’d be better off tackling Sulfur and funding research on the extraction, storage and after market use of sulfur. But I’m just a grad student researcher.
- Mongo - Friday, Jan 6, 06 @ 11:44 am:
State Rep Karen May was way ahead of this. She hosted a Mecury Forum in early November. The Gov ought to ask for her help.
- Truthful James - Friday, Jan 6, 06 @ 1:46 pm:
Thanks for the inclusion of a thoughtful piece, even though it runs against the environmentalist grain.
Politicians get stampeded, sometimes by inadequate but flashy scientific inbformation when they see an advantage. Turning a politican once he as a stated opinion is like attempting to turn the Titanic.
- Truthful James - Friday, Jan 6, 06 @ 2:40 pm:
Rich — I circulated the info to a scientist friend of mine and he replied the following.
“…I would think this would be pretty easily established in either direction with Arctic core samples. And I’m a tad skeptical of this claim of natural origins partly because I assume the Artic core sample test is such a blindingly obvious one that it’s already been done and is one reason why the hyptohesis that mobile mercury is man made is so entrenched. I could be wrong.
The answer could be more subtle. Unlike say Teflon, or SkotchGuard, dioxin, or PCBs, which are molecules, mercury is an element. Man does not creat or destroy mercury. There will be exactly as much mercury on planet earth a billion years from now as there was a billion years ago. The only thing that actually changes is its accessibility, location, the molecules it is found in, and its flux through the ecosystem. Mercury bound to some insoluble ore, concentrated in depost somwhere is unavailable to most life on earth. Mercury bound to a methyl compound is one of the most easily absorbed and potent neurotoxins. (mad as a hatter, you probably know comes from tanning of felt with mercury)
So simply comparing soil samples is not quite what you want since on average the amount of mercury in soil is unchanging.. Arctic ice would tell you a lot more since it only gets there by vapor transport. But the real thing to to worry about is its chemical form and the changing concetration in any given species (say a tree ring or comparing fish in different oceans)…”
The answers from the scientists who wrote the paper would be interesting
- Anon - Friday, Jan 6, 06 @ 4:50 pm:
The thoughts of Anon 2:40 are well taken. Basically there are two types of coal: the coal mined in Illinois (bituminous) and the coal mined in the western US (sub-bituminous). Western coal bonds tighter to coal than eastern coal. Eastern coal can be stripped away from combusted coal much more easily and be captured through the use of a technology called activated carbon injection and a fabric filter.
Alabama Power’s Gaston Plant removed 90% of its murcury in a 2002 multi-day test. 95% murcury reductions have been acheived in four plants in the US, two in Virginia, one in NJ and one in North Carolina. All have been tested on bituminous coal.
The arguement that mercury levels aren’t rising because of human actions doesn’t pass the laugh test. We know that coal plants in IL are emitting more than 7,000 pounds of mercury a year. It would be interesting to hear Winstanley and Krug tell the public where they think 7,000 pounds of mercury is being emitted naturally every year. Perhaps there’s a babbling brook in Cumberland county that just emits mercury??? Mercury is ELEMENTAL. It doesn’t vary unless it is acted upon. This isn’t debatable. It’s simple physics.
- Mad Hatter - Friday, Jan 6, 06 @ 4:57 pm:
One of the things that I used to run into at IDOT when we would do surveys for hazardous waste was amounts of arsenic which exceeded the TACO levels. It turned out that the arsenic was not from industrial contamination but was a natural occuring element that just happened to exceed the “hazardous” levels. It seems that the mercury “problem” is the same thing.
- Reddbyrd - Saturday, Jan 7, 06 @ 11:50 am:
It Takes the GOP (asin MOPE) two days to come up with these lame responses Yikes. They are realll in sad shape.
Bob Roberts Reporting
CHICAGO — Governor Blagojevich’s Republican opponents take a dim view of his proposal to cut mercury emissions from Illinois power plants.
WBBM Newsradio 780’s Bob Roberts reports Judy Baar Topinka’s running mate, DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett, said he finds it an abrupt about-face.
“I think that’s one of the problems with his style of leadership,” Birkett said. “He just announces things without really doing the kind of study he needs to put into that subject.”
Blagojevich is asking the Illinois Pollution Control Board and a joint legislative committee to order mercury emissions reduced by 90 percent by mid-2009. Federal standards call for a 47 percent reduction by 2010 and 70 percent by the end of 2018.
The Republican challenging Topinka in the primary, Ron Gidwitz, said he considers it a bad idea from the word go.
“I think it’s important that we reduce the levels of mercury, but I don’t think we ought to discriminate against those who live and work in Illinois,” Gidwitz said. “We need a national standard, not Illinois standards.”
Gidwitz said not sticking with the national standard will just drive more jobs elsewhere, and said the governor’s initiative is merely another example of Blagojevich doing the one thing he said Blagojevich does well: issue press releases.
- Anonymous - Monday, Jan 9, 06 @ 2:25 pm:
The economics of mercury are simple.
Western coal has much higher mercury content than Illinois coal (which unfortunately has higher sulfer content than Western coal).
Recent federal mercury standards are actually higher for western coal than Illinois coal…not exactly a level playing field, but it does encourage the use of western coal.
The result is Illinois coal plants bring in Western coal by train, instead of helping Illinois coal miners.