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First a little background. Mercury was a very important aspect of the gold mining industry. Back in the gold rush days, mercury was used with abandon. Single counties in California produced more mercury pollution than the entire nation does today.
Mercury is a huge problem in the food supply.
It makes some fish too dangerous to eat, especially ones further up the food chain. The reason for this is biomagnification.
We've really screwed up the oceans, especially places like the San Francisco Bay. Sadly, once mercury enters the ecosystem, it's hard to get back out, as scavengers will eat the bodies of dead predators. I don't think we can remove the mercury without killing a few animals.
New technology, however, holds promise. Thermal depolymerization is capable of seperating mercury from carbon-rich feedstocks.
A big example: There are 160,000 killer whales in the ocean today. Many have elevated levels of mercury, thanks to old pollution. This is a stable, healthy population of killer whales, however, there is a problem: many of killer whale's food sources are not as abundant. For example, baleen whales.
Since baleen wheels feed relatively low on the food chain, lack of baleen whales exascerbates the biomagnification issues for killer whales.
Instead of going from
Algae-shrimp-baleen whale-killer whale, the food chaing path is longer:
Algae-filter feeder-small fish-medium fish-seal-killer whale.
Anyway, since 160,000 killer whales is a healthy size, it should be safe to reduce the number down to 150,000 worldwide. The culled whales will be rendered into oil via thermal depolymerization, so that all mercury is removed.
Only non-threatened species would be culled. The effects would be carefully monitored down the food chain. A cull of killer whales might cause seal overpopulation, for example, and as such, seals would have to be culled as well.
Slowly but surely, however, the removal of mercury from the food chain should increase the health of the oceans. As average mercury extracted per culled whale goes down, the ocean should become safer and healthier, and the cull can be lifted.
I realize that this is a controversial idea, since killer whales are considered a very charismatic animal. However mercury in the oceans is quite nasty, and should be reduced. A swift death from a hunter's tools is more humane than a slow death of mercury poisoning.
Right now, the mercury levels are, by conservative aspects, about 10X higher than they should be. Assuming a 2% cull each year, it will sadly take over 100 years to remove the mercury in the oceans. However, if there is still mercury entering the food chain, the situation is dire, and a cull would potentially end a death-spriral in the ocean.
Meanwhile, the culls would provide a tiny amount of oil. Not anywhere near enough to meet world demand, but enough to make the mercury extraction economical in the short-term(especially with today's prices), as well as the long term.
Killer whales vs Gray Whales
http://www.sfgate.c.../26/MNGFR6RT7G1.DTL
Yummy Gray Whales! [bungston, Jun 29 2005]
Killer Whales vs Blue Whale
http://www.orcaskil.../orca_attack_en.htm
Don't eat it all at once, though. [bungston, Jun 29 2005]
Killer whales: Common!
http://nmml.afsc.no...ns/killer2.htm#many
[bungston, Jun 29 2005]
Mercury
http://www.arthurda...ury_Convertible.jpg
[normzone, Jul 01 2005]
Luna, an orca with his own fan club
http://www.reunitel..._release.php?id=730
He was seperated from his family at an early age, and is growing up more oriented towards boats and people. [normzone, Jul 01 2005]
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[MFD Removed: I stand corrected] Bad science. 1: Removing the mercury from the top of the food chain won't fix anything--once it gets that far, the animal dies and carries the mercury down to the bottom of the ocean, where it stays (more or less), removing it from the food chain anyway. 2: 150,000 is not a healthy population, and killer whales are not a non-threatened population. 3: Killer whales don't eat baleen whales. |
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[5th] I believe you are wrong on all 3 counts. I am certain you are wrong about point 3. I will try to vindicate [Madai] with links. |
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(later) - OK, thats 1 and 2. It is very hard to find data on mercury flux between marine sediments and the water column / food chain. |
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We've done in the shark population, and now we're inundated with seals. Can you teach them to eat thermometers? |
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Also to vindicate Madai in regard to point 1, the plan is to physically remove whales from the ocean and harvest the mercury by oil extraction. |
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On the other hand, I'm not chemist but I would expect mercury laden oil to release mercury upon being burnt. |
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Also, the Madai’s math only works if you catch and kill only mercurized whales, while also eliminating all new pollution. I figure culling a random 2% of whales each year to eliminate only 84% of mercury after 100 years, and to never eliminate it all. |
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Actually, you're right, you'd never eliminate it all. But I assure you, you aren't going to find killer whales without mercury in them. There's a hell of a lot of Mercury in the ocean, and it's everywhere. The only question I have is what percentage of the total mercury in the ecosystem is contained in the killer whale population at any given time. |
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I might add that if 150,000 killer whales is in fact a safe number, reducing their population a little bit might be justifiable for other reasons. That would take some of the pressure off of the baleen whales, which ARE endangered. |
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Just keep the Japanese away from this one, they'll get addicted to it or something. |
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MFD removed. I stand corrected. |
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I thought we were removing mercury from the food chain by letting it concentrate in people, then burying them in the ground when they die. |
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[Do we know what the natural concentrations of mercury in the food chain should be?] |
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No. But we *do* know that there is an absolutely immense amount of mercury pollution caused by gold mining. |
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And, if the oil is burned the wrong way, yes mercury will be released, but we have abundant, constantly improving mercury-removal technologies. |
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As for the amount of mercury pollution contained in the killer whales, compared to the whole, not sure. I do know it is biomagnified in the whales, so ocean-bottom scavengers has best beware. |
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Low end estimates of mercury concentration are 10ppm (some have been found with 80ppm). Assuming an 8-ton animal, that's roughly 80 grams per animal. Or, if the yearly cull is 3000 animals, 240 kg of mercury (I hope my math is right but I haven't been that careful) |
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The US emits 48 tons of mercury currently, but obviously, not all of that enters the food chain- otherwise, the whales would surely all be dead by now from the mind-boggling tonnage released during the gold rush. |
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US mercury pollution is slated to drop 70% by 2018, and even further reductions after that. I don't know if we can reverse the build-up in mercury in the food chain, but we can certainly slow it down. |
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I can't believe this is sane.
Surely
there is some means of chemically
sequestering and recovering mercury
from seawater? No doubt ludicrously
expensive as a means of producing
mercury, but certainly more cost-
effective and whale-friendly than
hunting killer whales?
And I missed
how you plan to dispose of a bunch of
dead killer whales without ultimately
releasing their mercury content into the
environment.
Finally, there is
another reason why this idea seems
silly. We currently harvest many
*millions* of tons of fish from the
oceans annually, and presumably many
of these have significant (albeit lower)
mercury levels. If these fish have an
averae mercury content even 1% of that
in killer whales, then culling killer
whales is going to have a negligible
effect in comparison. |
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The thing is, the fish we remove aren't enough to counteract all the pollution. |
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As for the disposal, thermal depolymerization. It will seperate all the mercury, and leave only oil, minerals, and water. |
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And also, hunting killer whales *is* whale-friendly, because killer whales attack other whales, and some of those targets are endangered. |
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//The thing is, the fish we remove
aren't enough to counteract all the
pollution.//
You miss the point.
The point is that harvesting 24,000
tonnes of killer whale is silly and
insignificant when compared to the tens
of *millions* of tons of fish which we
already harvest. If the latter is not
having any impact on reducing mercury,
the former will certainly not.
Just
stand back a minute and consider what
you're proposing: you want to use a
small number of large, rare mammals
as a means of sequestering mercury.
Silly. |
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/how you plan to dispose of a bunch of dead killer whales without ultimately releasing their mercury content into the environment./ - |
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Mass mummification. A large temple will be erected in Death Valley to house the whale mummies. |
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[Madai], I forgot about the improvements in smokestack emissions. You've now got me convinced of the benefit. |
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Obviously we need plenty of Gold, to form an amalgam. If Madai is good enough to send me some gold, I promise that I will throw it into the sea. |
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//You've now got me convinced of the
benefit.//
This is still silly. Even
the fish *waste* (bones, guts, skin) that
are disposed of by the food industry
contain far more mercury in total than
the proposed harvest of killer whales. It
will not work. |
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Get the little ones interested in the temperature. |
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//I suspect a fundemental flaw in this
whole arguement, and that is, where do
you suppose mercury comes from?//
Actually, I presume that it's fairly
proven that current mercury levels in
the oceans include a significant
contribution from industrial waste -
mercury which would otherwise not be
finding its way into the oceans at nearly
such a high rate. But this scheme is still
silly. |
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The hay is finally cut here and the mosquitoes have made a huge retreat back across the drying fields to the river. The food chain is active as the coyote and many types of birds scower the exposed homes of mice, etc. I find a baby mouse as I cut the lawn by the field. It squirms cutely in my hand and I wonder what to feed it until it suddenly stops moving. I must have injured it with the lawnmower. Within a minute I have to rethink its position in the food chain. |
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The cat's been gone all day for some reason. |
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//Mass mummification. A large temple will be erected in Death Valley to house the whale mummies.// |
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Just to make it clear... thermal depolymerization would break the entire whale down, and separate the mercury from the fuel. |
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Mercury is far more abundant in the earth's crusts, compared to the oceans. Traditionally, mercury was mined from cinnabar. Methyl-mercury bioaccumulates more easily than the other forms. |
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You want to stop the problems of mercury poisoning? Why not just kill all humans? </bender> |
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