Calcite and dolomite, (click here) when heated and in some cases slurried or combined with salt, are used in making many everyday products such as paper, glass, paint and varnish, soap and detergents, textiles, refractories, baking powder, and pharmaceuticals, including milk of magnesia and bicarbonate of soda. Finely ground, they are used to control coal mine dust, to collect sulfur dioxide from power plant exhaust, to sweeten soils, and as ingredients in fertilizer and stock feeds, to name a few. Limestone is used extensively in Michigan to refine beet sugar. When burned in a kiln to drive off gases, calcite and dolomite form burnt lime. Among the uses for burnt lime, in addition to steel making, are water and sewage treatment, acid waste neutralization, and road base stabilization. Crushed calcite and dolomite are used in concrete, road construction, building materials, and as a filler in asphalt....
It is amazing to me how many uses there are for porous rock. Calcium carbonate is organic. It is very organic. Right? I talked about it's highly ionic and reactive properties in the first few entries. Right? Albert Einstein's desk and the quality of education in the USA.
It is no surprise that I am not a fan of mining. I think mining is very mismanaged. Rather than securing the mining for safety, mines are not secured because it cuts into profits.
This is the year 2016. As a society and world we are well into the 21st century. It is time to realize we need all the water we can find and lower pollution impacts as much as we can. The innovation of the current generations are incredible. This is one more area where critical thinking can bring about streamlined and efficient operations in areas that are benevolent to life on Earth.
Mining and producing cement consumers enormous amounts of energy in the way of heat energy. There have to be better answers to all these operations to conserve energy, maintain water quality and minimize abuse of the environment.
CO2 in the abundance that exists today effects Earth's oceans. The scientific community calls it acidification, but, in actuality it is less alkaline. The normal pH of the oceans is 8.2 with some variations in micro-environments within the marine environment. The CO2 turns into carbonic acid and pulls the pH toward the neutral 7.0 and then if it continues it will move into the acidic side of the pH scale.The calcium in the oceans is vital for fish, especially shellfish. Calcium is what is used to form their shells, of which they need to survive. The oceans have had a pH of 8.2 for eons. There was never a time on Earth when the oceans were acidic. This change in pH of the oceans is anthropocentric. There is no natural process that changes the pH of the oceans. I mentioned some micro-environments are slightly different, up to 0.3 pH, but, that is due to such things as local dissolving rock, etc. The issue of ocean acidification is completely man made.
I have no more patience for the idea the human path forward can continue as if what nature is telling us is a lie. The sincere problem is Earth has been warning human beings for over a century now. Leaders during the Industrial Revolution, such as Henry Ford, fore told this scenario, hence his work with the electric car. There is no reason for leaders in this world to look the other way while abusive cultures are indifferent to the problems they are causing with other peoples. Insensitivity is rampant in the right wing culture in the USA, including the fact tornadoes are no longer singular and in the mid range of the Fujita Scale. The tornado outbreaks in the USA are killing people. In 2016 there is a total of 12 deaths to date.
2016 Fatalities by Circumstance: (click here)
In Home:3 In Manufactured Home:7 Outside:0 In Building:0 In Vehicle:2 Unknown:0
No back sliding. The future of our children and their children is precious. The current generations need to do the hard work and insure an economy with a livable Earth. Now there is an idea. An economy based in returning the balance of Earth's troposphere. Yep. There is a definite economy in all of that. There is a panel of scientists just waiting to advise the generations on the way forward. I heard the scientists on that panel came from some of the best universities in the world. The panel's title is the much maligned IPCC; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It's a pretty cool name. "Intergovernmental." Yep, it sounds like the smart folks in the world. Who in this world would ever come up with such a homogeneous and communal name as that. "Intergovernmental." Yep. That's the smart folks. They are very trust worthy, too. "Believe me."
