Quote:
Originally Posted by Daffy Duck
Parkinson's Disease has always existed. Besides being known in Ancient China and India, Parkinson's Disease was also known in Ancient Greece. Virtually all civilisations have practiced smelting for for thousands of years. These civilisations were not exceptional in this respect. The observance and treatment of Parkinson's Disease also took place in parts of these civilisations that did not practice smelting. Smelting would not explain its occurence there.
History of Parkinsons's Disease : http://************/parkinsons.disease/history.htm
At the time of James Parkinson in 1817, London was a small city. His observations of six cases took place only in Shoreditch, which is only a very small part of London. So to come up with six cases in Shoreditch alone is actually quite a lot rather than evidence than so few people in London at the time had Parkinson's Disease.
The use of coal fires in London continued from his time until the 1960's, with all the accompanying dense fogs and smogs. In the 1970's there was a massive and rapid reduction in the use of coal fires in London. The use of coal fires went from the norm to being virtually eliminated. If the effects of coal fires were the cause of Parkinson's Disease in London, the prevalence of Parkinson's Disease amongst Londoners would have massively reduced in the 1970's. However, the prevalence of Parkinson's Disease hasn't stopped increasing since the use of coal fires was virtaully eliminated.
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12.18.2006
Can Coal Come Clean?
How to survive the return of the world's dirtiest fossil fuel.
by Tim Folger
On a steamy, torpid summer morning in Florida, the Polk power plant is performing a small feat of modern alchemy. Every hour it converts 100 tons of the dirtiest fuel on the planet—coal—into 250 million watts of power for about 56,000 homes and businesses around Tampa. The alchemy part? Vernon Shorter, a tall, bluff consultant for the Tampa Electric Company (TECO), points to a looming smokestack. "Look at the top of that stack," he shouts over the cacophony of generators and coal-grinding machines. "That is the main emissions source. You can't see anything. You don't even see a heat plume."
He's right. No smoke mars the lazy blue Florida sky. The Polk plant captures all its fly ash, 98 percent of its sulfur—which causes acid rain—and nearly all its nitrogen oxides, the main component of the brown haze that hangs over many cities. Built to demonstrate the feasibility of a new way to wring economical power from coal without belching assorted toxins into the air, the $600 million plant has been running steadily since 1996. "It makes the lowest-cost electricity on TECO's grid," Shorter says. "It also has very, very low emissions. Particulate matter is almost undetectable."
What is both distressing and remarkable about the Polk plant is that it could do much more. "There's no requirement for mercury capture, but 95 percent of it could be captured very easily," Shorter adds. More important, the plant could also capture nearly all of coal's most elusive and potentially disastrous emissions: carbon dioxide, the main gas that drives global warming.
That capability could prove vital. With oil and natural gas prices rising rapidly and nuclear power stuck in political limbo, the world's appetite for coal is soaring. In the United States, the Department of Energy estimates that 153 new coal-fired power plants will be built by 2025. Meanwhile, China and India, the world's second and third largest coal producers, are embarking on a coal power plant building spree. China alone is expected to construct 562 new coal-fired plants over the next eight years. Since the life span of a typical coal-fired plant is 50 years, coal's share of the world's energy production will rival oil's for most of the century.
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/dec...oal-technology
PS: I live about an hour from one of these coal /electricity plants... hmmm...
