Turning toxic coal ash into bridges, buildings (CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Jim Kavanagh
CNN

(CNN) -- Despite the destruction it caused in a massive spill near a Tennessee power plant in December, coal ash has found many uses that benefit industry and even the environment.
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There are about 300 storage ponds similar to the one that collapsed. To reduce the need to store coal waste products, the Environmental Protection Agency promotes their beneficial reuse.

" 'Waste' is such a bad term," said Chett Boxley, a chemist at Ceramatec, a research company in Salt Lake City, Utah. "It's really not waste at all. It's a material waiting to be made into a great product." See how burning coal yields useful products »
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About 43 percent of the 131 million tons of coal combustion products -- including fly ash, bottom ash and boiler slag --generated in 2007 found beneficial uses, according to the American Coal Ash Association, based in Aurora, Colorado.

However, some environmentalists are skeptical about that claim.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/20/recycled.coal.uses/index.html




(Note the caption lower down: "Fly ash is in the concrete of Washington's Reagan Building, home of the Environmental Protection Agency." Could be an irony double play.)

[benld74]

1. And the kicker is - according to the American Coal Ash Association

[Purveyor]

2. I don't know if they still do but when I was just out of school and working at an asphalt plant,

we used fly ash in the asphalt blend.

[madokie]

3. fly ash is used in most all the concrete poured around here

Fly ash makes good concrete it just doesn't finish as good as straight sack concrete does.

[Nihil]

4. "'Waste' is such a bad term"

> "'Waste' is such a bad term," said Chett Boxley, a chemist at Ceramatec,
> a research company in Salt Lake City, Utah. "It's really not waste at all.
> It's a material waiting to be made into a great product."

Guess what? This is exactly the approach that people have been objecting
about with the Chinese "re-using" their mercury- and sulphide-polluted
gypsum when shipping it over to the US ...

Fly-ash has more unpleasant aspects than just an occasional dam failure.
So nice of the Coal Marketing Board to avoid the latter by putting the
former straight into public structures so the mercury (et al) can be
readily available to all ...

:crazy:

Maybe someone should suggest this as an alternative to Yucca Mountain?
If it works for the coal industry to scatter its toxic metals (including
uranium FWIW) then why not for the nuclear industry?
:think:
"Waste is such a bad term - it's really not waste at all, it's a material
waiting to be made into a great product" ... such a wonderful quote ...