« Screw-Top Heresy |
Main
| Competitive Speed-Eating »
09 Jul 2008 08:39 am
Exhausting The Earth, Ctd.
A reader writes:
As a chemist, I was surprised to hear that non-radioactive elements could go extinct. Well, that's because it isn't true. They may be more difficult to isolate and purify as we take them from the Earth's crust and store them in televisions and computers but they are still there!
The only elements that can leave the Earth on a permanent basis are
non-stable isotopes (like Uranium 235) and gasses that are buoyant
(they leave the atmosphere and are lost into space). The only gas I
know of that we are running out of is Helium. That is problematic but
Gallium and Indium are not leaving earth any time soon.
We will find ways to recycle everything eventually. We really have no
choice in the matter. When you throw something away you can take
comfort that you are not preventing recycling you are just delaying it for a few years.
Of course one is not destroying an an element by placing it in a product. Still, recycling takes money and, at least at first blush, extracting trace amounts of gallium from TV sets doesn't seem like it would be economically viable.
Share This
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451c45669e200e5538f48ea8833
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference 'Exhausting The Earth, Ctd.'
