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Silica dust particles of 10 microns are dangerous to breath. So there is a limit on how small the rocks can be crushed before beaches become a heath hazard.
by teruakohatu 3y ago
Silica dust particles of 10 microns are dangerous to breath. So there is a limit on how small the rocks can be crushed before beaches become a heath hazard.
- eszed 3y agoThe final proposal didn't involve beaches: it would spread the silt across the floor of the Java Sea. The calculation I kept waiting for, but never saw, was how many square miles of ocean floor this would take up, and what the damage would be to sea life (plus fishing, etc, industries) in the region. (That's a valid point, however, about the expected hazards to the people running the milling machines. Maybe there are good ways to mitigate that? Maybe wet milling minimizes the problem? The author doesn't say.) Silt can be incredibly destructive. Before hydraulic (gold) mining in the Sierras, the Sacramento river was navigable all the way to.... um, Sacramento, and the waters of San Francisco Bay were crystal clear, and carpeted with oysters. Silt washed down 150-ish years ago is still gunking up the entire ecosystem. This is an intriguing idea, and global warming is a planetary emergency - so some degree of localized destruction may be a reasonable trade-off - but the author gets poor marks from me for leaving obvious negative externalities out of the article.
- teruakohatu 3y agoI was thinking of the Indonesians. If the silt washes onto beaches it could turn the coastline toxic during dry weather and, as you mentioned, the workers. And as you point out, if it turns bad it is going to be very long time to resolve. The solution would be to keep thr particle size larger, at lower efficiency.