Hate to see a few milligrams of mercury added to the thousands of pounds of mercury from gold mining that goes on in the area. “EPA’s proposed rule will regulate the amount of mercury air emissions from point sources at mines-stacks and vents. As it is proposed, the rule would limit emissions for pre-treatment processes (roasters and autoclaves) to 149 lb/ton of ore processed at both new and existing mines. The Donlin Creek Mine intends to process 22 million tons of ore per year. That means that under the proposed rule, Donlin Creek could be permitted to emit over3200 pounds of mercury per year, just from pre-treatment processes.”

I’m sure that a few broken CFLs would have made a huge difference.  

BTW, 453,592 mg in a pound.  Donlin Creek =~ 1,451,494,400 broken CFLs.  But only if the EPA manages to hold Donlin emissions down to 3,200 pounds.

That’s 1.45 Billion broken CFLs….

Shouldn’t they also be looking for cracks in the phosphor of linear fluorescent tubes? After all, they’re pretty much the same technology.