Power plants are a major influence in regional mercury emissions
New Haven, Conn. - The amount of mercury emitted into the atmosphere in the North (United States) varies annually depending on activity in the electricity sector, according to researchers at Yale School of Forestry Environmental Studies. Xuhui Lee, professor of meteorology, and Jeffrey Sigler, a recent Yale Ph.D. and now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of New Hampshire, Yale co-author of the study recent trends in anthropogenic emissions of mercury in the Northeastern States USA. They found that, between 2000 and 2002, the rate of mercury emissions decreased by 50 percent, but between 2002 and 2004 the rate increased from 50 to 75 percent.During these five years, total emissions decreased by 20 percent.The dramatic changes of the annual emissions of mercury,
the study authors say, can not be explained by climate models that would provide the air flow of air is clean or polluted the region. Mild winters and a corresponding decrease in the need of coal-fired central region could partly explain the drop in mercury emissions, according to the authors. The study, published this summer in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, estimates that power plants account for up to 40 percent of total emissions in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York and New England.The study reveals how plants affect regional mercury emissions, Sigler said. Do not forget to reduce other types of sources in formulating policy, as they also have substantial amounts of total emissions, said Lee. The mercury is highly toxic methyl mercury in fish
found in groundwater and may neurological problems in fetal development and organ failure and dementia in adults who eat fish in large quantities and over long periods of thing.The Yale study was conducted in the Great Forest in northwestern Connecticut. Measurements were limited to the winter so that data on carbon dioxide comes from combustion sources, as well as mercury would not be distorted by photosynthesis. The
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