Live data from Hacker News

Mercury Spill

jefftk.com

301–310 of 374 posts

Re: Mercury Spill

#301
post #297

Does US$38k to clean up a few cups of mercury seem ridiculous to anybody else? That would be a very dangerous quantity of mercury if it were in a form like dimethylmercury, but it was metallic mercury. Wouldn't it make more sense to dump some powdered metal into it to amalgamate it, sweep it up and put it in a bag, and open the windows to let the house air out for a day or two?

This was my thought as well - I've heard metallic mercury is relatively safe. However, a little bit of googling turned up this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_poisoning#Elemental_me...

The issue with metallic mercury is the vapors are easily absorbed through the lungs, and not easily filtered (requires an activated carbon filter).

Re: Mercury Spill

#302
post #297

Does US$38k to clean up a few cups of mercury seem ridiculous to anybody else? That would be a very dangerous quantity of mercury if it were in a form like dimethylmercury, but it was metallic mercury. Wouldn't it make more sense to dump some powdered metal into it to amalgamate it, sweep it up and put it in a bag, and open the windows to let the house air out for a day or two?

The whole story seems ridiculous. When I read about calling the fire department I knew it was going to be a long ride of bureaucratic insanity. My dad used to play with mercury as a kid and apparently that was common. I think he would have swept it up and saved $38k.

Re: Mercury Spill

#303
post #215
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you miss any, your young daughter is going to find it. Seriously isn't something you want to mess with.

This happened to me when I was about 9, when I didn't know what mercury was. There was a few droplets on the floor and I ended up poking it with my index finger for a few minutes. To this day I don't know what the medical effects were.

Unless you licked your finger afterwards, nothing.

Re: Mercury Spill

#304
post #111

What's really crazy is that apparently some people have the idea that mercury is an 'investment' and will voluntarily keep jugs of it in their home: http://www.ert.org/products/mercury_response_guide/Attachmen...

That document says, "People often keep jars of mercury in their homes because they think that mercury is worth money, like liquid silver. In reality, mercury is nearly worthless, but the cleanup cost after a large spill easily can exceed the cost of a home."

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/mercury/mcs... gives the price of mercury as US$1850 per 76-pound flask, up from US$1076 in 2010. That's US$54/kg, or US$730 per liter at 13.5 g/cc (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_%28element%29). Silver is currently http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/metals/precious/silver.html US$15.76 per troy ounce, which is US$506.70/kg or US$5315 per liter at 10.49 g/cc (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver). Silver also has the advantage that it won't make you sick if you spill it.

As a point of comparison, copper is sufficiently expensive that people steal copper pipes and wires from unoccupied houses. Copper costs US$2.41/lb. (US$5.31/kg), less than 1% of the cost of mercury. The junk man in the slum where I'm going this afternoon will pay you AR$35/kg for it, which is US$2.23/kg, which is enough to incentivize the cartoneros to break the yokes off any CRT discarded on the street within hours. (He doesn't list a price for mercury on his sign.)

So "nearly worthless" seems like an exaggeration — mercury is worth more per liter than any other commodity substance you're likely to have in your house other than silver and Freon-22 — but it also doesn't seem like a really smart investment, especially if you have kids.

Re: Mercury Spill

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll throw my hat in the ring. Recently had a car totaled when getting it shipped cross country. Apparently because it was an "Act of god" (a hailstorm, with what looks like fist-sized-rock-hail in that every piece of glass and most trim on the car had holes in it, although I'd argue the insurance was for the idiot driver who didn't pull over or cover his load.) the insurance company refused to do squat. The car was…

> The car was only blue booked at 5k at the time, but we had to replace it with a 25k car, so I count that as a decent amount of loss. That's twisted logic. There was a loss of perhaps somewhat more than $5k all things considered, but you didn't have to replace a $5k blue-book-value car with a $25k car. That $25k may have been a big outlay if you paid cash, but it's not a loss for that amount. So far, you've only los…

I think you might have been misunderstanding my statement, as I would agree that the loss ranges between 5-10k (not far from your estimate.) To me it's a sum of 2 things: Loss of a 5k car + loss of opportunity/investment returns of 25k over at least 5 years. Don't mean to compare to OP's 50k repair bill, but even 5k-10k for someone else's negligence hurts when insurance somehow dodges the bullet.

Re: Mercury Spill

#306
post #301
post #297

Does US$38k to clean up a few cups of mercury seem ridiculous to anybody else? That would be a very dangerous quantity of mercury if it were in a form like dimethylmercury, but it was metallic mercury. Wouldn't it make more sense to dump some powdered metal into it to amalgamate it, sweep it up and put it in a bag, and open the windows to let the house air out for a day or two?

This was my thought as well - I've heard metallic mercury is relatively safe. However, a little bit of googling turned up this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_poisoning#Elemental_me... The issue with metallic mercury is the vapors are easily absorbed through the lungs, and not easily filtered (requires an activated carbon filter).

It is indeed relatively safe, in the sense that it takes thousands of times as much metallic mercury to kill you as it would take dimethylmercury. But vapors from metallic mercury have been known to cause acute poisoning for centuries; that article mentions a well-known case from 1810.

Re: Mercury Spill

#307
post #297

Does US$38k to clean up a few cups of mercury seem ridiculous to anybody else? That would be a very dangerous quantity of mercury if it were in a form like dimethylmercury, but it was metallic mercury. Wouldn't it make more sense to dump some powdered metal into it to amalgamate it, sweep it up and put it in a bag, and open the windows to let the house air out for a day or two?

The whole story seems ridiculous. When I read about calling the fire department I knew it was going to be a long ride of bureaucratic insanity. My dad used to play with mercury as a kid and apparently that was common. I think he would have swept it up and saved $38k.

Knowing what you now know about mercury toxicity, would you have done that? Would you have done that with your young child in the house?

Re: Mercury Spill

#308

It may have cost you $50,000 but you now have +50 karma on HN and rising. Some would say a bargain! ;-] In all seriousness, cool story, glad you're okay, and this makes me think "insurance" as a business needs to be re-thought entirely. How many times has it happened that insurance companies weasel out of paying? Objectively you might think THAT was their primary job.

Insurance is such a scam. A friend of mine made two claims within about five years: once for water damage and once for a burglary. The insurance company agreed that she was covered. So they paid her and then dropped her. No big deal, right? Wrong. Once you've made a claim or two against your insurance, it can be very hard to get any new insurance company to cover you. She finally did find a new insurer, but the price…

How do I access my CLUE report?

My house insurance company recently sent me their updated privacy notice and I'll have to reread it. I don't remember them saying they would share my claim history with third parties.

Re: Mercury Spill

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you ELI5 it all then, please? I was always under the impression that the whole point of insurance is that expensive accidents don't happen to everyone, so if everyone pays a little regularly, then there's enough money to both pay out the ones who end up having an expensive accident AND for the insurer to make money. On an infinite timescale it may not add up but it surely can on any practical one, right?

The best description I've seen is that insurance is peace of mind. from an individual perspective, insurance means you don't have to worry about unexpected expenses from things beyond your control (ie, peace of mind). Now, the mechanism by which this is achieved may be described as a pool in that it's a single company with a pool of money that everyone pays into and the input into that pool necessarily must be greate…

"Peace of mind" is false advertising, you should not expect insurance to provide that to you.

You will always have to worry about unexpected expenses, because insurance companies are never going to insure everything that could possibly happen, even if you get a good policy that doesn't dick you around on claims.

If you are expecting insurance to protect you from not knowing the risks, then you are taking a much bigger risk than not having insurance at all, because of the complacency that the belief you're insured engenders.

Re: Mercury Spill

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you ELI5 it all then, please? I was always under the impression that the whole point of insurance is that expensive accidents don't happen to everyone, so if everyone pays a little regularly, then there's enough money to both pay out the ones who end up having an expensive accident AND for the insurer to make money. On an infinite timescale it may not add up but it surely can on any practical one, right?

The best description I've seen is that insurance is peace of mind. from an individual perspective, insurance means you don't have to worry about unexpected expenses from things beyond your control (ie, peace of mind). Now, the mechanism by which this is achieved may be described as a pool in that it's a single company with a pool of money that everyone pays into and the input into that pool necessarily must be greate…

We have a whole subthread here about how insurance companies will refuse to pay when push comes to shove; I don't really believe in the peace of mind anymore.

What I'm looking for is the ELI5 for what insurance really is about (especially from the POV of insurers) given that, if I understand correctly, 'chimeracoder is disputing the insurance-as-everyone-pooling-money model.

Post reply on HN