Joe

Thanks for this info. Interesting. Now, let's equate this interest to
the cost to the environment. According to Andreas Poullikas "The Price
of Pollution" (I don't know where it was published, but I have a
photocopy of the article) the environmental cost estimates in US
cents/kWh are:
Category              Coal          HFO            Natural Gas
Nuclear

Health/accidents      0.70-4.00     0.70-4.80      0.10-0.20
0.03
Crops/forestry        0.17-1.50     1.60-1.70      0.08-0.09
small
Buildings             0.15-5.00     0.20-3.00      0.05-0.18
small
Disasters             0             0              0
0.11-2.50
Global warming        0.50-24.00    0.30-1.30      0.30-0.70
0.02

Totals                2.05-34.50    3.00-12.80     0.53-1.17
0.16-2.55

In the case of coal and heavy fuel oil, this means that we are possibly
paying less per kWh than the environmental costs it engenders. In
economies where generation is mainly coal or HFO, it would seem logical
that we should pay, say, 20 c or 10 c respectively more per kWh just to
repair the damage that such generation causes. Taking the worst delta
consumption and an indicative cost of 20 c/kWh for environmental costs,
this would then boil down to an EXTRA annual cost to the environment of
lead-free soldering FOR ENERGY OF THE SOLDERING PROCESS ALONE of US
Dollars 505,898,000. Can we afford this?

Brian

Brian Ellis wrote:
>
> Thought for the day: as most lead-free alloys require higher soldering
> temperatures, how much extra energy will be required? How much extra CO2
> will this cause to be emitted? While doing the calculations, remember
> that the losses of energy to the atmosphere from a low temp heat source
> (ie <500°C) is roughly proportional to the square of the difference in
> temperature between the source and the ambient air.
>
> Brian