Cadmium Poisoning Widespread In Guandong Factory Workers

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"Huizhou Super Golden Peak in the industrial district is one of the factories owned by the battery branch of GP industries listed in Hong Kong. A cadmium poisoning incident in May and June last year had tremendous impact locally: It drew great attention to high-ranking city leaders and to a well-known central TV station that reported the case. In order to maintain a financially viable environment, city leaders urged the factory to improve working conditions as soon as possible and to develop a compensation deal for injured workers. Workers involved were reportedly very disappointed in the deal.

In 2002, a worker from the factory felt weakness and soreness in her lower back after giving birth. She was told by a doctor her problem was intervertebral disc protrusion. After reading an article on the hospital's bulletin board that said high levels of heavy metals, including cadmium, can cause skeletal distortion, she was scared, because she was in contact with cadmium daily at work, having worked there more than seven years, 30 days a month, 12 hours a day. She paid for a health checkup in the Guangdong occupational disease prevention and control hospital. The exam showed her blood cadmium level exceeded the standard, so the doctor prescribed a cadmium elimination treatment. Then she wondered: "How is this affecting my baby?" She presented her health results to the factory, but they were ignored. When another laborer working in the power room appeared to have similar symptoms, all the laborers in the factory became very concerned. So the factory arranged for workers to be checked for cadmium levels in blood and urine. The results indicated cadmium exceeded the standards for nearly 100 workers. However, workers were so worried about the incident, that they paid for checkups at different clinics, where the results showed significantly higher cadmium levels than from the factory clinic. The factory issued a statement that it would not recognize results from different clinics.

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After the cadmium poisoning incident in Huizhou Super GP, another factory, Xianjin Battery Factory, also owned by GP, found more than 300 workers with blood cadmium levels exceeding the standard. When some workers developed symptoms such as loss of mobility in the arms and legs, lower back pain and backache, dizziness and headaches, they asked to obtain an occupational disease certificate and demanded that the factory take care of their treatments. Instead, the factory asked them to resume work as soon as possible.

According to the law of occupational disease prevention and control, if the disease is diagnosed as suspicious, harmfully suspicious, or mild, the person can be treated as a patient. If the workers can't obtain an occupational disease certificate, they are not able to apply for the work ability appraisal and therefore they can't obtain any compensation. On July 5, 2004, the GP group issued a clarification statement in which it claimed that this incident was not caused by industrial cadmium poisoning, and emphasized that the factory met the international requirements in terms of security, health, environment and other areas; every worker accepted training when they were hired; the workers were provided information about the harmful effects of cadmium, and so on."

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http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/5-4-7/27690.html

The US isn't changing laws fast enough to suit the corporations. As long as there is ANY worker protection, company liability, environmental protection laws worth a shit on the books, they are not happy. They are gonna starve Americans until WE insist Congress let them have their ways abusing, exploiting, and polluting.

It's not just paying wages, it's any regulation/responsibility that they want to get out of.

I understand how you can be confused. After all the article did mention the USA many times. Gold Peak Industries is based in Singapore, not the USA. Ovously the problem is that the US multinationals who dont operation this company.

my first reply. Just making the point that in other countries, there is usually less protection of workers and environment. That is another reasons companies move overseas.

I lived along the US/Mexico border. I have seen what flows from the US owned factories in Mexico downstream to AZ in the Santa Cruz River. I have spoken to women forced to take birth control, despite their religious convictions, so that management can use them sexually when they please.

I would guess things are not better as factories get further from the view of us in the US.

of solar power, where solar power is proposed by the unthinking as a potential source of 100% of our energy demands.

Solar power is excellent for peak loads, but it will be an environmental disaster for exactly this reason if people demanded it replace cleaner nuclear energy.

unless you are assuming that most solar cells are Cd-Se. Most of the photovoltaic cells I have fabbed (over 7 years in an Si fab) are Si. No Cd - as a dopant or other component.

I do realize that there are "compound" semiconductors (phosphides, selenides, sulfides, etc.)- and that they are used in some photodetectors and photovoltaic cells (I went through Simon Sze's books many, many times ;) ).

But, Cd is a non-issue in Si photovoltaic cells.

I do agree with you (we have exchanged many posts on this) - nuclear power is inevitable and is the way to go.

Batteries involve metals. The toxic manufacturing plant described in the originating post in this thread makes batteries.

People act as if the environmental impact of solar energy is limited to the construction materials. Even without cadmium or selenium, these cells have many, many, many toxic chemicals involved in their manufacture including those in silicon processing, but even if there were NO such toxic chemicals, there would be a profound environmental impact associated with solar power.

This is because of the existence of night.

There is an environmental impact for producing energy. There is also an environmental impact (in some cases the greatest environmental impact) in storing energy.

Most of the high capacity batteries on the planet today involve toxic metals, including, but not limited to, metals like cadmium, mercury and lead. Most end up as point source pollutants. I'm sure that people will now pipe in with all sorts of stuff about proposed nontoxic batteries, but I guarantee that every such technology touted also be unscaled and unpiloted and uncommercialized technology.

Let me try (knowing it won't work) to cut all that stuff off at the pass: The emergency isn't some day. The emergency is NOW.

NiCd's do, and Pb-PbSO4 do.

I agree - the emergency is NOW. Peak oil hit US Reserves 30 years ago. Peak oil already hit the North Sea. World wide - Peak oil is early in this decade. I KNOW - I have been an acolyte of Stan Ovshinsky and Amory Lovins for 25 years (although I am a heretic with both of them on nuclear power - probably because I'm also an Ivan Itkin acolyte).

Let me say again -- I do agree with you (we have exchanged many posts on this) - nuclear power is inevitable and is the way to go.

Please know also that I respect you and your many fine posts.

I just phrase things aggressively, especially on the question of solar power. It's not that I dislike solar power; I'm actually a big fan of it under most circumstances. That said, as you may know, I've had some pretty hairy confrontations with "solar only" fanatics and so I go to extra lengths to make the truth clear: Solar energy is NOT risk free. That's my less than subtle point.

For some reason the "dangerous nuclear/risk free solar" meme flits around in spite of all the evidence that it is nonsense. I regard this particular bit as toxic and dangerous in itself, and so can sound quite extreme in my responses. The idea is to get people to "snap out of it."

For the record, though, nickel too is a toxic metal. Maybe it is not as toxic as lead, mercury or cadmium, but it is still toxic. It is also worth mentioning that, even if all batteries somehow became NiH batteries, millions, if not billions of tons of nickel would be required. The processing costs of this ore are enormous, and represent an external cost. The environmental impact of batteries also includes mass balance effects, such as the cost of extracting, transporting, reducing, machining and otherwise treating the nickel in the case of NiH. Moreover, the lifetimes of these batteries are relatively short given the energy invested in their production. Even further, the batteries inevitably have inefficiencies, since all produce heat in use. Therefore they inevitably raise the intrinsic environmental impact of any form of energy employed to charge them. Finally, if the batteries are disposed of as point source waste, they have one type of environmental impact. If they are transported for reprocessing, they have another.

For residential needs, solar is a relatively good choice for off the grid living: heating and cooling needs can be reduced by passive solar design, augmented by biomass burning and/or a ground source heat pump if necessary. Heat energy can be stored in thermal mass (or absorbed by thermal mass cooled during the day). Batteries will be required for night time electric use, unless microhydro or wind power is used.

None of these can provide the power required for industrial processes.

Passive solar heating and, under certain circumstances, the use of heat reservoirs of which ground source heat pumps are an example, can be very attractive systems, especially where a new home is being constructed.

Biomass burning, a fancy word for "using the fireplace," is the source of major air pollution, especially in the third world. It is estimated that between four million and eight million people die each year from air pollution and believe it or not, the largest fraction of these people are killed by inhaling soot from burning wood and dung. It is also notable that in the third world, biomass burning leads to rapid deforestration. This is of particular significance in Nepal and the Himalayan foothill countries.

The United States is well on the way to becoming a third world country, and we shall soon find out about this sort of thing.

As for microhydropower, I do not encourage this at all. Last year here in New Jersey, many homes were destroyed because of unregulated and unmaintained dams, some dating from the nineteenth century water driven milling days. Moreover, these systems seldom are evaluated for their effect on micro-habitats, many of which, if examined, would prove to be noxious.

The best use of solar electricity from an environmental standpoint in my view is "on grid." One sees this sort of system described in many "home power" magazines, wherein one uses the grid as a battery, charging the power company during daylight and buying back power at night. Under these circumstances, the solar power is distributed to places where it is actually needed without the use of batteries. Further, for most of the history of domestic and industrial use of electricity, peak loads have occurred during daylight hours. This has necessitated the building of many power plants some of which run only during the day. Typically these plants are natural gas or coal fired; nuclear power plants for technical reasons are best used as constant load generators. Thus the wise use of solar power can eliminate the necessity for these extra environmentally noxious fossil fuel plants, simply because it is most commonly available for day light.

One of my favorite types of solar systems are solar water heaters. I am also a fan of certain kinds of industrial or quasi industrial solar systems, in particular, parabolic mirror systems. Where they are practical, they have very low environmental impacts.

As for the "off grid" fascination or movement, I can see for esoteric purposes particularly rural or isolated places. I am somewhat suspicious of certain things I hear about it though. Some of it seems to involve the curious American cultural totems of "rugged individualism," mixed in with a healthy dollop of populist back-yard anti-corporatism, expressed as contempt for all centralized systems.

If you look at the details however, one sees that macro-scale systems can be designed which have very, very low environmental cost in comparison to this populist mishmash of systems in which it is every man and woman for himself or herself. As I said, home systems often result in difficult to control point source environmental damage.

As for the question of corporations, corporations consist of people, and people can do amazing things in a collective environment of proper regulation and guidance. It is not that corporations are intrinsically evil by the nature of the fact that they are corporations, but that rather that they have been placed into a state of anarchy. This is of course a function of the fact that we are being lead by a doctrinaire, theocratic, mindless "laissez-fairer" extremely corrupt Mobutu type twit. The worst of corporatism is now being expressed. Under the right circumstances however, this need not be, as the American experience in the late 1940s, the entire 1950's and early 1960's demonstrated. The men and women who lead our country then were hardly perfect, but they were overall balanced, pragmatic, and clear thinking. They did capitalism very well. We were rich and the standard of living rose broadly. We grew in our capacity for justice, and we grew in our levels of education. We would do well to draw positive lessons from those days.

Of course, it's cheaper and generally more efficient to use solar power to heat things like the house and hot water, than to generate electricity.

In many places a grid connnection is the cheapest battery. Shame about rural electrification, they had sustainable energy farms (almost) before FDR ran wires to em at our expense.

Without an increase in the cost of electricity there will be no conservation. Waiting for the market to dry up, and prices to skyrocket, will mean that only the most fit (richest) will survive. Making the price higher today, by collecting the externalities, would enforce conservation, while giving a revenue stream with which to ameliorate the burden on the poor. I suggest a non means based, everyone gets the same share, split it 290,000,000 ways "thank you" check to the people of the United States, from the polluters of the United States.

NN- I think then you would see the economics support the next order of a nuclear plant. I hope it's near me. But how long does it take to get on line? HOw long does it take to change the thermostat, change a light bulb, caulk some seams, blow an attic, consolidate auto trips, or take a bus?

I also agree on the necessity of raising the cost of energy to encourage conservation.

I would like to see regulated electrical power restored. From where I sit, the model used in the past before the mantra of "deregulation," became a buzzword, worked well. In this mode, investors were fairly rewarded, but customers were not gouged.
Deregulation is a disaster, particularly in times of global climate change.

Technically, in an enlightened culture with an infrastructure of engineers and streamlined regulation, one can build a safe nuclear plant in two to three years. This sort of thing was done all over the world. We did it ourselves in this country in the 1960's and 1970's and we, the aging children of those times, are still benefiting from that investment.

I see changes in public attitudes here about nuclear energy, however I believe that we in the United States are still just too dumb to participate in the nuclear revival. We still have a well practiced NIMBY crowd armed with huge amounts of disinformation. We are seeing that type of strategy now in use for the non nuclear Cape Wind project, and of course, Yucca Mountain. Yucca Mountain is not ideal, as I've said many times, but it certainly isn't as dangerous as idiots present it as being.

So, I'm not optimistic for the future of the United States, which, less face it, is being run by people who may be as incompetent as the administration of Nicholas II in Russia, which is a hard trick to manage.

but also the strengths and opportunities. My friends call me the cranky optimist. I think things will get worse before they get better, but they will get better.

I'm also hopeful that Maryland, with experience in Nuclear Power, a relatively educated populace, and relatively high electric rates, will be one of the first states to enjoy the benefits of the new Nuclear Rennaissance.

As for regulation, I prefer marginal pricing of utilities. I think that people who live far away from plants and transmission lines should pay more than people who don't. I don't think city utility users should subsidize rural utility users. I think that there should be peak-time pricing. But that's just me.

This would have a load leveling effect.

As I often point out in technical posts, for reasons having to do with their physics (xenon poisoning), nuclear power plants are poorly suited for meeting peak loads or demand surges.

There is a type of reactor that potentially could avoid this problem, but reactors of that type have never been commercialized and evoking them in the present context would be purely speculative.

would you agree that solar power, might, just might, be a good idea for peak time (daytime) loads?

I had to get that one in, sorry.

I'm still with you, nuclear is not only not bad, it's inevitable. I'd rather sooner than later, though.

many times. Solar energy, to the extent it is affordable, is well suited to peak loads, particularly on hot (bright) summer days where demands are high because of air conditioning. (Of course a breeze driving wind turbines reduces the need for air conditioning - a big drawback for wind energy is its intermittent availability.)

I am not anti-solar. I merely point out that PV solar energy is a higher risk strategy than nuclear energy and that, with the exception of the form represented by wind power, it is very expensive when compared to nuclear and other far less acceptable forms of energy. (Sometimes I do so rather harshly this because "solar only" nut cases morally offend me, particularly when they try to represent their pet option as being risk free.)

Solar power has nuclear power beat in one critical way. It is renewable. Although nuclear resources are enormous, they can in theory be depleted. As I have pointed out before many times as well, every watt generated by solar means extends the length of time and number of generations for which clean, safe nuclear energy is available. Ethically I believe we are compelled to accept the higher risks and economic costs of solar energy, where available, if only for this reason.

Detroit Edison did some experiments with managing peak power. These included:

1. Photovoltaics (distributed and co-gen)
2. Time of day based electric rates.
3. Separate interruptible lines for air conditioners, swimming pool heaters, etc.

Limited trials for #1 and #2, but broader trials with #3. The customers seemed to like all three. (We had #2 and #3; plus I used photovoltaic for trickle charging the car batteries, and for the myriad of ubiquitous AA and AAA rechargeables.

We did save money. No inconvenience.

<3 MW of the >950 MW of new PV capacity produced each year.

It also behooves me to note that Cd/Te PV modules pose little threat to the environment...

www.nrel.gov/ncpv_prm/pdfs/33586046.pdf

www.pv.bnl.gov/art_164.pdf

Nice try though!!!!

say by reading post #6, one would see that the environmentally risky chemistry associated with the manufacture solar cells is not the issue here.

I really don't expect some people to have the remotest clue about what I'm discussing, since many people demonstrate convincingly that they are not qualified to do so. However the subject is batteries.

In some religions it appears that any risk associated with solar energy is to be ignored on the grounds that to the faithful, the word "solar" has mystical powers. People who do not approach the subject of energy from a religious viewpoint however, recognize empirically that storage devices, often called batteries are an external cost of solar energy. This is because the sun is unavailable less than 100% of the time owing to weather and because, surprisingly, the world is spherical and actually rotates. I know this is a revelation, but it is actually true.

Pathetic try, as usual.

Welcome back by the way; you don't know how I've missed you.

Made mason jar batteries for Boy Scout merit badge projects, high school chemistry "extra credit" projects, ethanol-oxygen fuel cells for science talent fair projects, and hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells for physical chemistry lab projects.

One thing you learn real fast about batteries. They use electrodes (and ionizing species) that are (to borrow a phrase from the 1960's) "Not healthy for children or other living things." That's why you can not "trash" rechargeable batteries in Europe - you have to "trade them in" as a way of attempting to manage Cd and Hg.

The second thing you learn about electrodes (for rechargeable batteries) is that they are not 100% reversible -- and you have to put in additives that are also "Not healthy for children or other living things."

The complementary thing about fuel cells is that fuel cell electrodes are poisoned by just about anything (an old colleague said "even the fumes given off by an open cup of lime yogurt").

BTW - one misconception about fuel cells . They do not strictly "need" Platinum oxide electrodes -- they need electrodes that have electron clouds with the same solutions to the wave equation as certain platinum-oxygen materials. (Source: Vittorio deNora). Don't try solving the wave equations -- Edisonian experimentation is probably faster. There is room for serious inventing -- and vast riches if you hit the equivalent electrode. (Ruthenium dioxide doped titanium dioxide has been tried - seems to be ok).

They're required for beverage and other containers in many states - why not these types of batteries????

A $0.5-2 deposit would ensure a high rate of return and keep these things out of landfills...