From the OP:
...homeowners who have regularly replaced A/C coils and refrigerators and are blaming sulfur from their imported drywall as the cause.
...Dan Reid of Intuitive Environmental Solutions in Fort Myers, said he has been getting complaints about sulfur dioxide from drywall for three months. He said he has investigated four complaints and has found measurable levels of the substance. "There are no residential safety standards, but the levels have been well within workplace standards," Reid said. "There has been nothing extreme."
Reid said his research indicates at least some drywall imported from China during the homebuilding boom years of 2004 and 2005 was made with waste materials from scrubbers on coal-fired power plants.
Drywall
Drywall is a common manufactured building material used globally for the finish construction of interior walls and ceilings.
A drywall panel is made of a paper liner wrapped around an inner core made primarily from gypsum plaster, the semi-hydrous form of calcium sulfate (CaSO4.½ H2O). The raw gypsum, CaSO4.2 H2O, (mined or obtained from flue gas desulfurization (FGD)) must be calcined before use. ...
Flue gas desulfurization
Flue gas desulfurization is commonly known as FGD and is the technology used for removing sulfur dioxide (SO2) from the exhaust flue gases in power plants that burn coal or oil to produce steam for the steam turbines that drive their electricity generators.
Sulfur dioxide is responsible for acid rain formation. Tall flue gas stacks disperse the emissions by diluting the pollutants in ambient air and transporting them to other regions.
...Sulfuric acid mist formation
Fossil fuels such as coal and oil contain significant amounts of sulfur. When burned, about 95 percent or more of the sulfur is generally converted to sulfur dioxide (SO2). This happens under normal conditions of temperature and of oxygen present in the flue gas. However, there are circumstances under which ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flue_gas_desulfurizationIt COULD be the drywall, but the OP article presents the presence of "coal waste" as if this is an abnormal ingredient in drywall when, in fact, it is a common source of material for drywall. Could drywall (country of origin not considered) be a source of sulfuric acid? It looks like that could be a real possiblity.
What is totally unjustified however, is pointing the finger at China with absolutely no PROOF that defective drywall is actually the source of the problem and 2) no reason to believe that, if the drywall is the problem, that the origin of the offending drywall is China. I mean face it, our coal burning utilities don't have a stellar record of clean operations nor has the government of the past 7 years made monitoring and oversight much of a concern.
Frankly this all smacks of exploiting racism to divert attention from other possibilities.
This was supposed to be a response to this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x180093My apologies for the confusion.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x180093
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