In 2007, according to a coal industry estimate, 50 tons of fly ash even went to agricultural uses, like improving soil's ability to hold water, despite a 1999 E.P.A. warning about high levels of arsenic.
In Chesapeake, Va., high levels of lead, arsenic and other contaminants were found last year in the groundwater beneath a golf course sculptured with 1.5 million tons of fly ash, the same type of coal ash involved in the Tennessee spill.
It is known that nearly 600 million tons of fly ash is produced in the world per-annum.
As of 2004, nearly two hundred thousand tons of fly ash monoliths are created each year in Taiwan to confine heavy metals for reducing the leaching quantity by precipitation.
South African coal-fired power stations produce about 25 million tons of fly ash per annum, of which only approximately 5% is currently reused.
According to the US Environmental Protection agency (USEPA), about 131 million tons of coal combustion residuals including 71 million tons of fly ash, 20 million tons of bottom ash and boiler slag, and 40 million tons of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) material were generated in the US in 2007.
In Chesapeake, Virginia, heavy metals have been detected in the groundwater surrounding a golf course built on 1.5 million tons of fly ash.
According to Obada Kayali, a civil engineer at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Australian Defence Force Academy, only 9% of the 600 million tons of fly ash produced worldwide in 2000 was recycled; most of the rest was landfilled.
Speaking of which.. As with most helicopters of this size, you don't get a ton of flying time out of each charge — but that's really just a limitation of current battery tech.
Personally, the craziest thing I've ever seen while tripping was a ton of flying pink elephants while I was under an extremely strong morphine-based general anesthetic for a procedure that involved a camera being inserted into my butt (cliché, I know).
