Don’t Rust!

December 9, 2009 by Dick.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 9, 2009) — Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced the definitive solution to Global Warming today.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday issued a final ruling that, in addition to methane, carbon dioxide also poses a significant danger to human health and to the environment.

E.P.A. administrator Lisa P. Jackson said that the 2007 Supreme Court decision required the agency to regulate CO2 as well as methane. The E.P.A. plans to limit emissions from human sources, all cars and trucks, power plants, refineries, cement plants and other big factories, and large farms. It appears that locomotives, trolley cars, cruise ships, and government aircraft may remain exempt.

Senator Reid says he has a better idea that does not involve pedal cabs.

“We’re going to galvanize everything that doesn’t move,” Senator Reid said. “Not only will it suck all the CO2 out of the atmosphere, it will ensure that nothing made in America ever corrodes again.”

Hot dip galvanizing is a metallurgical process that coats steel or iron with zinc to prevent rusting and other corrosion of the ferrous products. It has been in use for more than 150 years.

Galvanizing protection builds over time by a mechanism where the zinc first oxidizes. Then oxide absorbs water and becomes zinc hydroxide. The zinc hydroxide absorbs CO2 from the air. That forms a dense, impervious coating of zinc carbonate. If it were lime, we would call it “slaking.”

“It pulls carbon dioxide straight out of the air,” Senator Reid said. “What could be better or more useful today?”

I love science. Or I did before it became poli-sci.

Of course, Rust Never Sleeps™ even with galvanized steel; rusting is inevitable, especially in U.S. regions plagued with acid rainfall.

Rufus wants me to point out what sucking the life out of the atmosphere has done to companies in the Rust Belt but that is a subject for another day.

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