by Tanada » Sat 14 Jul 2018, 16:16:01
KaiserJeep wrote:Ammonia is an extremely toxic and corrosive substance. It was once used as a refrigerant, but it killed a lot of people.
Straw man much?
Out here in the real world the farmers use copious quantities of anhydrous ammonia every year and it is shipped from manufacturing facilities to distribution nodes in pipelines designed to handle its 'corrosive' properties. I grew up with farm tanks of the stuff parked nearby every spring as have millions of other farm kids over the last 100 years.
Oh and for industrial purposes Ammonia is still used as a dirt cheap refrigerant. I suggest that with ammonia home refrigerators being powered by a gas or oil pilot light you probably had a lot more deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning in enclosed structures than you did directly from ammonia toxicity. The kind used in home cooling systems for food products was diluted in water so you had two possibilities in the event of a piping failure, a big puddle of stinky water not unlike that used in cleaning products, or in the worse case a leak in the gas portion of low pressure ammonia gas that would make its presence known immediately from the massive stench that comes with it. Sure you might die if you breathed too much and it can sear your eyes of soft tissues of the mouth and airway if you hang out in the cloud, but if you air out your home as soon as you smell it the risk was minimal, certainly no worse that having a 250 gallon fuel oil tank in the basement powering your furnace. Ever seen what happens when a fuel oil tank pipe breaks and dumps a hundred gallons of fuel on the floor all around the operating firebox of the furnace? People should avoid unnecessary risks, but you have to store energy somehow and Ammonia is a fine choice to use.
I should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.