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The title is extremely misleading. The article says that the amount of radiation released into the environment by a coal power plant is more than the amount of
by KerrickStaley 9y ago
The title is extremely misleading. The article says that the amount of radiation released into the environment by a coal power plant is more than the amount of radiation released by a comparable nuclear plant. This is because coal ash is radioactive, and although it's (obviously) far less radioactive than radioactive waste, there's no effort to contain its radioactivity, so it results in more radiation exposure to people living around the plant.
- astrodust 9y ago"Coal plants emit more radioactive waste than nuclear plants" is a better translation here.
- vilhelm_s 9y agoOr "than nuclear plants emit during normal operations". I would have liked to see a comparison about how much radioactivity is released per kWh by a coal plant versus a nuclear plant, if you divide Chernobyl and Fukushima by the total amount of nuclear energy produced in the same timespan.
- astrodust 9y agoTo get a better average you'd need to compute the total radioactive emissions of all nuclear plants divided by their operating time and compute per GWh versus coal plants on the same scale. Chernobyl and Fukushima are two exceptional events. There are hundreds of reactors out there both civilian and military that have never had catastrophic faults.
- dang 9y agoWe've changed the title to that. Thanks!