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> coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste, says Scientific American. Coal is definitely bad, however, coal power producing more radioactive waste than
by credit_guy 7y ago
> coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste, says Scientific American.
Coal is definitely bad, however, coal power producing more radioactive waste than nuclear power is a meme that deserve to die.
Here's where the meme originated. Somewhere towards the end of the SA article there's this paragraph:
"The result: estimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities. At one extreme, the scientists estimated fly ash radiation in individuals' bones at around 18 millirems (thousandths of a rem, a unit for measuring doses of ionizing radiation) a year. Doses for the two nuclear plants, by contrast, ranged from between three and six millirems for the same period."
Well, guess what: people living near nuclear power plants have a very reasonable expectation to see zero radioactive releases from those plants, and this expectation is generally met (with a few notable exception that we all know about, like Fukushima). That does not mean nuclear power plants don't produce radioactive waste. They do, and that waste is stored and shielded. After the shielding, the amount of radiation released is zero. Yes, zero.
Let's look at the actual numbers now: 18 millirems/year from coal ash, vs 3-6 in the neighborhood of the nuclear power plants. But how much is normal natural radiation? Per [1] it is about 300 millirems/year. So both 3-6 and 18 are negligible levels compared to the normal radiation background.
How does this all compare to Chernobyl? Per [2] the radiation in the vicinity of the famous Elephant Foot is about 8500 Roentgens/hour. Which corresponds to about 75 billion millirems/year.
So, whenever someone mentions again the fact that coal produces more radioactivity than nuclear, keep these two numbers in mind: 18 units for coal and 75 billion for Chrnobyl. Oh, and the natural background is 300 units.
[1] http://news.mit.edu/1994/safe-0105 http://news.mit.edu/1994/safe-0105
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_(Chernobyl)#Lethality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant%27s_Foot_(Chernobyl)#...
- llukas 7y agoNot sure if you noticed before spending all that time into apples to oranges comparisons: SA article was about ingested sources of radiation. Elephant Foot and natural background radiation are outside of your body. Coal ash gets inside. There is profound difference in effect - skin and outer layers of body cannot shield the rest.
- jabl 7y agoAlso, the Elephant Foot is rather easy to avoid; just don't go standing next to it. Avoiding fossil fuel pollution, OTOH, is something most humans can't realistically do.
- credit_guy 7y ago> Elephant Foot and natural background radiation are outside of your body Have you heard of Carbon-14 dating? Of course you did. All things containing carbon that we interact with contain a bit of C14 ( * ) . Including the things we eat. Yes, we ingest every single day, and we inhale every single second radioactive things. If you eat one banana a day you get a yearly dose of 2.6 millirems [1]. That one comes from Potasium-40, but it's the same idea. So the dose SA was talking about, 18 millirems/year, was equivalent to 7 bananas a day. Here's a more scientific study than the SA articles [2]. "The radiation hazard from airborne emissions of coal-fired power plants was evaluated in a series of studies conducted from 1975–1985. These studies concluded that the maximum radiation dose to an individual living within 1 km of a modern power plant is equivalent to a minor, perhaps 1 to 5 percent, increase above the radiation from the natural environment. For the average citizen, the radiation dose from coal burning is considerably less." ( * ) Fun fact: fossil fuels contain essentially no C14 (the half-life of C14 of about 6000 years is many times smaller than the age of the fossil fuels). This is used in testing alcoholic beverages. Natural alcohol (obtained via fermentation) has the usual ratio of C14/C12 and emits a recognizable radiation spectrum. Alcohol industrially produced from petroleum is much cheaper. It does not have C14, so this is how you can detect if an unscrupulous producer uses synthetic ethyl alcohol (which is a dangerous because it has traces of methanol and benzene). [1] https://newatlas.com/radiation-explained-food-sources-danger/46233/ https://newatlas.com/radiation-explained-food-sources-danger... [2]https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/FS-163-97.html https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/FS-163-97.html
- kortilla 7y agoAre there people living next to the elephants foot thinking the power plant is a good thing?