But nuclear plants produce so much less waste than coal plants that overall, they release less radiation joule for joule. Even that isn't quite accurate. React

But nuclear plants produce so much less waste than coal plants that overall, they release less radiation joule for joule. Even that isn't quite accurate. Reactors release more radiation, but mostly in the form of elements that don't bioconcentrate into the food supply, so that the effective exposure of the human population is lower. I wrote a long comment a couple of years ago discussing the original article that Scientific American paraphrased for this report: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14466887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14466887