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Sounds like you're trying to correct something that is already correct in the article, as soon as in paragraph 4. > The Earth’s crust is in fact peppered with

Sounds like you're trying to correct something that is already correct in the article, as soon as in paragraph 4. > The Earth’s crust is in fact peppered with radioactive elements that concentrate deep underground in oil-and-gas-bearing layers. This radioactivity is often pulled to the surface when oil and gas is extracted — carried largely in the brine.

acidburnNSA 7y ago
The article does a good job. I'm referring to the headline. For example, nuclear reactors produce radioactive material by fissioning barely-radioactive uranium into highly-radioactive fission products but take great care to not release it. Fracking releases naturally-occurring radioactive materials. Also: "is peppered with" does not imply naturally-occurring. Someone biased to think all radiation is man-made could easily assume it's from us dumping waste.
- jschwartzi 7y ago
  If we're using solutions full of this stuff as deicing brine, that's definitionally dumping waste.
- firethief 7y ago
  I'm sure your terminology is right in the context of nuclear engineering, but I think the headline is right in terms of how most people will read it: oil wells produce radioactive waste in the same sense as they produce oil
makomk 7y ago
No, the article is misleading. Those radioactive elements aren't just deep underground - they're literally everywhere. The soil is naturally full of them. They've got this damning-sounding quote from an internal report that “almost all materials of interest and use to the petroleum industry contain measurable quantities of radionuclides”, but again, that's true of ordinary soil and all kinds of things. What the oil industry and its regulators mostly seem to worry about is their production processes inadvertently concentrating them in places like pipes. (Incidentally, rare earth production is particularly nasty because it involves taking feedstock that's already quite high in radium, thorium, etc and intentionally concentrating them.)
- Turing_Machine 7y ago
  > that's true of ordinary soil and all kinds of things. Sure. If I remember right, someone who lives in Denver gets about double the average radiation dose because a) there are a lot of radionuclides in the Rocky Mountains (relative to other places) and b) Denver's altitude means that more cosmic rays reach ground level because there's less atmosphere to form a shield. If you told most people that (insert some activity) was going to double their radiation dose, they would freak, yet no one panics over the idea of living in Denver.

acidburnNSA 7y ago

The article does a good job. I'm referring to the headline. For example, nuclear reactors produce radioactive material by fissioning barely-radioactive uranium into highly-radioactive fission products but take great care to not release it. Fracking releases naturally-occurring radioactive materials. Also: "is peppered with" does not imply naturally-occurring. Someone biased to think all radiation is man-made could easily assume it's from us dumping waste.

jschwartzi 7y ago
If we're using solutions full of this stuff as deicing brine, that's definitionally dumping waste.
firethief 7y ago
I'm sure your terminology is right in the context of nuclear engineering, but I think the headline is right in terms of how most people will read it: oil wells produce radioactive waste in the same sense as they produce oil

makomk 7y ago

No, the article is misleading. Those radioactive elements aren't just deep underground - they're literally everywhere. The soil is naturally full of them. They've got this damning-sounding quote from an internal report that “almost all materials of interest and use to the petroleum industry contain measurable quantities of radionuclides”, but again, that's true of ordinary soil and all kinds of things. What the oil industry and its regulators mostly seem to worry about is their production processes inadvertently concentrating them in places like pipes. (Incidentally, rare earth production is particularly nasty because it involves taking feedstock that's already quite high in radium, thorium, etc and intentionally concentrating them.)

Turing_Machine 7y ago
> that's true of ordinary soil and all kinds of things. Sure. If I remember right, someone who lives in Denver gets about double the average radiation dose because a) there are a lot of radionuclides in the Rocky Mountains (relative to other places) and b) Denver's altitude means that more cosmic rays reach ground level because there's less atmosphere to form a shield. If you told most people that (insert some activity) was going to double their radiation dose, they would freak, yet no one panics over the idea of living in Denver.