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That’s only true because the amount of radiation released by a nuclear plant in normal operation is also negligible.
by avalys 6y ago
That’s only true because the amount of radiation released by a nuclear plant in normal operation is also negligible.
- willis936 6y agoThe actual number closer to 1,000 than 100. There is a lot of uranium and thorium in coal. Not all of it is captured when coal is burned. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...
- makomk 6y ago"A lot" is relative. From what I can tell, coal ash contains about the same amount of uranium and thorium as granite and slightly more than ordinary soil. (Of course, it's less concentrated in the coal itself, which is largely carbon and hydrocarbons that gets burnt off.) The main reason coal power releases so much radiation compared to nuclear because there's a lot of coal burnt and normal operation of nuclear power plants also releases very little. What's more scary is the production of things like rare earth minerals - that quite heavily concentrates the uranium and thorium as part of the extraction process, producing large quantities of relatively radioactive mining waste.