4 ms·

Chornobyl alone put more radioactive isotopes into air than all coal plants combined. Don't know about ground and water.

• bitcharmer 6y ago
  This statement could definitely use a source.
  • drran 6y ago
    For Chornobyl, I found estimate at Wikipedia: «An early estimate for total nuclear fuel material released to the environment was 3±1.5%; this was later revised to 3.5±0.5%. This corresponds to the atmospheric emission of 6 tonnes (5.9 long tons; 6.6 short tons) of fragmented fuel.[127]» https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Relative_isotopic_abundances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Relative_is...
  • drran 6y ago
    For coal power stations: «According to estimates by the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the world’s coal-fired power stations currently generate waste containing around 5,000 tonnes of uranium and 15,000 tonnes of thorium. Collectively, that’s over 100 times more radiation dumped into the environment than that released by nuclear power stations.» About 1% of it is leaked into air, so about 500 tonnes of uranium and 1500 tonnes of thorium are leaked into air every year. However, uranium and thorium are much less dangerous than radioactive iodine, strontium, and cesium.
• Chris2048 6y ago
  But is this an apt comparison. The soviet union was pretty independent from the rest of the west. I's sooner qualify that western/European nuclear is safe, so the average isn't dragged down by despotic/unstable nations. Nuclear proliferation is a worldwide concern, but a new power plant in your backyard is as safe as relative to the national record.