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> A typical coal plant produces more nuclear waste than a nuclear plant. No. This is absurdly incorrect. That article has been debunked many times because it

> A typical coal plant produces more nuclear waste than a nuclear plant. No. This is absurdly incorrect. That article has been debunked many times because its basic claim is that coal ash ponds emit to the environment (not contain) more radiation than spent nuclear fuel storage in perfect working order. The spent fuel from a nuclear power plant contains many orders of magnitude more radioactive matter than any coal plant, anywhere. The design of fuel assemblies, as well as the associated exterior containment of e.g. cooling ponds, or dry casks, keeps the massive amount of radioactivity confined and separate from the environment.

lumost 6y ago
Can you cite a source for this? the core claim is that coal ash contains more uranium and other radioactive metals than what a typical nuclear plant consumes in a year owing to the impurities of coal and the massive volume of coal consumed by a power plant in a given year. As coal ash is typically disposed of via water or air it's an interesting discussion point.
- thehappypm 6y ago
  Uranium is not common. For coal to just, by chance, contain enough uranium to run a nuclear reactor is just not consistent with the logic that mining + refining uranium is hard.
  - lumost 6y ago
    It's worth recalling that a coal plant burns 1.1 pounds of coal per kilowatt hour. Considering that a nuclear plant may produce 5 tera watt hours per year this translates to 2.5 million tons of coal burned per year for equivalent coal generation capacity. Uranium rich coals with concentrations above 200 mg/KG are used in resource extraction around the world. Our hypothetical plant burning this coal would release the equivalent of 500 tons of uranium. In practice it's estimated that Chinese coal plants emit 62 tons of uranium into the atmosphere per year, however this estimate critically depends on the quantity of uranium in the coal - one plant in china was estimated to emit 3 tons of uranium into the atmosphere. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/7/12/239/htm https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/7/12/239/htm Note that 3 tons out of 2.5 million is not concentrated enough to run a nuclear power plant - but is producing greater emissions than our plant.
- jhayward 6y ago
  > the core claim is that coal ash contains more uranium and other radioactive metals No, the core claim is that coal ash contains more radioactivity. That is, there are more nuclear disintegration events per second per kg of mass in coal ash than in spent reactor fuel. And it is wrong by many orders of magnitude. The thorium and natural uranium in coal ash have fairly low levels of radioactivity, nothing like the levels of spent fuel rods. Simple numeracy will tell you it is fact. But in case that's not accessible, ask yourself: what is a person's radiation exposure by standing upon a coal ash mound 1 year after it is deposited? Now ask yourself: what is a person's radiation exposure if they were able to stand next to a spent nuclear fuel assembly 1 year after it is removed from the reactor? You could literally live on top of a coal ash heap and never suffer any radiation consequences. You would have suffered a fatal does from the spent reactor fuel in about a minute. I'll leave the citations to you, since most of the published works assume basic knowledge of how radioactivity works and I'm not certain are appropriate to your question. If you want to know about spent fuel, the Swedish report [1] is fairly good for lay persons. I'm not going to dig out any studies on ash ponds, but I'm sure there are some. [1] https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/587853 https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/587853
  - lumost 6y ago
    As it happens, my degree is in physics. the majority of high radioactivity elements that you are describing decay within 5 years the remaining waste that sticks around for 30k+ years isn't nearly as radioactive. The rods burning off hot radioactive material are not intended to leave the plant and hence I didn't call them out in the waste products. When it comes to low concentrations of radioactive heavy metals like those in spent fuel rods after 5 years the bigger danger tends to be heavy metal poisoning where they are dramatically more toxic than lead.
    - jhayward 6y ago
      Look on page 22 of the cited doc. At 50 years, the dose rate is still 20,000 mSv/hour/tonne. Compare that to fly ash for us, please.
- philipkglass 6y ago
  I have written about this a couple of times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26216669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26216669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14466887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14466887 The Scientific American article cites actual published research but distorts it in the retelling.

lumost 6y ago

Can you cite a source for this? the core claim is that coal ash contains more uranium and other radioactive metals than what a typical nuclear plant consumes in a year owing to the impurities of coal and the massive volume of coal consumed by a power plant in a given year. As coal ash is typically disposed of via water or air it's an interesting discussion point.

thehappypm 6y ago
Uranium is not common. For coal to just, by chance, contain enough uranium to run a nuclear reactor is just not consistent with the logic that mining + refining uranium is hard.
- lumost 6y ago
  It's worth recalling that a coal plant burns 1.1 pounds of coal per kilowatt hour. Considering that a nuclear plant may produce 5 tera watt hours per year this translates to 2.5 million tons of coal burned per year for equivalent coal generation capacity. Uranium rich coals with concentrations above 200 mg/KG are used in resource extraction around the world. Our hypothetical plant burning this coal would release the equivalent of 500 tons of uranium. In practice it's estimated that Chinese coal plants emit 62 tons of uranium into the atmosphere per year, however this estimate critically depends on the quantity of uranium in the coal - one plant in china was estimated to emit 3 tons of uranium into the atmosphere. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/7/12/239/htm https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/7/12/239/htm Note that 3 tons out of 2.5 million is not concentrated enough to run a nuclear power plant - but is producing greater emissions than our plant.
jhayward 6y ago
> the core claim is that coal ash contains more uranium and other radioactive metals No, the core claim is that coal ash contains more radioactivity. That is, there are more nuclear disintegration events per second per kg of mass in coal ash than in spent reactor fuel. And it is wrong by many orders of magnitude. The thorium and natural uranium in coal ash have fairly low levels of radioactivity, nothing like the levels of spent fuel rods. Simple numeracy will tell you it is fact. But in case that's not accessible, ask yourself: what is a person's radiation exposure by standing upon a coal ash mound 1 year after it is deposited? Now ask yourself: what is a person's radiation exposure if they were able to stand next to a spent nuclear fuel assembly 1 year after it is removed from the reactor? You could literally live on top of a coal ash heap and never suffer any radiation consequences. You would have suffered a fatal does from the spent reactor fuel in about a minute. I'll leave the citations to you, since most of the published works assume basic knowledge of how radioactivity works and I'm not certain are appropriate to your question. If you want to know about spent fuel, the Swedish report [1] is fairly good for lay persons. I'm not going to dig out any studies on ash ponds, but I'm sure there are some. [1] https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/587853 https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/587853
- lumost 6y ago
  As it happens, my degree is in physics. the majority of high radioactivity elements that you are describing decay within 5 years the remaining waste that sticks around for 30k+ years isn't nearly as radioactive. The rods burning off hot radioactive material are not intended to leave the plant and hence I didn't call them out in the waste products. When it comes to low concentrations of radioactive heavy metals like those in spent fuel rods after 5 years the bigger danger tends to be heavy metal poisoning where they are dramatically more toxic than lead.
  - jhayward 6y ago
    Look on page 22 of the cited doc. At 50 years, the dose rate is still 20,000 mSv/hour/tonne. Compare that to fly ash for us, please.
philipkglass 6y ago
I have written about this a couple of times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26216669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26216669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14466887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14466887 The Scientific American article cites actual published research but distorts it in the retelling.