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“send 600 million gallons of acidic radioactive waste into surrounding neighborhoods.“ Why is it radioactive
by hindsightbias 6y ago
“send 600 million gallons of acidic radioactive waste into surrounding neighborhoods.“
Why is it radioactive
- jepler 6y agoI'm not sure, but from a cursory bit of searching the mining of phosphorous may include radioactive trace elements which might be removed or concentrated at various steps of the production of fertilizer. I found e.g., https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1687850714000053 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S168785071... and https://www.osti.gov/biblio/459030-issues-natural-radioactivity-phosphates https://www.osti.gov/biblio/459030-issues-natural-radioactiv...
- detaro 6y agoBecause the ore phosphate is extracted from also contains uranium (and its decay products). Similarly, it contains a bunch of other nasty things, which at the sheer scale this stuff is produced and stored is a problem to handle.
- bradrn 6y agoFrom https://www.eenews.net/stories/1062576963 https://www.eenews.net/stories/1062576963: > Rising above the flat landscape of west-central Florida are towering ponds of acidic wastewater sitting atop mounds of a mildly radioactive material called phosphogypsum. And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum: > Phosphogypsum … [is] formed as a by-product of the production of fertilizer from phosphate rock … phosphogypsum is usually not used, but is stored indefinitely because of its weak radioactivity.