Here's Gabbard's estimated global total radioactivity release from coal, 1937 - 2040:

[struggle4progress]

... Thus, by combining U.S. coal combustion from 1937 (440 million tons) through 1987 (661 million tons) with an estimated total in the year 2040 (2516 million tons), the total expected U.S. radioactivity release to the environment by 2040 can be determined. That total comes from the expected combustion of 111,716 million tons of coal with the release of 477,027,320 millicuries in the United States. Global releases of radioactivity from the predicted combustion of 637,409 million tons of coal would be 2,721,736,430 millicuries ... http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

So, over a century, he estimates a cumulative worldwide radiological "release" (mostly in ash) under 3 x 10^6 curies

Let's compare that to just a few bad days at Chernobyl, where perhaps 14 EBq (14 x 10^18 Bq) was released -- or over 3 x 10^11 curies

So if we had been burning coal, at present rates, since humans first walked the planet, the coal burning wouldn't have had as much radiological impact as the Chernobyl accident. (And actually, that's simply an impossible scenario: if we burned all our coal at present rates, we'd run out in a century or two)

Of course, there are plenty of good reasons to hate coal, but comparative radiological hazard isn't on the chart

[SpoonFed]

1. Thanks for the post n/t

[txlibdem]

2. The source link you provided proves you are wrong

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trace quantities of uranium in coal range from less than 1 part per million (ppm) in some samples to around 10 ppm in others. Generally, the amount of thorium contained in coal is about 2.5 times greater than the amount of uranium. For a large number of coal samples, according to Environmental Protection Agency figures released in 1984, average values of uranium and thorium content have been determined to be 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively. Using these values along with reported consumption and projected consumption of coal by utilities provides a means of calculating the amounts of potentially recoverable breedable and fissionable elements (see sidebar). The concentration of fissionable uranium-235 (the current fuel for nuclear power plants) has been established to be 0.71% of uranium content.

...snip...

Because existing coal-fired power plants vary in size and electrical output, to calculate the annual coal consumption of these facilities, assume that the typical plant has an electrical output of 1000 megawatts. Existing coal-fired plants of this capacity annually burn about 4 million tons of coal each year. Further, considering that in 1982 about 616 million short tons (2000 pounds per ton) of coal was burned in the United States (from 833 million short tons mined, or 74%), the number of typical coal-fired plants necessary to consume this quantity of coal is 154.

Using these data, the releases of radioactive materials per typical plant can be calculated for any year. For the year 1982, assuming coal contains uranium and thorium concentrations of 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively, each typical plant released 5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons of thorium that year. Total U.S. releases in 1982 (from 154 typical plants) amounted to 801 tons of uranium (containing 11,371 pounds of uranium-235) and 1971 tons of thorium. These figures account for only 74% of releases from combustion of coal from all sources. Releases in 1982 from worldwide combustion of 2800 million tons of coal totaled 3640 tons of uranium (containing 51,700 pounds of uranium-235) and 8960 tons of thorium.

... from your source, and that is only ONE YEAR (1982)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, to summarize, we have 51,700 pounds of U-235 (about 26 tons), 3.640 tons of Uranium, and 8,960 tons of Thorium released into the environment with no controls, no containment and no regulation to speak of (most states have ultra lax coal regulations). What's the problem? Why can't we count the Becquerels and the millisieverts and get a very favorable pro-coal number?

Here's why:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, the clay in cat litter does give off radiation in very small quantities. There is naturally occurring radiation all around us; the radiation in cat litter comes from trace amounts of uranium, thorium, and potassium-40. Many other consumer products are also radioactive. Among these are some ceramic tiles (which can contain uranium), glossy magazines (which are sometimes coated with material that's high in uranium and thorium), and Brazil nuts (which have a fair amount of radium).

The quantity of radiation in cat litter—and all of the other consumer products listed above—is small enough that it poses no risk for either humans or their pets. So, why can't screening devices distinguish between common sources of radiation and the material used to make a nuclear bomb? For one, the most common ingredients in bombs, uranium-235 and plutonium-239, don't give off very much radiation at all. To suss out these materials, a detector must be set to a very high sensitivity. If the sensitivity of the screening device is high enough, then naturally occurring radioactive materials can set off a false alarm. (A small percentage of the uranium found in nature, for example, happens to be in the form of the U-235 isotope.)

...from http://www.slate.com/id/2120491/
Note: the longer the half-life, the less radiation is given off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This does not make the huge emissions from coal any less dangerous. It just means that the accumulation of radioactive matter from each coal plant gets to fly under the radar of detecting equipment. It does NOT mean that the quantities of these cancer causing radioactive elements that go out the coal chimney stack won't lodge in your lungs and give you cancer, it does NOT mean that dumping thousands of tons worth of it in open pits and "ash" ponds is safe or even advisable.

Why does this anti-nuker say that your Chernobyl data is suspect?
"For Chernobyl, actual doses were so poorly recorded or estimated, that all studies since then have been both difficult to design and easy to criticize as inaccurate."
...from http://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2011/04/measuring-low-level-radiation-damage.html

Yet you claim an exact level of radiation given off in a "few bad days at Chernobyl."

This university study shows that only those workers directly involved in the cleanup at the Chernobyl site were exposed to anything above what a normal human would during his or her lifespan.
...ref: http://pulse.pharmacy.arizona.edu/math/lesson_gifs/chernobyl1_gifs/Chernob6.pdf

And UN studies show that your estimates are the highest of any that have been published. Nice cherry picking of data but you've proven nothing.

[SpoonFed]

3. Please please please

If you're going to subject us to bouts of your faulty reasoning, can you at least have the courtesy to adhere to some sort of sane method of separating the material you are quoting from that of your own statements, that doesn't make the average person's eyes bleed?

the div mark-up works for me...

[txlibdem]

4. Only because you are so special to me...

Nah. What the heck are you thinking? Most of the anti-nuke posts are barely worth responding to. My scripting chops are reserved for the lucky few that I actually give a (bleep) about.

[SpoonFed]

16. Clearly you are incapable of common courtesy...

My scripting chops are reserved for

Just another example of how clueless you are. Markup tags are simple sequences of text that change the representation of information which they enclose. Scripting on the other hand is something entirely different. Does not surprise me in the slightest, you don't know the difference.

Your continuous frothing at the mouth while throwing around terms and concepts you don't understand has become beyond boring.

*This message does not contain an endorsement of coal power.
**This message was not written from the holodeck of a floating city.

[txlibdem]

17. Yes, clearly our interchanges on DU have proven that "I'm the jerk"

You may be technically correct with the distinction between markup tags and "actual scripting."

But you fail to mention that DU uses a form of BBCode, many of whose tags can be used on DU. When I use my "Windoze" computer I have a browser add-on, which makes it easier to insert the div, etc., tags (I added the tags I want under the user config screen). Lately, I've been on my Linux laptop and it's just too much time to search out a browser add-on or even keep those available for copy & paste. Replying to anti-nuker silliness deserves as little of my time as possible.

There now. That was a civil response. Perhaps just not the one you were hoping for, maybe?

[SpoonFed]

18. Let me just continue to correct your errors...

You may be technically correct with the distinction between markup tags and "actual scripting."

I'm not technically correct. I'm simply correct. Markup is not scripting and scripting is not markup. Furthermore, your use of quotations around the words actual scripting, implies those were said by somebody. I never said the word actual. You've construct another imaginary quotation.

But you fail to mention that DU uses a form of BBCode, many of whose tags can be used on DU.

Actually, wrong again, it uses a subset of HTML, with the < and > replaced with by square brackets. It says on every posting page and there is a link to a pop-up window with examples. Also, I did not fail to mention it. It is exactly what the word markup means in the context of my post.

When I use my "Windoze" computer I have a browser add-on, which makes it easier to insert the div, etc., tags (I added the tags I want under the user config screen).

I don't think anyone really cares what computer or operating system you use, I certainly don't. Completely irrelevant to the fact that you are using the wrong terminology. Just another clear example of you injecting irrelevant content into every post.

Lately, I've been on my Linux laptop and it's just too much time to search out a browser add-on or even keep those available for copy & paste.

And I guess you're too lazy or dumb to just click the "HTML lookup table" at the top of each posting area form.

Replying to anti-nuker silliness deserves as little of my time as possible.

Your repeated use of derision serves no purpose. Recently every post of yours contains some sort of derisive little aside against "the anti-nuke nutjobs", which I find rather amusing, and which suggests to me that you're suffering from a lack of self-confidence and anxiety because you're arguments are non-existent and you know that you are in over your head.

There now. That was a civil response. Perhaps just not the one you were hoping for, maybe?

I couldn't care less if you are civil or not, but I understand there are rules on the forums that must be followed. The only thing I do care about is either a) you make valid arguments or b) you shut up.

The only reason I brought up the fact that you used the term scripting incorrectly was to demonstrate, as your reply and this message clearly does, that you gloss over details in such a gross and roughshod manner that almost everything you contribute here suffers from a lack of clarify and attention to detail.

I'm overly polite by using the word contribute to describe your posts.

[txlibdem]

19. Your answer is in post #148

eom

[SpoonFed]

20. Translation...

Yes, SpoonFed, you are entirely correct in all the points you made so I am going to go back to pretending that they were never written. This is exactly how you act now that your bubble has been burst on the whole coal radiation > nuclear radation argument. You ignore the fact that you are wrong and repeat yourself.

[txlibdem]

21. Your post was nothing but repitition ad nauseum

I don't have time to waste on copy and pasted nonsense. You've proven nothing in the replies to my earlier post, you've proven nothing now.

[struggle4progress]

5. The Gabbard webpage at ORNL is the source of the whole discussion, and it is linked

by the link in the OP

So most of this thread is debating Gabbard, whether or not people recognize it, and for that reason, I cite Gabbard's numbers: they are the numbers under discussion

I rather dislike the Gabbard webpage, as it rather incoherently wanders between mass, radioactivity, and dose estimates, and because its discussion of doses from nuclear plant relies on design basis estimates, rather than on actual emissions

In fact, much of what is on the Gabbard page is simply nonsense; here, for example, Gabbard suggests coal ash poses a nuclear weapon proliferation threat:

Because electric utilities are not high-profile facilities, collection and processing of coal ash for recovery of minerals, including uranium for weapons or reactor fuel, can proceed without attracting outside attention, concern, or intervention. Any country with coal-fired plants could collect combustion by-products and amass sufficient nuclear weapons material to build up a very powerful arsenal, if it has or develops the technology to do so. Of far greater potential are the much larger quantities of thorium-232 and uranium-238 from coal combustion that can be used to breed fissionable isotopes. Chemical separation and purification of uranium-233 from thorium and plutonium-239 from uranium require far less effort than enrichment of isotopes. Only small fractions of these fertile elements in coal combustion residue are needed for clandestine breeding of fissionable fuels and weapons material by those nations that have nuclear reactor technology and the inclination to carry out this difficult task

Such claims are simply laughable: extracting enough fissile material, from coal ash, in order to make a nuclear weapon, would require enormous financial and energetic and technical resources -- with enormous facilities for chemical separation and isotopic enrichment

Estimates for the Chernobyl release vary by perhaps two orders of magnitude; I found the 14 EBq figure on a standard nuclear industry site. Divide it by ten or a hundred or a thousand: the Chernobyl release still dwarfs coal releases

Since we are all discussing Gabbard, I quoted Gabbard as saying coal burning will release 2.7 million curies between 1937 and 2040

If you don't want to discuss Chernobyl, we can discuss TMI or Fukushima

For comparative purposes, consider the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island:

The total radioactivity released during the accident was 2.4 million curies. See: Thomas M. Gerusky. "Three Mile Island: Assessment of Radiation Exposures and Environmental Contamination." In: Thomas H. Moss and David L. Sills: The Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident: Lessons and Implications. New York: The New York Academy of Sciences,1981, p. 57 http://echo.gmu.edu/tmi/

For further comparative purposes, releases of a single isotope (I-131) from Fukushima may exceed 2.4 million curies; see http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2206

[SpoonFed]

6. Coal emissions into weapons...?

Such claims are simply laughable: extracting enough fissile material, from coal ash, in order to make a nuclear weapon, would require enormous financial and energetic and technical resources -- with enormous facilities for chemical separation and isotopic enrichment

I'm not expert on the subject. Could you give me an approximate number in US dollars as to the enormous financial and energetic and technical resources required. Furthermore, could you give me a reasoned analysis as to whether this enormous endeaver would be on the same scale as... wait for it... would be required to build floating hover cities for Japanese evacuees?

[struggle4progress]

7. Coal ash consists mainly of compounds like silicates, alumina, and iron rust:

a rather glassy or ceramic material, which has been formed at high temperature in an oxidizing environment, so it won't be very reactive. The first challenge is to extract a trace element from it

Coal ash is (say) 10 ppm natural uranium. A good quality uranium deposit is about 20% U308 -- say, 20 000 times richer in uranium than coal ash. The chemical problem of extracting an element, from a sample which is 20% of that element, is quite different from chemical problem of extracting an element, from a sample which is 0.001% of that element. Coal ash contains almost everything at low concentrations, so in the initial stages of a separation attempt, you're going to get a "soup" that contains all manner of stuff at very low concentrations. To overcome the entropic barrier presented by the extreme dilution, you will need some very favorable reactions

Weapons-grade uranium is about 85% U-235, with a critical mass of some tens of kilograms. Natural uranium is about 2% U-235 49% U-238, and 49% U-234. Thus, you need to start with at least 40x more natural uranium than the amount of weapons-grade uranium you hope to obtain

What's it going to take to produce ten kilograms of weapons-grade uranium from coal ash? At 10 ppm natural uranium, you can't get more than 10 g natural uranium from a metric tonne of coal ash, so 10 kg of natural uranium requires at least 1000 metric tonnes of coal ash; multiplying by 40, you'd need at least 40 000 metric tonnes of coal ash to produce ten kilograms of weapons-grade uranium. The actual numbers will be much worse, since you cannot expect quantitative extraction of a trace element, and you can't expect easy isotopic separation. You're actually contemplating a very substantial industrial enterprise

For perspective, consider this: the average abundance of uranium in crustal rock is about 2.5 ppm. If you can figure out a feasible way to extract uranium from coal ash, you can probably figure out a feasible way to extract uranium from most rocks: there's only a factor of about four in the trace concentrations

[txlibdem]

9. You've got your facts exactly backwards

Coal ash is not 10ppm natural uranium. The coal starts off at between 1 ppm and 10 ppm in its natural state. Coal ash increases the Uranium and Thorium concentrations between 10 times to 100 times that of the natural coal.

Comparing "a good quality uranium deposit" to coal is a waste of gray matter. There are very few Uranium mines in the world and the supply is tightly controlled. You can't walk in to the local big box store and order up a few tons. Nations that the US is trying its best to keep from getting any nuclear material will never gain access to any of it. First logical fallacy.

Separating a tiny percentage concentration of a substance from the ash would be expensive if you want pure grade stuff. If you just want to get enough to cause havoc somewhere then that would be easy. All you'd have to do is separate only the Mercury poison from the toxic coal ash. Or any one of the dozens of highly toxic heavy metals that are in coal ash. If you want to separate out only the radioactive material then that is an easy task with well known (thanks to Pakistani Nuclear Scientists) processes. Remember, they're not trying to make an ultra pure end product, a 50/50 blend or a 10/90 blend of Uranium/ash would be just fine to cause widespread havoc.

Massaging the numbers to make it sound like we can all take a mud bath in the nearest coal pond is pure fantasy. Do so and you will die. This is the point of this entire OP: coal puts out far larger quantities of far more toxic stuff than a nuclear power plant -- and the coal industry gets to dump the costs of their poison onto the rest of us, never has to pay for the 1 million deaths each year caused by coal power plant pollution.

[struggle4progress]

11. Table 2.--Comparative results for EPA-NBS interlaboratory trace element study

(All values in parts per million ...) ...
http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c735/table2.htm

Uranium in coal comes in, on average, a bit over 1 ppm in the table

[txlibdem]

13. It depends on where the sample is taken: Uranium in coal varies from 1 to 10 ppm

"Trace quantities of uranium in coal range from less than 1 part per million (ppm) in some samples to around 10 ppm in others. Generally, the amount of thorium contained in coal is about 2.5 times greater than the amount of uranium. For a large number of coal samples, according to Environmental Protection Agency figures released in 1984, average values of uranium and thorium content have been determined to be 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively."
... http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

And from the same source:
"The concentration of fissionable uranium-235 (the current fuel for nuclear power plants) has been established to be 0.71% of uranium content."

Isn't this the same source you quoted to say that coal is so safe we should be bathing in it??? It says that in some parts of the US, coal contains 10 ppm of uranium and, therefore, 25 ppm of Thorium. That figure then would include .071 ppm of fissile Uranium-235.

That doesn't sound all that bad. 0.071 parts per million is all. What a wimp you must be if you can't roll around in an ash pit with 0.071 parts per million of nuclear reactor fuel, Uranium-235 in it.

It all depends on where you live or, more accurately, where your local coal power plant gets its coal from. There is a chance that you could be deluged with 10 times the "average" amount of Nuclear Reactor Fuel that floats freely out the smoke stack of the coal power plant or is stored in open pits and ponds for the wind to pick up and toss into the air.

If a nearby nuclear reactor announced that it was pulverizing its reactor fuel and letting out 11,371 pounds of uranium-235 (more than 5 tons) into the air in the form of tiny particles that could float on the winds and land anywhere downwind (wherever the wind might be blowing that day)... you'd be picketing outside that nuclear power plant within two seconds! Why does coal get a free pass for doing just that???

*note: U-235 data from the same source as above, data from the year 1982 only.

/edit to correct this sentence: Estimated cumulative Uranium-235 release in the US alone from 1937 to the year 2040: "1031 tons of uranium-235"

[struggle4progress]

14. You stoop to putting words in my mouth, so we're done here.

:hi:

[struggle4progress]

8. If you want a crude cost estimate, the US has spent something like 5.5 trillion

on 70 000 nuclear weapons, or around $80 million per weapon. That, of course, is inflated in a sense, since it involves more than producing weapons grade material, but it is also deflated by the economies of scale associated with assembly line production

The Manhattan project cost about $2 billion. That, of course, is inflated by the research activities related to the initial weapon development, including plutonium reactors, but it is deflated somewhat by the fact that they had good quality ores from which it was relatively easy to extract uranium into acid baths

To feasibly build weapons from coal ash, you need (1) a chemical plant nearly good enough to extract uranium economically from backyard soils plus (2) an isotopic enrichment plant something like the old K-25 plant. The first problem would require a substantial research effort. The second is not a trivial investment either

[txlibdem]

10. That means that any oil rich nation can do it with just a few days worth of oil profits

So we'll be paying them to kill us with their oil pollution, and paying them to build their death factories as well.

But remember boys and girls -- be VERY afraid of nuclear power plants! Booga-Booga! Haha, scared ya! :dunce:

[struggle4progress]

15. This idea's been knocking around for over a half century. ORNL looked at it in the early 1950s.

As far as I can tell, nobody has made any real progress with it. From time to time, somebody loudly promises to get rich doing this, and after a while nothing happens

[SpoonFed]

12. Are you willing to sign an NDA?

To feasibly build weapons from coal ash, you need (1) a chemical plant nearly good enough to extract uranium economically from backyard soils plus (2) an isotopic enrichment plant something like the old K-25 plant. The first problem would require a substantial research effort. The second is not a trivial investment either

There must be some market efficiencies in the form of economies of scale for building these chemical plants that you are overlooking. I'd assume that advanced Japanese robotic manufacturing techniques could build alot of small, nearly good enough chemical plants, very quickly and that would make extraction of uranium from my and my neighbour's yards that much easier. I'm not thinking about bombs here but maybe I could start a high tech start up to compete with the big guys in the nuclear fission power fuel supply industry based solely on superior Japanese technology.

By extension, if we were to instruct these robots to build these factories on some sort of floating structure, then they could sail from place to place, harvesting an almost infinite amount of uranium from the backyard environment all over the world, and never have to worry about short supply for the nuclear power industry fuel cycle. This is a really great idea, actually.