Coal ash pits are Terrorist Targets

[txlibdem]

And why not: they contain millions of tons of toxic chemicals as well as thousands of tons of RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL. Just one truck load of that material "spilled" in the downtown area of any medium to large city would poison thousands of people with toxic chemicals and radiation.

On one hand, EPA sent us a representative to tell us that the ash was perfectly safe, and we had no need to worry. In Washington, though, that same agency is rethinking its position on coal ash as we speak. Concerns about the material's toxic constituents may mean it gets reclassified as hazardous waste. The Dept. of Homeland Security wants to scrub over 40 existing coal ash storage facilities from the map, citing the danger they pose to surrounding communities as potential terrorist targets. With mixed messages like that, tell us again why we shouldn't be concerned.

http://perryherald.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-all-blogging-all-of-sudden.html

The EPA might know a little about coal ash pits being terrorist targets:

The Environmental Protection Agency classified the 44 sites as potential hazards to communities, which means the waste sites could cause death and significant property damage if an event such as a storm, a terrorist attack or a structural failure caused a spill. They estimate that about 300 dry landfills and wet storage ponds are used around the country to store ash from coal-fired power plants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_coal_mining_and_burning

And don't worry about storms causing more and more failures of these unregulated ash pits folks, due to the global climate getting milder and milder... oh, wait. Reverse that!

Obama keeping secret locations of coal ash sites

Storage ponds 'potential hazards' to nearby communities, says EPA

The Army Corps of Engineers in a letter dated June 4 told the EPA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency that the public should not be alerted to the whereabouts of the (coal ash dump) sites because it would compromise national security.

"Uncontrolled or unrestricted release (of the information) may pose a security risk to projects or communities by increasing its attractiveness as a potential target," Steven L. Stockton, the Army Corps' director of civil works, wrote in a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31327223/ns/us_news-environment/t/obama-keeping-secret-locations-coal-ash-sites/

[Gregorian]

1. Hey, this may be the only way people are ever going to learn about what's going up the stacks.

A Chernobyl a year. Very serious stuff. I learned this in a thermo course back in 1989. The class was shocked to hear that radioactive particulates were going into our air...from coal plants.

[TheWraith]

2. About 800 tons of Uranium and 1200 tons of Thorium a year, if I recall correctly.

Vented straight into the air or dumped out in ash. It's unenriched material, making it weak on a per-pound basis, but added all together and it's a shitload.

[txlibdem]

4. The sheer amount of radioactive poisons that coal plants spew into the environment is staggering

Your post has it right: 801 tons of Uranium, 1970 tons of Thorium are released each year by the coal power plants in America each year.
...
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.
... http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xuDIjyr0q74J:www.ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/uranium-in-coal-gabbard-07.rtf+how+many+tons+of+uranium+have+been+released+into+the+atmosphere&cd=19&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

Since March 1993, 113 metric tons of uranium from weapons have been transformed into fuel for nuclear power plants. That's the equivalent of 4,500 dismantled nuclear weapons. This is the result of the United States and the Russian Federation signing an agreement on the disposition and purchase of 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons.

http://fi.edu/guide/wester/benefits.html

So if 113 metric tons of uranium equals 4,500 atomic bombs... how many atomic bombs does 3640 tons of uranium equal???

Actually, that's not a fair comparison because the 3640 tons is not all "weapons grade." But the 51,700 pounds of U-235 *is* weapons grade, 25.85 metric tons. So each year coal power plants worldwide releases the equivalent of 1,029 nuclear weapons... *each year* from burning coal.

But all it takes is one molecule of that 3640 tons of Uranium, if you should breathe in and it lands inside your lungs -- that's a cancer for you.

[txlibdem]

3. It's shocking that people are so afraid of those scary nuclear plants - coal puts out more each year

Each 1000 MWe (aka 1 GWe) coal power plant puts out 5.2 tons of Uranium and 12.8 tons of Thorium into the atmosphere. It goes right out the smokestack but some of it is captured by the filtering system (76% of coal plants have filters, the remaining 24% have NO filtering of any kind).

The Uranium and Thorium that is captured is mixed with the coal ash and dumped into open pits or open coal ponds with zero containment. Many states have absolutely ZERO regulations about how these coal ash pits are to be built, some states force coal operators to line the pit with clay (like a municipal garbage dump has to).

[pscot]

7. The famous

"Doomsday Shroud". Not to worry though. In future we'll all be living underground to escape the heat anyway.

[txlibdem]

9. Hey, I'm in Dallas and you better believe I've looked into it

In fact, there is a home within a few miles of mine that is buried on 3 sides, (North, West, and East so they get the sun in winter), it has perfect-sized roof overhang so the sun doesn't strike the building or windows in summer but does bring its warmth in winter. This is an example of a earth-bermed home, similar to ones that were designed while the Carter energy plan was still in effect (before Reagan killed it dead, and stomped it's entrails with no mercy - no, wait, that's what he did to the country, sorry).

Meanwhile our walls and windows are blasted by the summer sun from 7:30am till about 8-ish. No roof overhangs (about 1 ft; worthless).

[Nihil]

5. And, strangely, it all goes quiet ...

All of those prolific posters busy panic-mongering about events elsewhere
in the world are conspicuous by their absence on a thread about real
dangers in their own country, covered up by their own president.

What a surprise ... :eyes:

[txlibdem]

6. Conspicuous by their absence

Love that phrasing... and so true.

After all, if you don't like nuclear power because of the SCARY radiation shouldn't you be EVEN MORE against coal power now that we all know the truth: that coal puts out hundreds or thousands of times more radiation into the environment???

[kristopher]

8. Drawing an obviously false equivalency doesn't help achieve your goal.

This has been covered enough times that you certainly know that manner in which you are distorting the discussion.




You are clearly reacting to this post:

Nuclear power plants terrorist targets...
Federal security concerns since 9/11 have turned U.S. nuclear power plants into armed fortresses
By John Funk, The Plain Dealer

Terrorists trying to drive an explosive-loaded truck into FirstEnergy's Perry nuclear reactor would encounter manned guard towers, layers of fencing and concrete barriers.

As the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers approaches, it is clear to federal authorities that nuclear power plants are high on the target list.

Less than three weeks ago, the Department of Homeland Security warned electric utility companies that terrorists were likely targeting their reactors -- and using power plant workers to gather intelligence.

"Violent extremists have, in fact, obtained insider positions," the agency warned in a note to power plant operators that a spokesman later tried to downplay as "routine."

The alert came after federal intelligence analysts ...
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2011/08/nuclear_security_911_firstener.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=307099&mesg_id=307099

You are engaging in an attempt to defuse criticism of nuclear power based on the fact that nuclear is an EXTREMELY attractive terrorist target. However there is a critical difference (noted in post 6 of the thread linked above) that your focus on the false comparison of radioactive emissions fails to address:

Terrorism against nuclear power leverages critical infrastructure. In addition to the direct damage from a terrorism rooted Fukushima/Chernobyl in the US, there would also be significant economic and civil disruption brought about by the sudden withdrawal of nuclear as a source of power for the grid.
... there are a lot of targets of opportunity out there, but few have the same potential for large scale civil disruption as nuclear power plants.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=307099&mesg_id=307131

Additionally, your central thesis about the comparison between radioactive emission between nuclear and coal has been debunked so many times I'm surprised even you persist in misusing the data from the original paper as you have here.

Struggle for progress addressed coal emissions of radioactivity in May at this thread you started on the same topic::

struggle4progress wrote on Mon May-02-11 at 03:50 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x292136

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

SFP continues to educate you with several more posts:

Posted by struggle4progress on Mon May-02-11 08:39 PM

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

Posted by struggle4progress on Tue May-03-11 01:09 AM
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.

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

So to repeat what SFP wrote above, "there are plenty of good reasons to hate coal, but comparative radiological hazard isn't on the chart".

To that I would add that your attempts to protect nuclear by constantly peddling what most reasonable people recognize as over-the-top nonsense is more likely to undermine legitimate arguments against coal such as mercury and CO2 emissions than it is to either negatively impact coal support or to actually protect nuclear. It is the kind of discussion that only appeals to those who are already dedicated nuclear supporters.

[txlibdem]

10. Wow! Talk about an attempt to pass along false equivalences

Please locate and dispute in this OP or any of my replies where it is false.

I broke my usual rule and read through your entire post... couldn't find a single thing that disputes the truth: coal is far more radioactive than nuclear, not controlled, not locked up with armed guards and concrete barriers, etc. No monitoring of the thousands of tons of radioactive material stored at these sites.

I even showed that every year coal spews into the environment enough nuclear bomb grade Uranium to make 1,029 nuclear weapons.

But let's not quibble about false equivalences.