Coal Power Plants are Radioactive.

[calteacherguy]

Partly because of these concerns about radioactivity and the cost of containing it, the American public and electric utilities have preferred coal combustion as a power source. Today 52% of the capacity for generating electricity in the United States is fueled by coal, compared with 14.8% for nuclear energy. Although there are economic justifications for this preference, it is surprising for two reasons. First, coal combustion produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are suspected to cause climatic warming, and it is a source of sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, which are harmful to human health and may be largely responsible for acid rain. Second, although not as well known, releases from coal combustion contain naturally occurring radioactive materials--mainly, uranium and thorium.

Former ORNL researchers J. P. McBride, R. E. Moore, J. P. Witherspoon, and R. E. Blanco made this point in their article "Radiological Impact of Airborne Effluents of Coal and Nuclear Plants" in the December 8, 1978, issue of Science magazine. They concluded that Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants that meet government regulations. This ironic situation remains true today and is addressed in this article.

The fact that coal-fired power plants throughout the world are the major sources of radioactive materials released to the environment has several implications. It suggests that coal combustion is more hazardous to health than nuclear power and that it adds to the background radiation burden even more than does nuclear power. It also suggests that if radiation emissions from coal plants were regulated, their capital and operating costs would increase, making coal-fired power less economically competitive.

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

[GoneOffShore]

1. Oh, boy, you've done it now!

:popcorn::beer: :beer: :beer: :tinfoilhat: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :beer: :beer: :beer: :rofl: :rofl:

[calteacherguy]

2. Just looking for a little more science and a little less politics. nt

[GoneOffShore]

9. You're not going to get it.

I sense the hordes of woowoo's descending to savage you.

I can hear the beating of their featherless wings.

[spoony]

14. For some reason I just got

the chills :scared: That little bit of poetry sounds like the climax of a good horror novel or something :)

[greenman3610]

3. this has been circulating for 30 years

The subtext is that, "gee, those nuke plants are really safe, after all.".

It's worth knowing that the variety of isotopes created in nuclear plants includes
isotopes that are much more dangerous because they are biologically active and
are taken up in the food chain, such as iodine 131, and strontium 90, which
mimics calcium in the body.
Once in the food chain, isotopes are subject to a bio-concentration
phenomenon that can increase their tissue concentration by
thousands of times.

But, so be it. Coal plants obviously suck for so many reasons, this is just gravy.
The output of mercury is probably a much greater toxicity issue than the
uranium output, particularly because mercury enters the food chain in a similar way.

Bottom line;

Before expanding our nuclear program, and presenting that as the
solution for global energy, we should clarify our current policy, which
is our willingness to start WW3 if someone that we don't like
builds one.

There can be no more coal plants built that are not cleaned up and
fitted for carbon sequestration technology, period.

[berni_mccoy]

4. Interesting consideration... I've never been against Nuclear Power...

as long as proper safeguards, procedures and oversight are put into place. It's interesting to note that besides all the other toxins released by burning coal, there is a radioactive factor.

Thanks for posting this. :kick:

[KoKo]

5. Yep...let's just go totally nuclear and get rid of those dirty coal plants. We can feel secure

in having that waste either trucked all over the US to disposal or we can have it "stored on site" right in the heart of our major Urban Populations.

Don't worry about faulty parts (most replacement parts for our Nuclear plants are made "offshore") and don't worry about keeping them safe from terrorists because we all know how well they are guarded and don't worry about anything else...because Nuclear is CLEAN AND GREEN...as long as you don't think about the other consequences.

Improvements can be made to coal burning plants...but it's easier to get "new funding" for nuclear than to put the money into cleaning up, modernizing the new coal burning plants and supplementing with wind and solar.

The Nuke advocates are very anxious to get start turning public opinion and suckering in the younger folks who know nothing about the dangers of "melt down" and disposal of nuclear waste. Next the "advocates" will be saying that radiation is safe for us and that it breaks down in just a few years. IOWD's "Sound Science" says that all the other science from the 20th Century was bogus, scare mongering amongst the Liberal Elite.

[calteacherguy]

6. The purpose of my post was not to suggest nuclear energy is a cure-all.

It was to educate.

You are correct in pointing out the danger nuclear energy being used as an excuse not to maximize renewables and conservation, but it doesn't have to be that way. What we need to do is maximize renewables and conservation (along the lines of Richardson's recently released energy plan, for instance) AND keep nuclear energy on the table. Yes, there are issues that must be addressed, as with any energy source. But it's also a fact that if we want to really turn global warming around, it can't be done at this point in history without keeping nuclear energy as an option. Many countries, such as France, get upwards of 90% of their energy from safe and clean nuclear energy. Personally, I'd rather build a few more nuclear plants than many, many more coal burning plants AND expand solar, wind, and other renewables as much as possible.

That's the foundation of the best energy plan to really address global warming, if we are to take the issue seriously.

[KoKo]

10. That's YOUR VIEW....but there are MANY who lived through 20th Century

who will be CAUTIONARY ADVERSARIES...to what you are trying to push with your "concern" that Nuclear NEEDS to be part of our ENERGY PACKAGE looking forward.

Just saying...I will be one of those out there with Picket Signs here in NC over EXPANDING NUKE POWER HERE IN NC!

BTW...My Nephew spends alot of time down in Mexico trying to "supervise" the "grinding of replacement parts for our ageing Nuke plants. He is an Engineer and his dad worked in Nuclear Power for Stone and Webster and their consulting business is much in demand because the "faulty parts" we are being sold to put in the EXISTING PLANTS are such a hazard they are getting Govt. contracts to do this.

That's BUSH GOVT CONTRACTS! How BAD must the problem be if even the Bushies are concerned about "Melt Down" from their "outsourcing.

I imagine that Third World Countries will have a HUGE PART in the Building and Supplying of Parts for our NEW NUCLEAR PLANTS...and not LOCALS. It's good business for my Nephew and his Dad who fly all over fixing the old plants...but NOT good news who fear more OUTSOURCING.

We only need to look at "Outsourcing of Pet Food and People Food to "other countries" like CHINA to see what a "few evil people" can do in an unregulated climate to cause THE DEATHS OF SO MANY!

Caution is the word. And that means ANYTHING proposed under Bushies should be DOA!

[jpak]

11. ugh - not this again

The ORNL study used modeled coal and nuclear plants - the authors did not measure actual emissions from real coal and real nuclear plants.

They assumed that nuclear plants emitted their permitted releases - real world nuclear plants routinely emit more radionuclides (and especially tritium) than what they are allowed.

The model coal plant used in the study employed 1970's vintage electrostatic emission controls and 1970 Clean Air Act emission regulations. The CAA was amended in 1977 (when the study was actually done) and again in 1990.

New and upgraded coal plants have much better particulate emission controls and release much less particulates (and U and Th) than 1970's vintage plants.

The authors also stated that the uranium and thorium content of US coals vary by more than a order of magnitude (a factor of ten). Power plants using low U and Th coals emit far less U and Th than the study's "model" coal fired plant.

More importantly, the authors concluded that the model boiling water nuclear reactor emitted *more* radionuclides than the model coal fired plant (the model coal plant did emit slightly more radionuclides than the model pressurized water reactor).

People conveniently forget to mention this part of the study.

And MOST importantly, people conveniently forget that the authors did NOT examine radionuclide emissions from the ENTIRE nuclear fuel cycle (the authors stated this in the report).

Radionuclide releases from uranium mining, milling, enrichment and fuel fabrication and reprocessing operations are many many times higher than from reactors (model or otherwise).

Finally, the report does not discuss potential future environmental releases of radionuclides from spent fuel.

It will take 300-600 years for many of the fission products (90Sr and 137Cs) and 240,000 years for the plutonium to decay away.

No one here will be around to measure those releases.

This paper is a old old chestnut and cannot be used to "demonstrate" that nuclear power plants are clean and green.

They are not.

[ThomWV]

7. Don't worry about the radioactivity, worry about the mercury

Mercury emissions from coal burning plants are the real monster problem. Any very large building increases the background radioactivity about as much as a coal fired plant.

[nomatrix]

8. There are solutions

http://www.globalwarmingsolutions.org/reducecoalplantpollution.php

Just getting the utility companies to pay for them is the problem.

[fed-up]

12. are you paid for your pro-nuke postings??? a friend of Patrick Moore-media whore?? n/t

[calteacherguy]

13. Nope. And I'm not pro-nuke. I'm pro-common sense. nt