CONCENTRATED RADIATION: By burning coal into ash, power plants concentrate the trace amounts of radioactive elements within the black rock.
©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
The popular conception of nuclear power is straight out of The Simpsons: Springfield abounds with signs of radioactivity, from the strange glow surrounding Mr. Burn's nuclear power plant workers to Homer's low sperm count. Then there's the local superhero, Radioactive Man, who fires beams of "nuclear heat" from his eyes. Nuclear power, many people think, is inseparable from a volatile, invariably lime-green, mutant-making radioactivity.
Coal, meanwhile, is believed responsible for a host of more quotidian problems, such as mining accidents, acid rain and greenhouse gas emissions. But it isn't supposed to spawn three-eyed fish like Blinky.
Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, fly ash—a by-product from burning coal for power—contains up to 100 times more radiation than nuclear waste.
At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.
Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas.
In a 1978 paper for Science, J. P. McBride at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and his colleagues looked at the uranium and thorium content of fly ash from coal-fired power plants in Tennessee and Alabama. To answer the question of just how harmful leaching could be, the scientists estimated radiation exposure around the coal plants and compared it with exposure levels around boiling-water reactor and pressurized-water nuclear power plants.
The result: estimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities. At one extreme, the scientists estimated fly ash radiation in individuals' bones at around 18 millirems (thousandths of a rem, a unit for measuring doses of ionizing radiation) a year. Doses for the two nuclear plants, by contrast, ranged from between three and six millirems for the same period. And when all food was grown in the area, radiation doses were 50 to 200 percent higher around the coal plants.
McBride and his co-authors estimated that individuals living near coal-fired installations are exposed to a maximum of 1.9 millirems of fly ash radiation yearly. To put these numbers in perspective, the average person encounters 360 millirems of annual "background radiation" from natural and man-made sources, including substances in Earth's crust, cosmic rays, residue from nuclear tests and smoke detectors.
Dana Christensen, associate lab director for energy and engineering at ORNL, says that health risks from radiation in coal by-products are low. "Other risks like being hit by lightning," he adds, "are three or four times greater than radiation-induced health effects from coal plants." And McBride and his co-authors emphasize that other products of coal power, like emissions of acid rain–producing sulfur dioxide and smog-forming nitrous oxide, pose greater health risks than radiation.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maintains an online database of fly ash–based uranium content for sites across the U.S. In most areas, the ash contains less uranium than some common rocks. In Tennessee's Chattanooga shale, for example, there is more uranium in phosphate rock.
nguyenbatien at 2:45 PM on 4/18/08
How to manage the fly ash with hight content of radioactive elementsRhotel1 at 6:34 AM on 3/07/08
I agree the title is misleading since the radioactive components of coal ash are naturally occuring elements and nuclear waste is generated as a result of nuclear radiation. Coal ash, though, is radioactive, more so than your own backyard and more so than the depleted uranium that was used in 2001 and 2003 to kill Iraqi tanks. The article also points to something that the average person does not know that coal contains a number of impurities and that some of them are radioactive. On that point, it serves a good purpose.Roger
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DUStory/message/56 provides links to solid scientific information about uranium and DU as does www.depletedcranium.com
Rhotel1 at 5:57 AM on 3/07/08
I doubt that the anti-depleted uranium crusaders actually read Scientific American, but if they do, they should read this article very carefully. Next, there should be a birth defects study and cancer study in the stack shadows. I expect it will show that there really is no correlation and that can be extrapolated into the anti-DU crusader claims, which began when Saddam Hussein's regime wanted out from under the UN Sanctions that ended the Gulf War. They found a fertile ground in the "peace activist" element who were easily convinced that depleted uranium was far worse than the use of nerve gas on the Kurdish village of Halabja. They still fill the internet with an incessant drumbeat and sadly have convinced state legislatures and even some Members of Congress who have been convinced that soldiers and families are at risk and "it's for the troops". http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DUStory/message/56 provides solid scientific information about DU as does www.depletedcranium.comf_124_n at 3:46 AM on 1/14/08
it's understand me about something strange in nuclear energy vs coal energy. It can be also take another comparison between coal energy production and nuclear energy production. Then we can make a conclusion 'useless of coal'. So what do you think? Coal or nuclear? I mean dead or alive?f_124_n at 3:45 AM on 1/14/08
it's understand me about something strange in nuclear energy vs coal energy. It can be also take another comparison between coal energy production and nuclear energy production. Then we can make a conclusion 'useless of coal'. So what do you think? Coal or nuclear? I mean dead or alive?f_124_n at 3:45 AM on 1/14/08
it's understand me about something strange in nuclear energy vs coal energy. It can be also take another comparison between coal energy production and nuclear energy production. Then we can make a conclusion 'useless of coal'. So what do you think? Coal or nuclear? I mean dead or alive?oolatec at 11:22 AM on 1/11/08
A very informative view, I did a presentation on evolution of the current green house effect about the same time as the Maldives summit icemanJohn_Toradze at 1:15 PM on 1/10/08
I did my own cross-check on this article looking for more current literature. This is what I came up with: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/explorationNuclearFuel/Sparton_produces_first_yellowcake_from_Chinese_coal_ash-161007.shtml------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sparton Resources announced that it had successfully produced a small quantity of yellowcake (U3O8) from fly ash from a Chinese coal-fired power plant.
The uranium extraction test work is being conducted by Sparton's processing engineering consulting firm Lyntek Inc of Denver, Colorado, USA. The test to produce yellowcake used 6.1 kg of mixed fly ash produced at the Xiaolongtang power plant. The ash averaged some 0.4 pounds of U308 per tonne of ash (160 parts per million uranium or 0.00016). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The ratio of yellowcake to enriched uranium is about 11%-12% of the yellowcake used to create nuclear fuel for power plants. World production of coal ash is somewhere between 700 million and 1.5 billion tons per year, which is a world distribution of about [b]160,000 tons[/b] [b]per year[/b] of raw yellowcake uranium upon the world's public (taking 1 billion tons as the nominal value). 10^9 x 1.6x10^4 (Check the arithmetic. I always do.) One source has worldwide yellowcake uranium production at 36,263 tons in 2004. Which means, that if all the uranium mined each year for power plants were dispersed as fine particles around the world in the air, it would be around 22% of what is distributed from coal fired power plants.
Peter Vorona at 12:36 PM on 1/09/08
The title ā??Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Wasteā? is misleading, it is not a comparison of apples for apples. Has the author ever considered investigating the amount of radiation in trash dumps as compared to the radiation in coal?Screaming Headline at 2:01 AM on 1/07/08
They tried to do a direct comparison study at a Nuclear plant where the spent fuel rods were burnt and released into the atmosphere as plutonium ash, but unfortunately they couldn't find anybody alive in the area to take part in the study.This has to be the most half-assed headline I've ever seen, in any publication.
pchernick at 6:29 PM on 1/06/08
Change the irresponsible and misleading headline!The headline of this story does not reflect the content. The content says "in routine operation, cola plants release more radioactive material into the environment than nuclear plants." The headline refers to "nuclear waste," which remains inside the power plant until it is shipped out. High-level nuclear waste is much more radioactive than coal fly ash or bottom ash.
Fritz Anderson at 4:31 PM on 12/27/07
what about people who burn rice coal in their homes? what is the risk of exposure to those who burn coal for home heat?Catherine Thomasson, MD at 4:40 PM on 12/24/07
It is wonderful for Ms. Hvistendahl to give us yet one more argument to stop building any new coal plants! However the choice isn't between nuclear and coal, it's between any fossil fuel and clean, green energy: solar, wind, wave, geothermal, etc. Read Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy by Arjun Makhijani at www.ieer.org and see that this route is the real answer!KenJackson at 3:11 AM on 12/23/07
I'm delighted to see this unpopular truth in print for the public to see.This reminds me of my time as a trainee at Navy Nuclear Power Training Unit in Idaho in the late 70's. Every day in the summer the filters for the air handlers in the nuclear power plant were disposed of low-level nuclear waste.
Why? Where was all the radioactive particulate coming from? Not from the nuclear power plant. All the radioactive material in the plant was encased in metal inside the high-pressure primary loop, inside the reactor compartment (containment). No one was working with any nuclear material. We took an air sample outside the building daily to confirm it was as bad or worse outside as inside.
It came from the surrounding soil! The filters were only disposed of as nuclear waste because they became contaminated while they were in the plant. The fact that the source of the contamination was natural was irrelevant as far as the rules were concerned.
The point is that there are significant sources of airborne radioactive particulate other than nuclear power plants. Coal smoke is one source, as this article mentioned. But the unpolluted natural air of central Idaho in the summer has so much that it would be in violation of federal rules for nuclear power plants.
Gunter Wendel at 6:28 AM on 12/22/07
I love the argument that radioactive waste is toxic for X thousands of years. At least it goes away given enough time. The heavy metals, including uranium in coal ash, stay around to leach into ground water for ever.stew6302 at 9:23 PM on 12/20/07
this article does not address the risk of operating a nuclear plant during an asteroid hit. the predicted asteroid is 1 mile in diameter ...large enough to raise Atlantisperryo99 at 9:41 PM on 12/19/07
Dear Scientific American, This article only addresses the hazards of living by a nuclear plant. It does'nt address the problem of disposal of the actual nuclear waste that is leftover when the fuel rods, etc., are spent. I can guarantee you that this material is far more radioactive than any "fly ash" from coal plants. Although I am not necessarily against the use of nuclear reactors for the generation of electricity, this article is a 'red herring' that completely evades and sidesteps the issue of the disposal of mid and high level nuclear waste produced by nuclear power plants. I am somewhat dissappointed in SciAm for printing an article that deceptively leaves out the biggest factor to be considered when building new nuclear power plants. Sincerely, Perry Oberlanderhankroberts at 7:52 PM on 12/19/07
WAITwaitwait.Headline writer please. LOUSY headline. Coal ash is definable, it's the residue left after burning coal (albeit whether there are emission controls or not will change the material quite a bit).
But "nuclear waste" is -- what exactly? The average overall radioactivity left outside a properly functioning nuclear plant, I think, is what you're trying to say. That's not what the words usually mean, not at all, not even close.
Please fix the headline.
Dan M. at 6:12 PM on 12/19/07
> and the author unpacks it reasonably well, although it is not very clear >in the reader's eye that we are talking about local emissions >rather than the sum of all waste from a reactor, both high level and >low level.Itā??s true that the title is a bit cutesy, and not actually accurate, but itā??s not uncommon to have an eye catching title to get people to read something. This doesnā??t really bother me, even though Iā??ve made no income from nuclear power but have worked on coal mining geosteering.
>And radioactive noble gas emissions are not mentioned.
Even with that included, the radiation exposure from nuclear power is less than 0.1% of that obtained from the radioactivity of our own body.(1)
>Another unaddressed issue is the rising risk of sabotage and >strategic targeting of nuclear reactors. The consequences of destroying a >nuclear reactor are on an entirely different plane, >as can be immediately grasped by considering the aftermath >of Chornobyl, in terms of land loss, health effects and social impact.
Nuclear power buildings in the United States, as opposed to Chernobyl and many other reactors in the USSR, are in containment buildings. Concrete shields such as this are far harder to damage than buildings like the WTC. So, if we do have a terrorist attack like 9-11, it would make a lot more sense for them to hit a high rise again, instead of nuclear power plant.
Second, as I detailed in a thread originating in my blog,(2) the known death toll from Chernobyl is in the range of 40-60. While I do not wish to diminish this loss of life, it is still modest compared to coal mining accidents, especially in totalitarian countries like the USSR. It is true that there is an estimate of a possible additional death toll of 4000 due to the effects of low level radiation. But, that same estimate indicates that the people exposed to the low level radiation from Chernobyl would have a higher risk (by >2x) if they lived in Denver during the last 25 years.
>If you want to gain more perspective on how you are doing >as science educators, have a look at:
>http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/message/9016
With all due respect, a post in a mailing list is not exactly a good source for information.
(1) http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/rp/factsheets/factsheets-htm/fs10bkvsman.htm (2) http://science-community.sciam.com/thread.jspa?threadID=300005568
James Carrow at 5:44 PM on 12/19/07
This article suggests the truth, which is that huge 4,000 MW brown-coal burning plants burn a great deal of radioactive material, much of which goes up the stack and out to downwind areas. I believe the plants in Tennessee are much smaller than this, unlike plants here in Florida, or in New York, California, Europe, China, and Japan. However, as Mr. Lahteenmaki noted, fine particulate matter is the major health hazard, followed by NO2 and SO2. Thank you for your interest in this matter.William C. Merz at 5:27 PM on 12/19/07
Your discussion box is too small, at least by a factor of 3.William C. Merz at 5:21 PM on 12/19/07
Circa 1975, SCIENCE published a study of nuclear energy. They concluded that nuclear power planfs were neutral, i.e., the BTUs required for fuel and plant construction equalled the output BTUs.Roger K at 2:54 PM on 12/19/07
This is a fact that has been known for many years. The point is not that fly ash is dangerous (it is), but that nuclear waste is less dangerous. As has been pointed out, there are many other hazards more deserving of concern.Our standard of living produces contaminants to the environment (duh). As the rest of the world struggles to reach higher standards, more contaminants will be produced in accelerating amounts. If we ask our nation and the rest of the world to accept a lower standard of living, the answer will be a sharp negative.
What can be done? I don't know; I am hoping for a miraculous breakthrough.
The Earthkeeper at 9:22 AM on 12/19/07
We will continue to insist on poisoning ourselves and our environment, be it by coal or nuclear power or another means because the majority of humans insist on having more instead of saying "I have enough!"Kai Lahteenmaki at 8:10 AM on 12/19/07
Burning coal, oil, gas, wood, etc. produces besides CO2 also large amount of 1-100 nm size smokeparticles. These small particles go to blood circulation system and cause millions of deaths yearly globally. Here in Finland with population of 5 million, these microparticles from burning cause about 1300 deaths yearly. I comprison, Tchernobyl accident causes 1 or 2 deaths yearly here. So besides greenhouse effects, carbon burning in various forms causes about 1000 times more deaths than nuclear energy. Kai Lahteenmakihrs0944 at 2:02 AM on 12/19/07
> and overall: both pale in comparison to normal > background radiation. long-distance pilots are the > ones really racking up the millirems.while the crew members on nuclear powered submarines are receiving less than normal [due to ALARA design for the reactor and shielding from cosmic]
JRWermuth at 9:31 PM on 12/18/07
The author of this article should be better aquainted with the English language: The article presents sophmorish argument with no substantiation with descriptions and syntax unbecomming of a publication that was once above the curve. The editors do a great disservice to the well established moniker of this magazine. James Wermuth FAICKnuttsen-Boltzmann at 5:44 AM on 12/18/07
I stopped subscribing to Scientific American back in the mid 90s because the magazine had moved from its rigorous style of presentation toward eye-catching journalismThis item makes it look like things have gone downhill from there.
There is a story to be unpacked, and the author unpacks it reasonably well, although it is not very clear in the reader's eye that we are talking about local emissions rather than the sum of all waste from a reactor, both high level and low level. And radioactive noble gas emissions are not mentioned.
Another unaddressed issue is the rising risk of sabotage and strategic targeting of nuclear reactors. The consequences of destroying a nuclear reactor are on an entirely different plane, as can be immediately grasped by considering the aftermath of Chornobyl, in terms of land loss, health effects and social impact. No coal-fired power station has such destructive potential. Needless to say, electricity from solar and wind generation are much, much safer, downwind and downstream.
Unfortunately, some of those who only glance at the"Strange but True" headers draw instant, simple-minded, knee-jerk conclusions, and then publish their deductions on their chosen conspiracy channel.
If you want to gain more perspective on how you are doing as science educators, have a look at:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/message/9016
It says:
"Scientific American is pro nuclear industry trash magazine making jokes of contamination by radionuclides".
Is that the result the editors intended with their OK of such a misleading title?
Dr. Mark Murphy at 6:21 PM on 12/17/07
This is a highly deceptive article. The alarmism of the title is completely disproved by the body of the article. This sort of reporting does not gain scientific trust in SA and one of the reasons why I rarely read it.Jeffrey at 4:38 PM on 12/17/07
Fly ash is also loaded with arsenic, cadmium, and in some cases lead. I still can't believe they are now making concrete out of it and puring this stuff all over our cities. Wait until that concrete degrades and leaches into our water.Capthook at 5:03 AM on 12/17/07
Coal waist radidactive? There is nothing cleaner than Nuclear power!SandyJ at 8:32 PM on 12/16/07
Coal waste is more radioactive? Do this: 1/ Take geiger counter readings for everything coming out of both types of plants (the actual waste, not what escapes into the environment) and publish the numbers for us.It's one thing to say the risk of living downwind of one plant is worse than for the other. It is quite another thing to equate what is produced with what is allowed to escape into the environment.
Dan M. at 6:19 PM on 12/15/07
>4 - The article doesn't address a REAL question that I've asked some high-level, >knowledgeable nuclear proponents and opponents -- What is the radiation >release in fly ash compared with the radiation in nuclear waste, expressed on a >kilowatt to kilowatt basis?OK, let me give a rough number comparison. First coal. Letā??s assume coal is a 30 API(1) formation with a density of 1.5 g/cc. This gives us about 10 picocuries per cc of coal. In 2006, there was about 966 million short tons of coal(2) used in the production of electricity. Doing the math, we get about 6000 Curies of radioactive material released into the atmosphere by coal plants last year. Coal produces about 2 trillion kwH per year, so I think I can do the math in my headā?¦.3 nanocuries per kWh.
Now, comes the more difficult part. You ask about the radiation in nuclear waste. It is a simple sounding question, but Iā??m not sure how to answer it because the answer keeps changing. The heat produced by the nuclear decay is a good first order measurement of this process. For example, in the first hour after shutdown, the heat drops by a factor of 6. The next month it drops by a factor of 10, the rest of the year it drops by another factor of 5 and after 5 years by another factor of 6.(3) And, it keeps on dropping. Iā??ve seen references to articles that state that nuclear power plants in the US produce 30 million curies/year. But, as I expect, they didnā??t say at what time. But, let us just use that number, realizing that it falls quickly.
But, letā??s use 30 million curies for now. Nuclear power produces about 670 million kWh. So, thatā??s about 44 millicuries per kWh. Still, after a time, we know it will be less than the coal plants. I just donā??t have good enough numbers from the web to known when. My SWAG on that is 100-1000 years.
(1)API units are the units that measure the radioactivity of earth formations while logging in a borehole. This is typically an oil well, but it is also used in evaluating coal mines. See my blog entry for details on this (http://science-community.sciam.com/thread.jspa?threadID=300005568)
(2) http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/quarterly/html/t25p01p1.html (3) http://www.sustainablenuclear.org/PADs/pad0211avoiland.html (4) http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionE.htm
K. Mounts at 5:00 AM on 12/15/07
While the content of the article is "true," in a factual sense, I agree that the title is misleading - it might make you think you'd be safer standing next to an unshielded pile of spent fuel rods than an equivalent amount of fly ash.On the other hand, the point of the article is well-taken, albeit well-known - people tend to be more averse to a minuscule catastrophic risk than a much larger but lower-level risk, even if statistically the mortality rate of the former is much lower than the latter. I suspect there has been some evolutionary benefit to select for this kind of bias so I don't tend to see it as "mass stupidity" - but in any case it's just the way people are, and we have to deal with that. And I suspect it would only take one nuclear-waste "dirty bomb" set off by terrorists in a major urban center to skew the mortality statistics heavily in favor of coal.
On the other, other (third?) hand the environmental destruction, even from that, would be fairly localized and would pale in comparison to the potential for worldwide havoc due to global warming. We're going to have to make some hard choices as a society in the next decade or two, and we need all the information like this we can get.
dbiello at 7:25 PM on 12/14/07
no conspiracy here i'm sad to report. simply came across this ORNL paper in the course of research for a story on nuclear power and thought this the perfect basis for a strange but true.you may or may not like nuclear power but this is what the studies show. take your geiger counter to the local fly ash pile if you don't believe the article.
and overall: both pale in comparison to normal background radiation. long-distance pilots are the ones really racking up the millirems.
joelBlow at 6:56 PM on 12/14/07
A thoroughly misleading article. No distinction is made between high level nuclear waste (e.g., spent fuel rods) and low level nuclear waste (e.g., contaminated soil/water surrounding the plant) "Nuclear waste" is not a homogenous set of compounds. The result is that we end up equating the "nuclear waste" of nuclear power plants with the "nuclear waste" of coal plants, a false comparison. In addition, the comparison between the level of radiation consumed by families surrounding a highly secure and contained nuclear plant versus an unsecured, uncontained coal plant is meaningless. It's like comparing the exposure of a radiologist behind a lead wall and the exposure of a shopper in a shopping mall.R4lphE at 6:36 PM on 12/14/07
The headline of this article is completely misleading. The dangerous radioactivity in nuclear waste is not from thorium or uranium but from the fission products that are produced in the nuclear reactor. Talk about stupid!!!BPH-Dav at 6:20 PM on 12/14/07
The why of such articles is simple. If we had gone nuclear as a world instead of burnng fossil fuels, we would not have global warming as a problem today. All technologies for power generation cause casualties, and that includes wind and solar. The question is which causes the least problems overall. And we also need to face the fact that what we humans do when resources (i.e. our economies) go bad is go to war. There are some very stark choices for our world to make and we here in the USA who want our cake and eat it too will have to accept reality.swol77 at 5:27 PM on 12/14/07
I am wondering why we are now getting a flurry of articles and a book about the "greenness" of nuclear energy. It is not a coincidence and I would like to know the history of how this article got accepted by SciAm.swol
nuclear at 5:20 PM on 12/14/07
The article makes a factually correct point that exposure to radiation from coal plants is higher than nuclear plants (even though spent nuclear fuel is stored at the nuclear plants).The headline is wrong, as it seems to compare fly ash with spent nuclear fuel.
Because spent nuclear fuel is shielded, exposure of plant workers and the public to radiation from this spent fuel is very low.
If fly ash were produced at nuclear plants, the more stringent regulations faced at nuclear plants would require this fly ash to be collected and stored in a manner that reduced exposure to people.
Coal plants do not have such requirements and therefore cause more exposure to the public because of the natural uranium and thorium in the fly ash.
gadinra at 5:10 PM on 12/14/07
The study referenced is 1978 in vintage and does not include the radioactive constiuents of all coals including anthracite. The cogeneration process (fluidized bed technology)in Pa burns coal waste (Culm) with low grade limestone and dolomite. The coal waste is primarily cabonaceous shale which has a much higher radioactive content than pure coal and would produce a flyash with a much higher concentration of radioactive constituents. Therefore, the pollution potenial is great because the PADEP is espousing the arbitrary disposal of this waste in abandoned strip mines without any long term monitoring or adequate testing. They are tzking the position that the flyash is inert and does not need to be monitored> What a Joke!!!-- Edited by gadinra at 12/14/2007 9:48 AM
dbiello at 3:43 PM on 12/14/07
I concur with some of your points nurtzz (and I'd definitely love to see that gram per gram comparison. We searched and searched and did not find.) However, I'd argue we covered the real issue which is steady, building pollution and health impacts versus small risk, unimaginable consequences. Neither is particularly palatable perhaps.Nurtzz at 9:43 AM on 12/14/07
1 - The article's title was misleading. Gram for gram, nuclear waste is much more radioactive than fly ash.2 - The 'scientific study' compared a measured exposure with an estimated exposure. Hmmm. Not what I'd consider good science.
3 - The issue of exposure is, further, a false one. Hardly anyone (at least who knows what they're talking about) is afraid of being near a properly functioning nuclear reactor. They're clean places, carefully monitored, in the main, and so on. And coal-fired power plants are, in fact, nasty places, and dirty.
The problem with the comparison is that if the coal-fired plant is struck by lightning, or a bomb, or a plane, or catches on fire, or breaks in half in an earthquake, your exposure will be mostly to particulate pollution, and for a few hours, during which you may leave the area.
Conversely, if anything happens to a nuclear power plant to cause an accident, the risk of immediate exposure to a dangerous or lethal dose of radiation is fairly high.
Even operator error can be critical with a nuclear plant -- think of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, that reprocessing accident in Japan a few years back. Human error becomes disproportionately risky with nuclear installations.
4 - The article doesn't address a REAL question that I've asked some high-level, knowledgeable nuclear proponents and opponents -- What is the radiation release in fly ash compared with the radiation in nuclear waste, expressed on a kilowatt to kilowatt basis?
Now THAT would be something interesting to find out.
everett at 2:25 AM on 12/14/07
Finally I see this in print. Anyone with knowledge of naturally occuring radioactive materials is aware that coal fired plants spew more radioactive material than nuclear plants, in addition to all of the other things that coal plants emit.dulcimoo at 11:26 PM on 12/13/07
I am cowfused. So is an equivalent amount of coal ash vs spent fuel rods, say a cubic cm, or gram more/equal radioactive or is living near a coal plant more radioactive due to the larger amount of less (?) radioactive fly ash?Lelandvk at 10:23 PM on 12/13/07
Nuclear waste is produced in large, concentrated amounts. Coal ash is generated in diffuse stack-output. The aggregate radioactivity, the article aims at, could in fact be greater for the Coal burned than for the depleted Uranium/Thorium/Plutonium fuel rods.Considering the percentage of the nation's energy that is produced by coal plants, this is where the numbers could add up. But then again, there need to be studies on HOW dangerous this exposure is.
jrtorres at 8:46 PM on 12/13/07
Actually. Your statement about coal ash on the roads is what is misleading. The reason nuclear waste has to be buried is uneducated people who believe they are going to die from radiation poisoning. Its more politics than anything else.What is amazing is that it is now that Sc. Am. is publishing this. This is old news. Nevertheless since it fits Sci. Am. global warming agenda, they are willing to show it now. Sci. Am. should change their name to Scientific Politician.
NHChemist at 8:16 PM on 12/13/07
I can't believe that Scientific American published this. The title is totally misleading. It should be Radiation Exposure is Higher near Coal Fired Power Plants. If nuclear waste is so benign, why is it stored in casks or under water to prevent radiation exposure by nearby people? When I lived in upstate NY in the late 1970's, coal ash was used in place of sand as a traction aid on slippery roads. This was a poor practice, but how much worse would it have been if the State of NY used spent nuclear fuel?msbamacarpenter at 6:34 PM on 12/13/07
I have worked at both a nuclear plant and a coal burning plant and I can tell ya that the coal burning plant is more nasty then the nuclear plant. I pick up less radiation at the nuclear plant then I had at the coal burning plant. All the ash and stuff at the coal burning place was nasty and I was sick and had a really bad case of congestion because of it. I say we need more nuclear plants and less coal-burning plants. Rhonda Lynn Waldrop