Coal plants are more radioactive than nuke plants

[aeebee50]

Learned something new.

 

[ramoss]

Theoretically, you could process a lot of that waste by using it as a 'seed' for thorium reactors. The half life of the spent fuel is much shorter than the current traditional reactors. Reprocessing it and having a breeder reactor also would deal with a lot of the waste.

However, all those won't stop the weakest part of nuclear plant safety. That is 'Human Stupidity'

 

[bilby]

Theoretically, you could process a lot of that waste by using it as a 'seed' for thorium reactors. The half life of the spent fuel is much shorter than the current traditional reactors. Reprocessing it and having a breeder reactor also would deal with a lot of the waste.

However, all those won't stop the weakest part of nuclear plant safety. That is 'Human Stupidity'

And don't forget the swimming pool drownings. We simply cannot discount this risk; Close all nuke plants now, and stop the needless drownings!

 

[Jarhyn]

I suppose if you discount the output of the waste from a nuclear plant and the difficulty finding a place to put it.

Perhaps we could bury it in all those abandoned coal mines!?

Waste disposal is a political issue, not a scientific one.
...

Perhaps that's why in the last 50yrs or so they haven't found a way to deal with it.

We have plenty of ways to deal with it. Everywhere else in the world, the preferred method is to just reprocess it and throw it into another reactor, oftentimes all at the same facility. Then after that, we can see if there's something else we can do with the stuff (like seeding thorium breeder reactors). The only reason it is balked at is 'nukular is scuurrry' and 'terrorist dirty bomb sky net chemtrails'

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We have plenty of ways to deal with it. Everywhere else in the world, the preferred method is to just reprocess it and throw it into another reactor, oftentimes all at the same facility. Then after that, we can see if there's something else we can do with the stuff (like seeding thorium breeder reactors). The only reason it is balked at is 'nukular is scuurrry' and 'terrorist dirty bomb sky net chemtrails'

Actually, there is a reasonable fear that reprocessing could result in the theft of plutonium. However:

1) It's unlikely to be weapons grade. If you leave the stuff in there too long it won't be. Power reactors normally do. The actual reaction sequence is U₂₃₈ + n -> U₂₃₉. This decays (half life 23 minutes) to Np₂₃₉ which then decays (half life 2+ days) to Pu₂₃₉. This this process is not instant it means that the shorter the time you leave it in the reactor the more pure the Pu₂₃₉ will be. The reaction you want to avoid is Pu₂₃₉ + n -> Pu₂₄₀. Too much of that in your bomb and it's killing a block, not a city.

2) There's a fairly simple fix if you're not satisfied with #1: Don't do a complete job of reprocessing. Rather, you have an on-site facility that simply takes out most of the neutron-absorbing decay products that are the problem. Leave the rest of the stuff in there--it will be lethally hot. Not only does handling it mean dying (and dying before they can build their bomb) but an alarm can see it from a long ways away.


From a standpoint of dirty bombs we are better off reprocessing--there won't be any pile of hot waste lying around for a terrorist to steal. The really hot stuff decays on site, most of the moderately hot stuff is packed into shielded containers and put all over the place in small amounts (any one place not having enough to be useful to a terrorist) and the rest isn't hot enough to be all that scary. Besides, if you want most of the hot stuff can be formed into metal pieces--not very useful for the terrorist because the cleanup crew can simply come in with geiger-counter equipped robots and pick up the pieces. Turning it into dust would be an extremely lethal task for the terrorists. (It's happened by accident, digging the cobalt-60 rod out was a problem, contamination wasn't.)

 

[Jarhyn]

We have plenty of ways to deal with it. Everywhere else in the world, the preferred method is to just reprocess it and throw it into another reactor, oftentimes all at the same facility. Then after that, we can see if there's something else we can do with the stuff (like seeding thorium breeder reactors). The only reason it is balked at is 'nukular is scuurrry' and 'terrorist dirty bomb sky net chemtrails'

Actually, there is a reasonable fear that reprocessing could result in the theft of plutonium. However:

1) It's unlikely to be weapons grade. If you leave the stuff in there too long it won't be. Power reactors normally do. The actual reaction sequence is U₂₃₈ + n -> U₂₃₉. This decays (half life 23 minutes) to Np₂₃₉ which then decays (half life 2+ days) to Pu₂₃₉. This this process is not instant it means that the shorter the time you leave it in the reactor the more pure the Pu₂₃₉ will be. The reaction you want to avoid is Pu₂₃₉ + n -> Pu₂₄₀. Too much of that in your bomb and it's killing a block, not a city.

2) There's a fairly simple fix if you're not satisfied with #1: Don't do a complete job of reprocessing. Rather, you have an on-site facility that simply takes out most of the neutron-absorbing decay products that are the problem. Leave the rest of the stuff in there--it will be lethally hot. Not only does handling it mean dying (and dying before they can build their bomb) but an alarm can see it from a long ways away.


From a standpoint of dirty bombs we are better off reprocessing--there won't be any pile of hot waste lying around for a terrorist to steal. The really hot stuff decays on site, most of the moderately hot stuff is packed into shielded containers and put all over the place in small amounts (any one place not having enough to be useful to a terrorist) and the rest isn't hot enough to be all that scary. Besides, if you want most of the hot stuff can be formed into metal pieces--not very useful for the terrorist because the cleanup crew can simply come in with geiger-counter equipped robots and pick up the pieces. Turning it into dust would be an extremely lethal task for the terrorists. (It's happened by accident, digging the cobalt-60 rod out was a problem, contamination wasn't.)

I'm already aware of these facts. That was entirely my basis for mocking the fear-mongering rather than giving it any kind of validation. The simple fact is that even after a phenomenally clean burn, the plutonium isn't possibly going to be weapons-grade, and it will be hot enough to kill pretty much anyone who goes near it, and actually refining it requires a fuckton of industrial infrastructure, and you can actually see the shrapnel using a Geiger counter. I AM concerned, however, with the way medical and food industry isotopes have a bothersome tendency to just get 'lost', since that stuff is actually used because it is highly radioactive. If someone wanted to be a real cunt, they'd just pop open a crate of that in a major thoroughfare in a small American town, far from radiation detectors.

 

[Togo]

Why is the claim that coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear, when the article doesn't back that up? It compares estimated risk of absorbed dose from ingestion (ie eating plants and dust around a coal plant) from some old plants that use radioactive coal, with the background from nuclear.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why is the claim that coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear, when the article doesn't back that up? It compares estimated risk of absorbed dose from ingestion (ie eating plants and dust around a coal plant) from some old plants that use radioactive coal, with the background from nuclear.

*ALL* coal is radioactive to some degree. And it's not just old plants, the new plants catch more of it but they all send some up the smokestack.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why is the claim that coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear, when the article doesn't back that up? It compares estimated risk of absorbed dose from ingestion (ie eating plants and dust around a coal plant) from some old plants that use radioactive coal, with the background from nuclear.

The article is full of it. The OP isn't much better. The emissions are higher in radioactive content than nuclear plants, that is about it. The other claims (coal waste being worse than nuclear waste / a coal plant being more radioactive than a nuclear plant) are ridiculous.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why is the claim that coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear, when the article doesn't back that up? It compares estimated risk of absorbed dose from ingestion (ie eating plants and dust around a coal plant) from some old plants that use radioactive coal, with the background from nuclear.

The article is full of it. The OP isn't much better. The emissions are higher in radioactive content than nuclear plants, that is about it. The other claims (coal waste being worse than nuclear waste / a coal plant being more radioactive than a nuclear plant) are ridiculous.

Got some evidence of this?

The basic problem is that the nuke plant does a very good job of containing the not stuff while the coal plant doesn't even try to other than as a byproduct of trying to reduce the amount of mercury that goes up the stack.

 

[Togo]

Why is the claim that coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear, when the article doesn't back that up? It compares estimated risk of absorbed dose from ingestion (ie eating plants and dust around a coal plant) from some old plants that use radioactive coal, with the background from nuclear.

*ALL* coal is radioactive to some degree. And it's not just old plants, the new plants catch more of it but they all send some up the smokestack.

That doesn't answer the question of why the article is cited when it doesn't back up the claim. The claim is that coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear. The article is about two coal plants in the US that are estimated to give a greater dose of radiation to the people directly around the plant than the average for the same people around nuclear plants, through the concentration of radioactivity in the food chain. It doesn't compare radioactivity of emissions, it doesn't consider nuclear accidents, even common minor accidents, nor the effects of transport of fuel, it doesn't compare anything beyond the immediate mile or so around the plant, and the results of the study are an estimate based on a model, not a measurement.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why is the claim that coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear, when the article doesn't back that up? It compares estimated risk of absorbed dose from ingestion (ie eating plants and dust around a coal plant) from some old plants that use radioactive coal, with the background from nuclear.

The article is full of it. The OP isn't much better. The emissions are higher in radioactive content than nuclear plants, that is about it. The other claims (coal waste being worse than nuclear waste / a coal plant being more radioactive than a nuclear plant) are ridiculous.

Got some evidence of this?

That nuclear waste is more radioactive than coal waste (as in disposed waste) or that there is more radioactivity in a nuclear plant than a coal plant?

 

[Clivedurdle]

Compare a coal and a nuclear plant being damaged....

 

[Jarhyn]

Ok. A coal mine JUST collapsed, killing over a hundred workers, and only a few months after a tank spewed tons of chemicals for coal processing into the water supply, contaminating half a state for weeks. Compared to the nuclear plant disasters that I can count on my hand and the deaths in those events which I could also count on my hand...

 

[Jarhyn]

Why is the claim that coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear, when the article doesn't back that up? It compares estimated risk of absorbed dose from ingestion (ie eating plants and dust around a coal plant) from some old plants that use radioactive coal, with the background from nuclear.

Because radiation isn't a solid thing. It is transient. It is the isotopes that are the problem, and in a nuclear plant, those never make it into the wild. Your argument is similar to saying living with five people with HIV is more dangerous than fucking one guy with HIV without a condom. Sure, the five guys have more viruses, but that doesn't matter if you aren't being exposed to it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why is the claim that coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear, when the article doesn't back that up? It compares estimated risk of absorbed dose from ingestion (ie eating plants and dust around a coal plant) from some old plants that use radioactive coal, with the background from nuclear.

The article is full of it. The OP isn't much better. The emissions are higher in radioactive content than nuclear plants, that is about it. The other claims (coal waste being worse than nuclear waste / a coal plant being more radioactive than a nuclear plant) are ridiculous.

Got some evidence of this?

That nuclear waste is more radioactive than coal waste (as in disposed waste) or that there is more radioactivity in a nuclear plant than a coal plant?

Of course there is more radiation in the nuke plant. It's that the nuke plant is *FAR* better at containing it.

- - - Updated - - -

Why is the claim that coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear, when the article doesn't back that up? It compares estimated risk of absorbed dose from ingestion (ie eating plants and dust around a coal plant) from some old plants that use radioactive coal, with the background from nuclear.

Because radiation isn't a solid thing. It is transient. It is the isotopes that are the problem, and in a nuclear plant, those never make it into the wild. Your argument is similar to saying living with five people with HIV is more dangerous than fucking one guy with HIV without a condom. Sure, the five guys have more viruses, but that doesn't matter if you aren't being exposed to it.

A good way of putting it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why is the claim that coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear, when the article doesn't back that up? It compares estimated risk of absorbed dose from ingestion (ie eating plants and dust around a coal plant) from some old plants that use radioactive coal, with the background from nuclear.

The article is full of it. The OP isn't much better. The emissions are higher in radioactive content than nuclear plants, that is about it. The other claims (coal waste being worse than nuclear waste / a coal plant being more radioactive than a nuclear plant) are ridiculous.

Got some evidence of this?

That nuclear waste is more radioactive than coal waste (as in disposed waste) or that there is more radioactivity in a nuclear plant than a coal plant?

Of course there is more radiation in the nuke plant. It's that the nuke plant is *FAR* better at containing it.

So when you posted an article titled "Coal plants are more radioactive than nuke plants" what you actually meant was "trace radioactive elements outside of coal plant are a little higher than outside nuclear plants". Of course, that title wouldn't have been as sexy.

Because radiation isn't a solid thing. It is transient. It is the isotopes that are the problem, and in a nuclear plant, those never make it into the wild.

Except the claims were:

- the waste at coal plants was more radioactive than nuclear plants
- coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear plants

The very fine tuned scope of the actual data isn't about either.

 

[Juma]

Except the claims were:

- the waste at coal plants was more radioactive than nuclear plants
- coal plants are more radioactive than nuclear plants

The very fine tuned scope of the actual data isn't about either.

Yes. And in any sensible way, that is true. But if you want to be a jerk, then please, go on.

 

[Jarhyn]

The claims a home should care about is: what is the plant as a unit exposing it's external environment to? Nothing else pertaining to radioactivity matters. The waste at a coal plant is spewed into the external environment. The waste at a nuclear plant is encased in layers of lead, glass, and concrete. There is no rational way you can claim that a coal plant exposes the surrounding environment to more radioactive isotope than a nuke.

You cannot, without applying massive quantities of purely magic thinking, conclude a nuclear plant is worse on the whole than a coal plant. And that isn't even starting on the fact that pretty much every pre and post burn product at a coal plant is carcinogenic even before the net positive radioactivity of the coal or ash. The stuff is bad news, and if we regulated coal and ash, their procurement and disposal and limited their environmental exposure based on its danger relative to the danger of nuclear fuel and waste, it would be utterly infeasable to run so much as a fireplace.

 

[bilby]

... and then there's carbon dioxide to consider.