Reply #36: That's the only source of nuclear fallout? [View All]

[Dogmudgeon]

Check out King Coal.

Appalachian coal contains about 2 PPM of uranium and 5 PPM of thorium. So one year's production of one gigawatt puts 50 tons of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere.

Fifty tons. It's all fly-ash. And there are truly huge amounts of mercury, arsenic, and cadmium, enough to dwarf the radioactive material.

But that's just per gigawatt-year. Coal produces abut 1200 GWe-y of energy worldwide, each year. (GWe-y = "gigawatt of electricity per year".)

Yep. Sixty thousand tons of uranium and thorium fallout. Per year. Every year. Growing at an historical rate of about 3% per year.

But don't believe me. Believe this guy. He's a real scientist, not some poseur from the Green Party. His numbers are also markedly more conservative, and he wrote this about fifteen years ago:

Based on the predicted combustion of 2516 million tons of coal in the United States and 12,580 million tons worldwide during the year 2040, cumulative releases for the 100 years of coal combustion following 1937 are predicted to be:

U.S. release (from combustion of 111,716 million tons):
Uranium: 145,230 tons (containing 1031 tons of uranium-235)
Thorium: 357,491 tons

Worldwide release (from combustion of 637,409 million tons):
Uranium: 828,632 tons (containing 5883 tons of uranium-235)
Thorium: 2,039,709 tons

We're already a lot closer to his predicted 2040 consumption than he predicted. With all of Asia building coal plants at a rate of four per week, we should be at Gabbard's predicted 2040 level within a few years.

Most of us HAVE given this issue a good, deep think-through. We have concluded that the safest, cleanest form of energy yet discovered has been maligned by a small number of self-appointed radicals who are working for the benefit of the fossil fuel companies.

The response by the anti-nuclearists? "Well, dude, we don't like coal either," But I have yet to see activists lash themselves to coal smokestacks like they lash themselves to cooling towers.

I guess all that coal smoke freaks them out a little, eh?

We are, naturally, not happy about the whole situation.

--p!