As a one time antinuke, I would like to point out that the amount of uranium in coal does not indicate the amount of radiation released into the environment compared with a nuclear power plant. The problem with present day nukes is the waste on the back end of the cycle, not the uranium going into the front end. Besides, coal plants capture most of the particulate emissions from the exhaust stack, which would also tend to capture the uranium as well.
JMC was likely correct that little radiation is released from a nuke UNDER NORMAL CONDITIONS. We are in Iraq because the supposed threats of WMD, such as "dirty bombs". The "dirt" in the dirty bomb was the highly radioactive component of nuclear waste, i.s., plutonium. Given the threats presented by all those bad actors out there, does anyone really think that it would be possible to contain all those waste products with 100% perfection for 10,000 years? Even the Government's best efforts at Yucca Mountain have not been worked out. We've already seen guys in Somalia who are willing to capture a VLCC tanker, not to mention other guys willing to crash airplanes into buildings. One of the worst case scenarios contemplated for nuclear power plants 30 years ago was what would happen if an airplane crashed into the containment building. Let's hope we never find out whether the containment buildings are indeed strong enough to withstand such an assault.. E.S. -------- William Connolley wrote: > JMC was saying 15 years ago on sci.env that coal put out more > radiation than nukes did. > > -W. > > 2009/1/7 Michael Tobis <[email protected]>: > > Interesting. > > > > Hoever, it wasn't Joe's schadenfreude that I was pointing to. Rather I am > > intersted in the cargument that coal is so much more dangerous than nuclear > > fuel based on sheer quantity of fuel. > > > > I'd like to hear from the no nukes crowd about this particular comparison. > > > > mt > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > William M. Connolley | www.wmconnolley.org.uk | 07985 935400 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
