WeAreAllFooked
WeAreAllFooked t1_j7mfysr wrote
Reply to comment by strokes_your_nose in Current climate policies lead the world to less than a 5 percent likelihood of phasing out coal by mid-century ,new study shows by 9273629397759992
Basically coal contains trace amounts of radioactive elements and those radioactive particles are spread when the coal is burned and the waste gases are dumped in to the air.
1993 article mentioning it: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1002/ML100280691.pdf
2007 article mentioning it: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/
A Canadian company wanted to buy up all the coal that was sitting around to extract radioactive isotopes from it and turn it in to nuclear fuel, when the coal companies found out about it, they immediately squashed the sale because of potential optics surrounding coal-fired power plants and the release of radioactive material. I'm trying to find the article that talks about it, but it's been a while since I read it
WeAreAllFooked t1_j7mhxze wrote
Reply to comment by Ksradrik in Current climate policies lead the world to less than a 5 percent likelihood of phasing out coal by mid-century ,new study shows by 9273629397759992
This is patently false. Name me one nuclear accident not named Chernobyl or Fukushima where the reactor failed and lead to widespread contamination or verifiable health issues in the surrounding areas.
Chernobyl was a perfect storm of corruption, extremely poor reactor and containment design, and lax safety standards. Fukushima was caused by collusion, corruption, and inept management between the government of Japan, the regulator, and TEPCO.
Modern reactor and containment design are miles ahead of Chernobyl and Fukushima, and all reactors are designed around negative coefficients to prevent a possible catastrophic failure