The daft thing is that even if another Chernobyl happened (unlikely given superior technology and safety standards) it wouldn’t be anywhere near as damaging as climate change.
Here’s my favorite way to put it: because of trace radioactive elements found in coal ore, coal-fired power plants produce more radioactivity in normal operation than nuclear power plants have in their entire history, including meltdowns. And with coal, it just gets released straight into the environment without any attempt to contain it!
And that’s just radioactivity, not all the other emissions of coal plants.
This is a fun fact but I don’t think it matters, no one is getting radiation sickness from coal smoke. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying coal smoke is healthy, it’s fucking awful and causes way more deaths than nuclear power plants.
I’m not saying it’s fine, I’m saying it feels like an order of magnitude less of a concern compared to all of the other bad things that can happen from coal smoke.
Federation of American scientists (FAS) believe that the number is actually calculable:
“The quantity of radioactive material liberated by the burn-
ing of coal is considerable, since on average it contains a few parts per million
of uranium and thorium”
“Per gigawatt-
year (GWe-yr) of electrical energy produced by coal, using the current mix of
technology throughout the world, the population exposure is estimated to be
about 0.8 lethal cancers per plant-year distributed over the affected population.”
“Table 7.2 summarizes these data. With 400 GWe of coal-fired power plants in the world, this amounts to some 320 deaths per year; in the world at large, some plants have better filters and cause less harm, while others have little stack-gas cleanup and cause far more.”
320 deaths globally is a drop in the in the coal bucket of death. It’s not worth specifically worrying about. Coal as a whole is the problem. Not the nuclear byproduct of coal.
Sure sure, but we are still pumping out isotopes of uranium and plutonium into the atmosphere. We are lucky the effects of radioactive isotopes are generally overblown then, huh?
🙏 I need you to listen to me extremely closely. I am not saying nuclear shit in the atmosphere is good. I never said this. I never implied this. All I’m saying is that the nuclear aspects of coal usage are a drop in the bucket in the massive pile of problems it has. I’m not saying coal is good either.
If so then that doesn’t seem like an entirely fair comparison, given that even in 2020 coal was still the source of 27% of global energy whereas nuclear only supplied 4.3%. source
I’m no fan of coal however nuclear power is nowhere on the same scale of production - but please correct me if I misunderstand your comment.
Yes but we don’t know how nuclear energy’s pollution would scale at a similar level. A few countries with loose regulations leading to accidents could quickly change the numbers, for example. A similar scale would also probably require mini-reactors, and there has been much regulatory concern about the risks of these. So it’s not a fair comparison when presented as such. Perhaps a fair comparison could still be made with more information, I’ve no opinion on that hypothetical.
It’s not meant to be “fair;” it’s meant to shock people with how ridiculously bad burning coal is. Think about it: it’s crazy that a trace-element unused byproduct of coal production is a pollutant being produced on the same order of magnitude as the thing in nuclear power that’s actually producing all the power. Until people read it, they’d probably guess that coal either produced no radiation at all, or many orders of magnitude less than nuclear, but nope. And on the other end of it, if that tiny fraction of coal’s pollution output is enough to rival all of nuclear, I think it helps put a finer point on just how much worse all the rest of it is.
It’s not unfair, nor is it misleading. Coal contains a few parts per million of uranium. Sometimes more depending on source. So when burned this uranium is released into the atmosphere. When used for fission uranium has about 200 million times the energy density then burning the carbon carbon bonds in coal. So kilo for kilo a coal power plant dumps about as much uranium and other nasty trace elements into the atmosphere then a nuclear plant has in it’s core.
The situation is even more unfavorable for coal as nuke plants don’t typically dump any of their primary radioactive elements to atmosphere. Increasing scale of nuclear doesn’t change this either as it would require every nuclear plant on the planet to go full Chernobyl just to match what coal outputs.
It seemed clear to me that it was misinformation, intentional or not. I wasn’t presenting a false dichotomy; I was redirecting the discussion away from the tangent and back to my concern. Although their comment does nearly admit to it being intentional misinformation, I didn’t simply take that to be the case - I know other alternatives exist. So I pressed them on it for a clear yes or no.
Your comment doesn’t do the quality of discourse here any favors. I get that this can be an emotional topic but it wasn’t necessary or productive. Disagree with me that the comment is misinformation, fine, I’ll hold a conversation with you about it and hear you out. Or bring up a tangent politely, and I might even engage on that.
Here’s my favorite way to put it: because of trace radioactive elements found in coal ore, coal-fired power plants produce more radioactivity in normal operation than nuclear power plants have in their entire history, including meltdowns. And with coal, it just gets released straight into the environment without any attempt to contain it!
And that’s just radioactivity, not all the other emissions of coal plants.
This is a fun fact but I don’t think it matters, no one is getting radiation sickness from coal smoke. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying coal smoke is healthy, it’s fucking awful and causes way more deaths than nuclear power plants.
I think you just contradicted yourself in that same sentence
No, I’m saying that saying the radiation concerns specifically of coal output isn’t a concern with regards to health.
You’re right coal deaths are just confined to mines, respiratory illnesses and excess cancers from chronic low dose exposure.
So chronic low level exposure to radiation is fine?
I’m not saying it’s fine, I’m saying it feels like an order of magnitude less of a concern compared to all of the other bad things that can happen from coal smoke.
Federation of American scientists (FAS) believe that the number is actually calculable:
https://rlg.fas.org/mwmt-p233.pdf
That’s about the number of people who died from Chernobyl, every year. From the radiation from coal power plants.
In India alone it is estimated that 112,000 deaths per year are attributed to coal power plants. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2017936118
320 deaths globally is a drop in the in the coal bucket of death. It’s not worth specifically worrying about. Coal as a whole is the problem. Not the nuclear byproduct of coal.
Sure sure, but we are still pumping out isotopes of uranium and plutonium into the atmosphere. We are lucky the effects of radioactive isotopes are generally overblown then, huh?
🙏 I need you to listen to me extremely closely. I am not saying nuclear shit in the atmosphere is good. I never said this. I never implied this. All I’m saying is that the nuclear aspects of coal usage are a drop in the bucket in the massive pile of problems it has. I’m not saying coal is good either.
You’re saying all of coal vs. all of nuclear?
If so then that doesn’t seem like an entirely fair comparison, given that even in 2020 coal was still the source of 27% of global energy whereas nuclear only supplied 4.3%. source
I’m no fan of coal however nuclear power is nowhere on the same scale of production - but please correct me if I misunderstand your comment.
Per megawatt of generated energy, coal releases significantly more radioative waste into the environment than nuclear does.
Yes but we don’t know how nuclear energy’s pollution would scale at a similar level. A few countries with loose regulations leading to accidents could quickly change the numbers, for example. A similar scale would also probably require mini-reactors, and there has been much regulatory concern about the risks of these. So it’s not a fair comparison when presented as such. Perhaps a fair comparison could still be made with more information, I’ve no opinion on that hypothetical.
It’s not meant to be “fair;” it’s meant to shock people with how ridiculously bad burning coal is. Think about it: it’s crazy that a trace-element unused byproduct of coal production is a pollutant being produced on the same order of magnitude as the thing in nuclear power that’s actually producing all the power. Until people read it, they’d probably guess that coal either produced no radiation at all, or many orders of magnitude less than nuclear, but nope. And on the other end of it, if that tiny fraction of coal’s pollution output is enough to rival all of nuclear, I think it helps put a finer point on just how much worse all the rest of it is.
…so is it meant to be misleading, then?
It’s not unfair, nor is it misleading. Coal contains a few parts per million of uranium. Sometimes more depending on source. So when burned this uranium is released into the atmosphere. When used for fission uranium has about 200 million times the energy density then burning the carbon carbon bonds in coal. So kilo for kilo a coal power plant dumps about as much uranium and other nasty trace elements into the atmosphere then a nuclear plant has in it’s core.
The situation is even more unfavorable for coal as nuke plants don’t typically dump any of their primary radioactive elements to atmosphere. Increasing scale of nuclear doesn’t change this either as it would require every nuclear plant on the planet to go full Chernobyl just to match what coal outputs.
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Fuck of with that false dichotomy shit. Just because something isn’t fair (like life), doesn’t mean it’s misleading.
It seemed clear to me that it was misinformation, intentional or not. I wasn’t presenting a false dichotomy; I was redirecting the discussion away from the tangent and back to my concern. Although their comment does nearly admit to it being intentional misinformation, I didn’t simply take that to be the case - I know other alternatives exist. So I pressed them on it for a clear yes or no.
Your comment doesn’t do the quality of discourse here any favors. I get that this can be an emotional topic but it wasn’t necessary or productive. Disagree with me that the comment is misinformation, fine, I’ll hold a conversation with you about it and hear you out. Or bring up a tangent politely, and I might even engage on that.