Re: radioactivity from fossil fuel power stations

[BERNARD L COHEN <blc+@PITT.EDU>]

On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Susan Gawarecki wrote:

> 

> From Alex Gabbard's article "Coal Combustion: Nuclear Resource or

> Danger"

> at http://www.ornl.gov/ORNLReview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

> 

> "Trace quantities of uranium in coal range from less than 1 part per

> million (ppm) in some samples to around 10 ppm in others. Generally, the

> amount of thorium contained in coal is about 2.5 times greater than the

> amount of uranium. For a large number of coal samples, according to

> Environmental Protection Agency figures released in 1984, average values

> of uranium and thorium content have been determined to be 1.3 ppm and

> 3.2 ppm, respectively."



	--Your 1.3 ppm Uranium in average coal is probably later than the

1.0 ppm that I used. This raises the 11 deaths per GWe-year in my argument

to 14.



> I suppose you could argue that mining and burning coal releases the

> radon from the coal and remaining rocks "prematurely" compared to

> natural erosion, but this would be far outweighed by the effects of

> quarrying for sand and gravel operations, the largest single industry in

> the U.S.

> 

	--Quarrying for sand and gravel do not affect radon exposure. On

average the rock below that replaces it has the same amount of uranium as

the material quarried.

	I use the anti-nuke assumption that doses delivered in the future

have the same importance as doses delivered now.





> In general, I think there are stronger arguments you can use than the

> geologic one.  For example, real deaths.  From a recent press release

> from the Campell County (Tennessee) Historical Society: "About 300 Coal

> Creek

> miners, many of them veterans of the Coal Creek War, perished in mine

> disasters in 1902 (Fraterville) and 1911 (Briceville).  Mine disasters

> like these raised public awareness of the hazards of mining, resulting

> in

> advances in mine safety practices.  In the early part of the 20th

> century,

> thousands of coal miners died in the United States each year.  In 2000,

> coal mining fatalities in the U.S. numbered 38."  Thankfully, we've made

> considerable progress in this area, though I would be interested in how

> 38 deaths per year compares to nuclear for the same amount of energy

> produced.



	--The whole discussion was based on radiation doses. If we

consider total deaths, coal burning is dominated by air pollution which is

generally estimated to cause at least 10,000 deaths per year in U.S.

Annual U.S. deaths from 100 nuclear power plants are: reactor accidents

(treated probabilistically) - 2; routine emissions - 2; all others - less

than 2; on a per GWe-year basis, these numbers should be divided by 100.

	For coal burning, a treatment similar to the one I use for long

term deaths from radiation doses gives about 30 deaths per GWe-year from

chemical carcinogens released in coal burning. 



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