RE: radioactivity from fossil fuel power stations

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

On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Stokes, James wrote:



>  I am suffering from a conceptual disfunction with this entire string, that

> I wish somebody could help me with.

> OK.  We mine coal. Due to subsidence, the void is replaced by minerals with

> a higher U, Th concentration.  But the laws of conservation state that it

> came from somewhere else.  So whether 11, 14, or 30 additional deaths happen

> in a given location due to the replacement of the coal by minerals; wouldn't

> the same number have been "saved" because it was transported away from its

> previous location?



	--The replacement rock comes from below the spot where the coal

was mined. There will always be rock below which will eventually reach the

surface by erosion. Of course the material which is eroded away into the

oceans will eventually be subducted to beneath the continents and in the

extremely long term will eventually reach the surface again, but this will

take a billion years or so. Thus, if we consider billions of years, the

uranium has not been destroyed and will return except that there has been

some radioactive decay. But none of the treatments of hazards from buried

waste consider the billion year time scale, not even the anti-nukes. I am

playing their game. 



> 

> Additionally, how do you "trap" Radon for so long a period in rock

> formations, when it has such a short halflife. It would seem to me that you

> are simply trapping Helium, which is the byproduct of Alpha decay.



	--You don't trap radon - it lives for only a few days. The

material of interest is uranium which decays into thorium which decays

into radium which decays into radon. When I mention uranium, I include

these decay products, assuming them to be in something close to

equilibrium. 



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