What do you think about nuclear power?

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100% BS.

Coal ash is NOT more radioactive than nuclear waste

The first line of Jono's statement is accurate, though something of a strawman of you. Coal plants DO release more radiation than nuclear plants. You have straw manned him in term by representing his claim as "coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste", which isn't what he said.

The second part of Jono's statement is also accurate.

The main problem with Jono's post was that, although his evidence was accurate and his conclusion was accurate, his evidence did not support his conclusion.

If I say "pigs can't fly, therefore the sky is blue", and you show that pigs can fly, then you haven't shown the sky is blue.

The thing about death numbers of nuclear damages, is that a cancer does not write on it "I was caused by radiation."

The number you refer to is, as far as I know, the one mentioned by the WHO report about their 2006/2007 study. The thing you missed in mentioning that number, is that this number represents only the number of deaths, that can be totally linked to an direct high amount of radiation. (Workers that constructed the emergency shell and died from radiation-illness.)

The part of the report you did non mention is the part, where they explain themselves, that the above number only stand for those directly linked victims, while they were only able to estimate the number of other incidents, by comparing statistics of diseases and illnesses with similar peer.

"The international experts have estimated that radiation could cause up to about 4000 eventual deaths among the higher-exposed Chernobyl populations, i.e., emergency workers from 1986-1987, evacuees and residents of the most contaminated areas. This number contains both the known radiation-induced cancer and leukaemia deaths and a statistical prediction, based on estimates of the radiation doses received by these populations. As about quarter of people die from spontaneous cancer not caused by Chernobyl radiation, the radiation-induced increase of only about 3% will be difficult to observe. However, in the most exposed cohorts of emergency and recovery operation workers some increase of particular cancer forms (e.g., leukemia) in particular time periods has already been observed. The predictions use six decades of scientific experience with the effects of such doses, explained Repacholi."

So, no: The WHI report does not say, that there were only 56 victims of it, but it says, that the 56 are the only one, they can directly count, while the rest of the victims, only can be calculated by statistic.

So you take the word an online only article written by someone who has no education or experience with nuclear power over the peer reviewed research of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey, The International Atomic Energy Association, the International Council on Radiation Protection, the US Department of energy, NASA, and nearly every single environmental scientist who has studied the matter?

I will say that the claim that coal ash is more radioactive than radioactive waste is misleading. But the fact remains that more radiation and radioactive material leaves the confines of a coal fired plant than a nuclear plant. In fact coal plants release 1.5 times more radioactive atoms into the environment than the number of radioactive atoms which go into shielded and contained nuclear waste from a nuclear plant producing the same amount of electricity. And a coal plant releases around 100 times more radioactivity into the environment than a nuclear power plant generating the same amount of electricity. The amount of radiation outside of a nuclear power plant facility (as a regulatory requirement from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) is so low that you would get more cosmic radiation exposure living in Denver, Colorado from the higher altitude or from the geological radiation in the sand in Iran than from living on the property line of a nuclear power plant.

Coal naturally contains trace amounts of uranium, thorium and small amounts of radium. When the carbon is burned away, you have a concentrated radioactive mess that has relatively few limitations on release to the environment. You should also remember that a coal plant is producing radioactive waste non-stop, while a nuclear power plant only needs to refuel every 5-20 years (depending on design) which produces a much smaller amount of radioactive waste.

The 56 deaths were from the accident itself. I also mentioned the 4000 possible cancer deaths (although you may have missed it). The number of confirmed cancer deaths from Chernobyl is 64.



I will put it here quite bluntly:
Nuclear power can be dangerous.
Fossil fuel power generation is more dangerous.

It is the lesser of two dangers that I am concerned with, and all evidence points toward fossil fuels being overwhelmingly more harmful to the population than nuclear power.

Discussing about actual nuclear energy and coal in western countries of 21st century, is just like discussing about riding-horses vs. ox-carts.

Sure coal reactors still exist and will be maintained, until they dont work sufficiently anymore: But you hardly will find much plans for building new ones outside of rather poor countries, or areas, that really dont provide any alternatives. You could as well discuss about the benefits of MC Hammer vs. Vanilla Ice.

I wasn't making a logical argument. I was trying to give two separate facts to counter the notion that nuclear power leads to thousands of cancer deaths. I did not intend for the one to logically follow from the other. In my second sentence, I should of said "The meltdowns probably wouldn't cause that many cancer deaths either", to indicate that I was simply stating a fact and not making an argument. The second sentence was not meant to be a conclusion made from the first one.

Last edited by Jono on 05 Mar 2014, 3:12 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I will put it here bluntly:

Horses are fast.
Oxes are more powerful.

None of both is of importance, when it comes to western people actually planning to buy a new vehicle.

One corporation (TXU Corporation in Texas) is in the process of opening 3 new coal plants (although plans for 8 more were rejected for different reasons, mostly for flawed environmental or pollution control plans). Coal plants have been on the decline in the US (although coal mining and production have gone up). Natural gas plants have increased by more than 30% in the last 5 years alone (which carries its own set of dangers, not the least of which is the danger of explosion being higher than in a nuclear plant by several orders of magnitude). No nuclear power plants have been built in the US since 1977, and there are currently zero applications for the approval of new power plants.

China has plans to open an additional 80-160 coal burning power plants in the next two years, and India had plans to open 46 coal plants between 2012 and 2016. So saying that only poor countries are building them is not entirely accurate.

Natural gas is significantly less hazardous to the environment, but it is still more dangerous than nuclear power (just not by such a massive extent). Burning gas releases CO2, methane (a greenhouse gas that traps much more heat than CO2), sulfur dioxides, nitrogen dioxides, and mercury compounds. Here are some words from the EPA on natural gas:


The comparisons I made were radioactive elements released into the environment between 2 types of power plants and the amount of radioactivity outside of 2 types of power plants. How is this not a valid comparison? I am comparing released radioactive material to released radioactive material and environmental radiation to environmental radiation.

In your comparison analogy it would be comparing the speed of a horse to the speed of an ox-drawn cart and comparing the hauling capacity of a horse to the hauling capacity of an ox-drawn cart.

I would understand your argument if I was comparing the radioactivity of an unshielded and uncontained nuclear plant reactor core to the hazardous emissions of a coal plant, but this is not the case.

Oh, thank you for linking to a source that acknowledges what I said. Quote from your source, emphasis mine:



I did not say that the fly ash from coal power plants was more radioactive, I said that the fly ash carries more radiation into the environment than a nuclear power plant does. Those are two completely things. How radioactive the fly ash is, is actually far less important than the total amount of radiation it releases into the atmosphere and even the blog post that you linked to acknowledged that that is 100 times more than the radiation released into the environment by a nuclear power plant.

At least you are right about one thing.

I wasn't trying to make an argument at all. I was just stating facts.

By the way, my last response to you was a logical argument. Like it or not, there's a difference between saying that the fly ash from a coal power plant is more radioactive than nuclear waste and saying that the fly ash released from the coal power plant releases more radiation. The amount of radiation released into the environment also depends on quantity, not just on radioactivity. Fly ash released from a coal power plant releases more radiation into environment than a nuclear power plant because vastly more of it (i.e. vastly more fly ash than radioactive byproducts in the steam from the cooler towers of nuclear plants) is released into the atmosphere, not because it's more radioactive.

Now, if you still think that the paragraph I wrote above is not logical, then perhaps it is you, not me, who doesn't understand logic. Smart-ass.

MC Hammer every time!

How else would you suggest we generate sufficient power? What is the Kanye West of energy?

the cooling towers on nuclear and coal plants only release steam

the water never mixes with the reactor water it goes through a heat exchange system the reactor water stays with the reactor in a closed loop

the fly ash comes from the smoke stack at coal plants

Over-inflated ego that over-promises and consistently under-delivers? Pretty sure that would make Solar the Kanye West of energy

New game: classify energy generation types according to pop-culture references!