Posted on 03/12/2024 6:36:31 PM PDT by DallasBiff
SNIP
2. Coal is actually radioactive
Coal contains uranium and thorium, which are both radioactive elements. In coal’s natural form, they are not an issue as they occur in such trace quantities.
However, when coal is burned, these radioactive components can concentrate to up to 10 times their original levels in some of its by-products, such as fly ash.
Fly ash is produced by coal-based power plants and carries 100 times more radiation into the surrounding environment than a nuclear power plant that produces an equivalent amount of energy. People who live in the so-called “stack shadow”, or between half a mile and a mile from the plant’s smokestacks, can be exposed to small levels of radiation, at least as much as people who live near nuclear plants.
(Excerpt) Read more at greencoast.org ...
Bkmk
Oak Ridge Laboratory had a publication years ago in which they said there was more energy in the uranium than there was in the coal that was burned.
“Green Coast is a renewable energy and green living website focused on helping you live a more sustainable life
The fact you’re here reading this means you are interested in creating a better future for our planet.”
The entire crew is four leftist, brain dead women. I wonder how many abortions they have had.
definitions are everything
Red bricks “technically” are radioactive.
The redness comes from iron minerals in the clay. The iron minerals have naturally occurring mildly radioactive iron isotopes. Also, uranium ores in small amounts are often in-situ with the iron ores.
Uranium averages 10 ppm in fly ash (0.001%), sometimes going up to 30 ppm depending on the sample. (Fissile U-235 is 0.7 percent on average of uranium in nature; U-238 is known to have very weak alpha and gamma emissions.) Comparing a coal plant to a nuclear power plant, the latter of which is designed to confine even the minutest trace of radiation, is comparing apples to oranges.
I was in Nowa Huta a few years after the wall came down and before any controls were in place and the coke ovens & blast furnaces ran 24/7. It was just like the stories I read about Pittsburgh in the old days: streetlights on during the say, air burned your nose and throat and what I thought were snow flurries were coal ash.
So I'm glad we have the pollution controls in place to clean out the sulfur & ash, but once that's done, who cares?
I will wager that they haven’t considered the Radon emanating from their lawns and house crawl spaces.
A hundred times practically nothing is still very, very little.
It's fun to inform radiation-phobes that they have radioactive potassium in their bloodstreams. You can just see them get itchy all over.
I was a young boy in the mid 50s and lived with my grandfather, mother and aunt in a wood shack while my dad was off in Korea and elsewhere. We had REA electricity, no running water and a propane powered stove. Had an out-house and a well for water.
What we DID have was a pot belly stove that burned anthracite coal. It warmed the four room house and boiled the water that went into the galvanized tub in which we took baths once a week. To my mind, anthracite coal is hard, clean and has a lot of energy output. I’d burn it today if I could get it in smaller chunks for my fireplace.
Anthracite is good stuff. Has about double the BTUs of wood.
Germany wrecked their economy with the green mythology. They are now working hard to revive he coal power plants.
But our dear leaders are so vain that they think the same powers of the universe do not apply to us.
"Burning coal generates carbon monoxide, which causes air pollution and can lead to long-term respiratory problems, trigger asthma attacks, and cause chest pains."
Hogwash. A well-tuned boiler combustion system is producing negligible CO (that is unburned fuel and no operator wants unburned fuel to go up the stack) at levels FAR below what would cause those problems. Then you have the enormous dilution when the flue gases exit the stack and mix with the atmosphere.
This is pathetic fear porn.
"...burning coal releases methane into the atmosphere that may cause neurological and cardiovascular diseases"
The existence of methane in coal beds is a well understood and characterized problem. But the article says "BURNING COAL" releases methane. Any methane that arrived with the coal will be completely burned in the furnace. There are ZERO emissions of methane exiting the stack.
Note the "MAY CAUSE." That's because the author can find no evidence based facts that support this.
Exactly.
Total b.s.
The he’ll it does, coal is chdap, dependable and doesn’t stop producing on a wim
The sky was filled with floating fly ash. The ash looks like black, full sized, potato chips. They turn to dust if you squeeze them.
I am certain that fly ash was banned during that time frame.
I lived in Minnesota and Iowa during the 1980s and 1990s.
Many towns in the Midwest had a coal power plant in their downtown area.
By that time frame, there was zero visible smoke, and zero odors, coming from those coal power plants.
Bananas are radioactive...
Washington Monument is radioactive.
Ordinary granite will set off a Geiger counter.
You know what’s worse for people than radioactive coal ash? Freezing to death in the winter.
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