This is a short article on how reactors work, which has some useful information.
Also, I've seen several people making claims along this line:
"On of the interesting facts associated with the debate over nuclear power is the amount of radiation emitted by burning coal. Typically a coal-fired power plant emits about 3.3 times the amount of radioactive material into the environment that a nuclear plant does for a similar amount of power produced.
This is due to the fact that coal contains radioactive material, mostly uranium and thorium, at about 4 parts per million. Now this does not seem like a lot until the quantity of coal a 1000 megawatt plant will burn in a day, around 11,000 tons, is considered. This works out to be roughly 40 kilos of radioactive material (88 pounds) each day. About 10% of this will be released to the atmosphere and the rest will end up in the ash pile and subject to weathering. If proper scrubbers are in place as little as 1% could reach the atmosphere, but this is still rather significant given the tonnage of coal burned for electric generation.
Additionally there is the radon present in coal that is directly vented to the atmosphere by mining operations and the smaller amounts of more dangerous radioactive elements like radioactive potassium or phosphorous."
I haven't been able to verify this, mind you.
I did read up on the Chernobyl disaster back when I was thinking about going into nuclear physics, and back then it wasn't so much a case of "something went wrong" as it was a case of untrained operators experimenting with outdated Soviet equipment in hugely irresponsible ways. The second biggest nuclear plant accident seems to be the Three Mile Island accident, and according to wikipedia: "In the aftermath of the accident, investigations focused on the amount of radiation released by the accident. According to the American Nuclear Society, using the official radiation emission figures, "The average radiation dose to people living within ten miles of the plant was eight millirem, and no more than 100 millirem to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year.""
As I understand it the worst case scenario in Fukushima involves the reactor becoming irreparably damaged and therefore unusable, with little or no irridated material ever making it outside the plant. The reactor is already inside a very thick concrete shield, and then there's the walls of the power plant beyond that.
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Date: 2011-03-14 04:03 pm (UTC)Also, I've seen several people making claims along this line:
"On of the interesting facts associated with the debate over nuclear power is the amount of radiation emitted by burning coal. Typically a coal-fired power plant emits about 3.3 times the amount of radioactive material into the environment that a nuclear plant does for a similar amount of power produced.
This is due to the fact that coal contains radioactive material, mostly uranium and thorium, at about 4 parts per million. Now this does not seem like a lot until the quantity of coal a 1000 megawatt plant will burn in a day, around 11,000 tons, is considered. This works out to be roughly 40 kilos of radioactive material (88 pounds) each day. About 10% of this will be released to the atmosphere and the rest will end up in the ash pile and subject to weathering. If proper scrubbers are in place as little as 1% could reach the atmosphere, but this is still rather significant given the tonnage of coal burned for electric generation.
Additionally there is the radon present in coal that is directly vented to the atmosphere by mining operations and the smaller amounts of more dangerous radioactive elements like radioactive potassium or phosphorous."
I haven't been able to verify this, mind you.
I did read up on the Chernobyl disaster back when I was thinking about going into nuclear physics, and back then it wasn't so much a case of "something went wrong" as it was a case of untrained operators experimenting with outdated Soviet equipment in hugely irresponsible ways.
The second biggest nuclear plant accident seems to be the Three Mile Island accident, and according to wikipedia: "In the aftermath of the accident, investigations focused on the amount of radiation released by the accident. According to the American Nuclear Society, using the official radiation emission figures, "The average radiation dose to people living within ten miles of the plant was eight millirem, and no more than 100 millirem to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year.""
As I understand it the worst case scenario in Fukushima involves the reactor becoming irreparably damaged and therefore unusable, with little or no irridated material ever making it outside the plant. The reactor is already inside a very thick concrete shield, and then there's the walls of the power plant beyond that.
I hope some of this helped?