[Vision2020] Yes, Coal Fired Plant and Radon Radiation: Was: Re: Is it on its way to Idaho?

Fri Apr 1 12:58:56 PDT 2011

Ted,

Of course coal mines have killed more people because they have been around for hundreds of years and there are many more of them, and nuclear power plants have been around for relativity only a few years and there are few of them. Many of the deaths were from children that worked the mines, or from minors that worked in the mines for decades breathing the soot. 

The amount of money that goes into keeping a mine safe as opposed to a nuclear power plant is pale in comparison. It costs billions of dollars to keep nuclear plants safe. A nuclear power plant could kill thousands quickly if power is lost to it for more a few hours, that is not true with a coal mine. Tornadoes, volcanoes, floods, earthquakes, riots, weapons attacks are all major threats to nuclear power plants, coal mines are safer if they lost power and become subjected to natural and human made catastrophes--which will inevitably occur at some facilities given a long enough time period.

Same goes with your car-plane analogy. Yes, I am more likely to die in a car accident than a plane accident because I drive a cheap car everyday with morons on the road. But if I were actually in a plane crash I would be less likely to survive it than a car wreck. Getting hit by a another car is more survivable, even if a more probable occurrence, than dropping from six miles in the sky to the ground. 

We didn't drop a coal bomb on Japan, we dropped a nuclear bomb. The Cold War did not escalate coal armed missiles, but nuclear missiles, simply because nuclear is far more devastating to all things living than coal.

In either case, we should not be using either nuclear or coal, hydrogen and solar are the better forms of energy which we would not run out of either. 

Donovan Arnold

--- On Fri, 4/1/11, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Yes, Coal Fired Plant and Radon Radiation: Was: Re: Is it on its way to Idaho?
To: "Donovan Arnold" <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>
Cc: "Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Date: Friday, April 1, 2011, 10:55 AM

I did not exactly say that "coal plants are more dangerous" than
nuclear power plants, but that coal plants release more radioactivity
than, at least so far, nuclear power plants have; and this is by a
large margin.  This is a scientific fact, which my post documented,
though the kinds of radioactivity released by either coal or nuclear
plants is an important issue.

Nuclear power plant accidents are especially dangerous to those
nearby, due to the concentration of the radiation.  But to argue
nuclear power in general is more dangerous than coal power is like
saying because when a large passenger air plane crashes (akin to a
major nuclear power plant accident), hundreds die, flying is more
dangerous than driving a car; it is not.

Considering all impacts from nuclear power plants and coal plants (we
should consider the whole life cycle from mining forward for coal and
uranimum, both with negative impacts), coal plants have, so far, been
responsible for far more premature deaths and disease to humans than
nuclear power plants.  Coal plants have considerable impacts on
respiratory illness, and release mercury: these impacts can extend far
away from the coal plant that released these emissions.

Yes, "coal plants are more dangerous" than nuclear power plants, when
considering all the impacts, just as naturally occurring radon gas is
more dangerous to human health, given the facts of the premature
deaths resulting from radon, than nuclear power plants:

http://bwengr.com/blog/tag/deaths-from-nuclear-vs-deaths-from-coal/

>From source above:

"The explanation lies in the large number of deaths caused by
pollution. “It’s the whole life cycle that leads to a trail of
injuries, illness and death,” says Paul Epstein, associate director of
the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical
School. Fine particles from coal power plants kill an estimated 13,200
people each year in the US alone, according to the Boston-based Clean
Air Task Force (The Toll from Coal, 2010). Additional fatalities come
from mining and transporting coal, and other forms of pollution
associated with coal. In contrast, the International Atomic Energy
Agency and the UN estimate that the death toll from cancer following
the 1986 meltdown at Chernobyl will reach around 9000."
----------------------------------------
A friend of mine who lives in New York joked in 2001 that the
Northeast US is the "tailpipe of the US," given that a lot of
emissions from coal plants in other areas of the US are carried into
the Northeast US.  There were warnings that year about too high of
mercury levels in fish from Northeast US lakes, from coal fired plant
emissions.
-----------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 3/31/11, Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Ted,
>
> I think that nuclear power plants that lose their cooling are far more
> dangerous to the environment than coal mines. Most nuclear power plants only
> have a four hour backup power system.
>
> Saying that coal plants are more dangerous to people than nuclear power
> plants, is akin to saying that baseballs are more dangerous than hand
> grenades because more people are injured with baseballs than hand grenades
> in the United States each year. Yet we don't see people replacing baseballs
> with hand grenades. The reasoning would be as such with nuclear power plants
> as the US builds them today, highly unsafe.
>
> Donovan Arnold
>
>
> --- On Thu, 3/31/11, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Vision2020] Yes, Coal Fired Plant and Radon Radiation: Was: Re: Is
> it on its way to Idaho?
> To: "Chuck Kovis" <ckovis at turbonet.com>
> Cc: "Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Date: Thursday, March 31, 2011, 11:06 AM
>
>
> While the radiation released from nuclear power plant accidents, or
> nuclear waste, or nuclear weapons (can you believe that nuclear bombs
> were tested in the atmosphere on US soil once upon a time?) has had
> and likely will continue to have negative impacts, it appears the
> public exagerates the extent of the impacts while paying far less
> attention to other radiation sources, such as coal burning, releasing
> more radiation than nuclear power plants, or natural radon gas, a
> problem impacting the Inland Northwest  (read here:
> http://wa-radon.info/WA_general.html ), estimated to kill thouands in
> the US annually ( http://www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/citguide.html ).
>
> It is important to note given the worry over nuclear power induced by
> the Japan nulcear plant failures, that modern third or fourth
> generation nuclear power plants can be built with far greater safety
> margins than first generation nuclear plants such as the Fukushima
> reactors constructed in the 1960s and 70s (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_Nuclear_Power_Plant ),
> releasing radiation in Japan (read here on third, fourth generation
> reactors:  http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf08.html ).
>
> Consider what is well known by science, that coal fired plants release
> more radioactivity than nuclear plants:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation
>
> >From website above:
>
> According to a 1978 article in Science magazine, "coal-fired power
> plants throughout the world are the major sources of radioactive
> materials released to the environment".[20]
>
> And another source:
>
> http://www.energyplanusa.com/coal_energy_plan.htm
>
> Coal ash emits more radiation than nuclear plants
> Scientific American 2007
> The waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than
> that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash
> emitted by a power plant – a by-product from burning coal for
> electricity – carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more
> radiation than a nuclear power plant emits that produces the same
> amount of energy.
> ---------------------
> And yet another...
>
> http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
>
> For comparison, according to NCRP Reports No. 92 and No. 95,
> population exposure from operation of 1000-MWe nuclear and coal-fired
> power plants amounts to 490 person-rem/year for coal plants and 4.8
> person-rem/year for nuclear plants. Thus, the population effective
> dose equivalent from coal plants is 100 times that from nuclear
> plants.
> ---------------------
> Consider radon...
>
> Imagine if nuclear power plant operation was killing 15,000 to 20,000
> thousand a year in the US, as the following source estimates death
> from radon exposure?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation
>
> >From website above:
>
> Radiation exposure from radon is indirect. Radon has a short half-life
> (4 days) and decays into other solid particulate radium-series
> radioactive nuclides. These radioactive particles are inhaled and
> remain lodged in the lungs, causing continued exposure. People in
> affected localities can receive up to 10 mSv per year background
> radiation.[4] Radon is thus the second leading cause of lung cancer
> after smoking, and accounts for 15,000 to 22,000 cancer deaths per
> year in the US alone.[18]
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
> On 3/31/11, Chuck Kovis <ckovis at turbonet.com> wrote:
>
>> The Environmental Protection Agency said a March 25 sample of milk
>> produced
>> in the Spokane, Wash., area contained a 0.8 pico curies per literlevel of
>> iodine-131, which it said was less than one five-thousandth of the safety
>> safety guideline set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. . . . . An
>> EPA spokesman said that while the agency isn't certain that the iodine-131
>> found in the sampled milk came from Fukushima, its discovery is
>> "consistent
>> with" what the agency knows has been released so far from the damaged
>> nuclear reactors there. (Wall Street Journal article dated March 31, 2011)
>>
>>
>> Naw, it ain't coming to Idaho, Andreas, just Spokane.  Chuck Kovis
>
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