Re:Two of America's biggest coal plants closed this month
by vihren on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @01:12AM
(#21570990)
We are not discussing nuclear waste here. It is highly concentrated and disposed of in the end of the fuel cycle. What you should be comparing with is the radioactivity that is released in the environment during the operation of the plant. That is mostly Tritium and isotopes of Xenon, definitely no heavy metals. Tritium is a very low energy beta emitter and is mostly harmless. Xenon is a noble gas and a beta emitter, so again not very harmful.
The WHO guidelines on alpha emitters (all elements you cite that are contained in fly ash) is 1 Bq/l in drinking water. So depending on how and where this ash goes to, you can definitely cause some significant damage with it.
Re:Two of America's biggest coal plants closed this month
by makomk on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @06:31AM
(#21572096)
For context, that seems to make coal ash about as radioactive as granite based on these figures for the latter: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S168785071...
According to the following article (and a couple I'm not citing), coal fly ash counts are on the order of 250-1000 Bq/kg. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10967-006-6966-1
Specifically, concentrated (fly ash) measures:
"263 to 950 Bq·kg−1 for 238U, from 142 to 605 Bq·kg−1 for 226Ra, from 133 to 428 Bq·kg−1 for 210Pb, from 27 to 68 Bq·kg−1 for 228Ra and from 204 to 382 Bq·kg−1 for 40K"
Anyone who cares to is welcome to cite the Bq/kg numbers for waste from nuclear plants. Go ahead, pick some. I think you'll find they are higher. And most coal doesn't contain any Pu.