I took a class once that discussed the relative safety of nuclear power and one of the key points the instructor made was the fact that radiation levels in the vicinity of a coal fired power plant are actually higher than in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant under normal operating conditions.

I've heard a similar story. The story was about a safety inspection at a nuclear power plant where they opened some large blast doors and the radiation alarms went off. After a while they realized that the radiation monitors were responding to a coal plant something like 25 miles away and the wind had shifted toward the nuclear plant.

I'm gonna call "citation needed" on this one. The clean coal part, specifically. Reasons:

Technically, it should be possible to filter out uranium. Thorium, too. Both are heavy enough, it should be possible to centrifuge them out of just about any mixture, unless the compounds they're in are too tightly bound with lighter molecules by intermolecular forces. Even then, I would expect them to find their way "down", even if they had to drag some of the nonradioactive portion with them.

The amount of energy you get out of the coal or the uranium is a function of not only the amount of energy in each, but their relative quantity, as well. If there's not enough uranium present to extract a significant portion, I'd have to wonder if there's really enough to put out as much energy as the coal's total output.

Taking it a little further, if there isn't enough to extract, is there really enough to pose a significant health risk? We're exposed to a certain amount of background radiation on a daily basis already. How much more does the uranium in coal add to this? Again, I'm tempted to doubt it's significant, if there's not enough to be extracted.

So, do we have reliable numbers on this?

Google "coal fired power plant radiation"

The following two articles cite "a 1978 paper for Science, J. P. McBride at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)"

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.ht...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is...

and Wikipedia says, during normal operation the effective radiation dose from a coal plant is 100 times that of a nuclear power plant, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_station#Radio...

Good god, that's the biggest non-point I've heard in my life.

You could've worked in something about potassium content of bananas while you were at it.

I believe his point runs along the lines of, ``there are radioactive elements released with coal smoke''. Which may be a big surprise to many people.

NB., a fun experiment: explain a smoker that the cigarette contains proverbial half of the Mendeleyev table.

In any case, the theoretical content of fissible elements in coal may be significant, but it doesn't seem to be economical to extract it at this point. We have heaps of uranium ore, and nuclear fusion seems to be around the corner.

Fusion power is 20 years away and always will be.

Less snarkily, is there actually good reason to believe that we're any closer to usable fusion?

Actually physicists are saying "Fusion power is 20 years away" without sniggering now!

The second space race is a reliable reason to believe.

Several governments bet big (well, perhaps medium) money on race to the Moon, to extract helium-3 [3] from water ice in there. A key component to commercial nuclear fusion -- and with only small-time other uses in medicine and stuff.

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[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Fusion_reactions

Yeah, but there's trace radioactive elements in literally everything on earth.

Hence, the biggest non point I've ever seen in my life. Unless coal is actually radioactive to a noteworthy significantly-more-than-a-banana extent, which I probably would have heard of by now (not that I haven't been wrong before).

His point has little to do with bananas and much to do with the danger of radiation and how it is commonly attributed to nuclear power plants rather than coal.

Here is an example of someone else making the same point:

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.ht...

You are right about the facts. And perhaps that's a non-point on well-educated HN. But the general public seems to be under-appreciating the pervasiveness of natural radiation, and freaking out about any nuclear contraptions. In some countries you can't even import those glowing tritium keychains :-(

heh i still smoke. im less interested in finding out all the ways i could die, and much more interested in finding all the ways to live.

On a very off-topic note, I fell madly in love with Totally Wicked Mini DSE901 [1]. And since I started composing liquids to my taste, I'm half-way in heaven ;-)

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[1] http://www.totallywicked-eliquid.com/products/electronic-cig...

The dose due to actinide particulates from coal is a non-negligible part of your annual exposure.

It depends on how much there is, doesn't it?...

It does, and the answer is "trace amounts".

Your body has trace amounts of uranium as well. What's everyone so worried about?! Obviously the substance is perfectly safe.

On average, one `Banana equivalent dose' per banana: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose

And no, that's not a joke; it's a convenient measure of low radiation levels. Bananas are more naturally radioactive due to high potassium contents.