Quote from Kanzei:
There's no comparison to nuclear there. Your statement was that there is more radiation from coal power than nuclear power.
I've never worked in a coal power plant, do they wear radiation monitors too?
To be fair, I don't think Trendy said that, I did. Trendy said something about mercury emissions I believe.
Coal, which is mostly carbon, contains the natural abundance of C14. Virtually all of this C-14 ends up as radioactive carbon dioxide, some of which you breathe every day of your life. The amount of C-14 carbon dioxide emitted by a large coal fired power plant is substantial, though you should not be concerned about the amount of C-14 you are exposed to by this route. You probably get more radioactive material in your body from eating bananas.
A properly operating nuclear plant however emits virtually no radiation to the environment and it emits virtually no CO2 in comparison to coal fired plant which emits copious amounts of CO2, and also SO2 which is converted to SO3 in the atmosphere and rains down on you as dilute sulfuric acid. Whole forests that were down wind from coal fired plants have been killed or stunted by this acid rain. The remedy has been to add scrubbers to the stacks to scrub out the SO2 and convert it to Gypsum, but this is a costly and troublesome measure.
I should add that coal deposits often contain Uranium as an insoluble uranium 4+ salt. Some of this also finds it's way back into the environment from whence it came, but in a somewhat more concentrated form. It is largely present in the cinders and fly ash, which can be used to make "cinder" blocks, the use of which may result in slightly more than natural radioactive buildings..
Radiation is everywhere, so don't worry about it, but it is absolutely true that a coal fired plant releases far more radioactivity to the environment than does a properly operating nuclear plant.
