You've forgotten the carbon content of some soils. Coal ash is similar to low carbon soils such as those used for home building or commercial constructions to avoid subsidence.
You seem to have the radon situation backwards too. "The emanation of radon gas from fly ash is less than from natural soil of similar uranium content. " http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/f...
You are getting thing backwards and mixed up. You don't seem to be able to understand the sources you've cited. There are many reasons not to burn fossil fuels, but their use does cut radiation exposure. The nuclear industry has marred its credibility by claiming otherwise. It does the same thing when it claims there are no pipes under Vermont Yankee. You should come to understand that they can't be trusted. That they have been entrusted with the safekeeping of nuclear power plants is a very grave mistake.
"but then it also not relevant considering the ash has higher concentrations of radioactive elements than soil and surface rocks" except it doesn't since it is soil itself.
Of course it is relevant. You are making the claim that using a bulldozer on a construction site increase background radiation in essence.
That fossil fuels have contributed to cutting the amount of bomb carbon-14 in our diets is a good thing. You are looking at the math all wrong on that. The dilution applies to whatever carbon-14 is out there. Our food comes from this year's atmospheric carbon, not some tree ring record, so don't let yourself get confused.
Confusing mercury chemistry with the essentially glassy behavior of uranium is a problem for you I think. As the USGS points out "The vast majority of coal and the majority of fly ash are not significantly enriched in radioactive elements, or in associated radioactivity, compared to common soils or rocks." http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/f... So, your claim of extra radioactivity as a result of coal burning would have to be the same as a claim of extra radioactivity from using a bulldozer on a construction site. Just moving stuff around with the same uranium content does not change the background level of radiation,
,
You've misread the table you cited. Notice that in the first column Fe is already greater than 10% yet it is a minor constituent in table 2.
Think for just a moment. Does coal have a high uranium concentration? It's mostly carbon.... When it burns it just reduces to the concentration of the soil of the forest that made the coal. Since the uranium prefers to stay at the bottom, the escaping fly ash has a reduced concentration compared to even that soil, so when it lands, it may even screen people from the soil background radiation below it more than that soil self-screens.
There is quite a lot of uranium in the crust of the Earth, but we are not subject to radiation from any of it except from that mixed with a very thin layer at the surface. Fly ash is just like that layer or even less concentrated. So, nothing is really changed in terms of radiation from that.
You forgot also to account for the screening effect of piling the coal ash as well. That makes the change in radiation zero. You may also be confusing permil with percent. We know about 30% of the carbon in the atmosphere comes from fossil fuels so that is about the dilution amount presently. We really only care about the atmosphere since that is where the carbon in our food comes from.
You are mistaken. Uranium in coal ash is in the same concentration as in soil. There is no increase in background when the screening is the same. Fossil fuels do dilute carbon-14 in the atmosphere so our food is less radioactive as a result.
Doesn't go into the atmosphere, it is scrubbed or remains at the bottom. You've likely been bamboozled based on your comment. The nuclear industry put out some false info on this a while back. Fossil fuel use reduces rather than increases radiation exposure.
Part of the EPA's instructions are to consider the costs of regulations. Since new reactors are supposed to be safer, it should be free of cost to tighten regulations. This would be the time to tighten rather than loosen regulations.
Some higher altitude cities in the US show lower average performance in Luminosity's tests. http://www.dailytech.com/Lumos... Though Provo and Ft. Collins are doing OK.
Standards for small reactors should be stronger to avoid greater exposure for the public. Replacing one large reactor with fifty smaller reactors increases public exposure by a factor of fifty unless the standard is strengthened by a factor of fifty for the small reactors.
Strip mines do get returned to grade and much faster than exclusion zones can be re-inhabited. So, you don't really have a point here. Turns out Germany is managing much butter than Japan. http://www.forbes.com/sites/am...
Compare the uranium content of coal ash and low carbon soil. It's the same. It is well known that carbon-14 comes from thermal neutron absorption by nitrogen in the upper atmosphere. Isolating carbon from the atmosphere causes the fraction of carbon-14 to fall. This is how radiocarbon dating works. Diluting the atmospheric carbon with fossil carbon reduces the carbon-14 content of food and thus our internal radiation load.
So, in Brussels there is a office to subsidize food production and another to destroy the food surplus according to Minister Hacker. Now we will have oil spills to destroy all the effort put into restoring the Chesapeake Bay. It used to be funny on TV, but in real life it just looks stupid.
Coal ash is old soil. It screens radiation just as much as soil. There is no increase in radiation. In fact, dilution of carbon-14 in the atmosphere (and thus food) leads to reduced radiation exposure as a result of fossil fuel use.
"Johns Hopkins scientists report that rats exposed to high-energy particles, simulating conditions astronauts would face on a long-term deep space mission, show lapses in attention and slower reaction times, even when the radiation exposure is in extremely low dose ranges.
The cognitive impairments — which affected a large subset, but far from all, of the animals — appear to be linked to protein changes in the brain, the scientists say."
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org...
jeffb was thinking about gas heating when it is compressed and cooling when it is rarefied. But the effect of compression is to allow more efficient cooling by radiation which pulls energy from the plasma (ionized gas). One means of radiation comes from electrons changing direction in the vicinity of other electrons. This is called free-free radiation. Bound states can also be excited by collisions with free electrons and when they radiate that removes energy from the gas. This is called bound-free radiation. I'm not sure if that helps or just baffles further.
Slashdot Mirror
You've forgotten the carbon content of some soils. Coal ash is similar to low carbon soils such as those used for home building or commercial constructions to avoid subsidence.
You seem to have the radon situation backwards too. "The emanation of radon gas from fly ash is less than from natural soil of similar uranium content. " http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/f...
You are getting thing backwards and mixed up. You don't seem to be able to understand the sources you've cited. There are many reasons not to burn fossil fuels, but their use does cut radiation exposure. The nuclear industry has marred its credibility by claiming otherwise. It does the same thing when it claims there are no pipes under Vermont Yankee. You should come to understand that they can't be trusted. That they have been entrusted with the safekeeping of nuclear power plants is a very grave mistake.
"but then it also not relevant considering the ash has higher concentrations of radioactive elements than soil and surface rocks" except it doesn't since it is soil itself.
Of course it is relevant. You are making the claim that using a bulldozer on a construction site increase background radiation in essence.
That fossil fuels have contributed to cutting the amount of bomb carbon-14 in our diets is a good thing. You are looking at the math all wrong on that. The dilution applies to whatever carbon-14 is out there. Our food comes from this year's atmospheric carbon, not some tree ring record, so don't let yourself get confused.
Confusing mercury chemistry with the essentially glassy behavior of uranium is a problem for you I think. As the USGS points out "The vast majority of coal and the majority of fly ash are not significantly enriched in radioactive elements, or in associated radioactivity, compared to common soils or rocks." http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/f... So, your claim of extra radioactivity as a result of coal burning would have to be the same as a claim of extra radioactivity from using a bulldozer on a construction site. Just moving stuff around with the same uranium content does not change the background level of radiation,
, You've misread the table you cited. Notice that in the first column Fe is already greater than 10% yet it is a minor constituent in table 2.
Think for just a moment. Does coal have a high uranium concentration? It's mostly carbon.... When it burns it just reduces to the concentration of the soil of the forest that made the coal. Since the uranium prefers to stay at the bottom, the escaping fly ash has a reduced concentration compared to even that soil, so when it lands, it may even screen people from the soil background radiation below it more than that soil self-screens.
There is quite a lot of uranium in the crust of the Earth, but we are not subject to radiation from any of it except from that mixed with a very thin layer at the surface. Fly ash is just like that layer or even less concentrated. So, nothing is really changed in terms of radiation from that.
You forgot also to account for the screening effect of piling the coal ash as well. That makes the change in radiation zero. You may also be confusing permil with percent. We know about 30% of the carbon in the atmosphere comes from fossil fuels so that is about the dilution amount presently. We really only care about the atmosphere since that is where the carbon in our food comes from.
You should consider carbon-14 incorporated in a cell nucleus I think.
You are mistaken. Uranium in coal ash is in the same concentration as in soil. There is no increase in background when the screening is the same. Fossil fuels do dilute carbon-14 in the atmosphere so our food is less radioactive as a result.
RTFA
Doesn't go into the atmosphere, it is scrubbed or remains at the bottom. You've likely been bamboozled based on your comment. The nuclear industry put out some false info on this a while back. Fossil fuel use reduces rather than increases radiation exposure.
Part of the EPA's instructions are to consider the costs of regulations. Since new reactors are supposed to be safer, it should be free of cost to tighten regulations. This would be the time to tighten rather than loosen regulations.
Bogus. We are adapted to background radiation but it still causes cancers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
Many were killed by the evacuation.
You use this phrase but don't seem to understand what is means, "significant associations" is the opposite of what you are saying.
Some higher altitude cities in the US show lower average performance in Luminosity's tests. http://www.dailytech.com/Lumos... Though Provo and Ft. Collins are doing OK.
Standards for small reactors should be stronger to avoid greater exposure for the public. Replacing one large reactor with fifty smaller reactors increases public exposure by a factor of fifty unless the standard is strengthened by a factor of fifty for the small reactors.
Strip mines do get returned to grade and much faster than exclusion zones can be re-inhabited. So, you don't really have a point here. Turns out Germany is managing much butter than Japan. http://www.forbes.com/sites/am...
Compare the uranium content of coal ash and low carbon soil. It's the same. It is well known that carbon-14 comes from thermal neutron absorption by nitrogen in the upper atmosphere. Isolating carbon from the atmosphere causes the fraction of carbon-14 to fall. This is how radiocarbon dating works. Diluting the atmospheric carbon with fossil carbon reduces the carbon-14 content of food and thus our internal radiation load.
So, in Brussels there is a office to subsidize food production and another to destroy the food surplus according to Minister Hacker. Now we will have oil spills to destroy all the effort put into restoring the Chesapeake Bay. It used to be funny on TV, but in real life it just looks stupid.
Coal ash is old soil. It screens radiation just as much as soil. There is no increase in radiation. In fact, dilution of carbon-14 in the atmosphere (and thus food) leads to reduced radiation exposure as a result of fossil fuel use.
"Johns Hopkins scientists report that rats exposed to high-energy particles, simulating conditions astronauts would face on a long-term deep space mission, show lapses in attention and slower reaction times, even when the radiation exposure is in extremely low dose ranges. The cognitive impairments — which affected a large subset, but far from all, of the animals — appear to be linked to protein changes in the brain, the scientists say." http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org...
Waiting for Eric Clapton to take this out on tour.
jeffb was thinking about gas heating when it is compressed and cooling when it is rarefied. But the effect of compression is to allow more efficient cooling by radiation which pulls energy from the plasma (ionized gas). One means of radiation comes from electrons changing direction in the vicinity of other electrons. This is called free-free radiation. Bound states can also be excited by collisions with free electrons and when they radiate that removes energy from the gas. This is called bound-free radiation. I'm not sure if that helps or just baffles further.
An interesting thought. However, it is cooling water, not fuel water so volume and mass situation may be a little different.