Yet another religious cult raided

[kandrathe]

Comparing it to the burning of coal is valid. The coal damage is not as intense, yet is more definite and more widespread. And then there is the likely advent of global warming, which if it ever reaches runaway status, would be worse than thousands of nuclear catastrophes. Anyway, I feel that nuclear design has improved to the point where it is definitely better than coal. I don't have much reason to be optimistic about nuclear waste, yet I am -- I think we'll figure out what to do with it.

I think that within the public at large the concern about coal waste is nil, compared to the concern about nuclear waste. Activists have conveniently ignored the lethality of coal waste, and highlighted to danger of nuclear waste. At least you can find all nuclear waste with a Geiger counter, while you can only find some coal waste this way. The parts of coal waste that are hard to find are the heavy metals, such as arsenic, selenium, cadmium, lead and mercury. I would accuse the anti-nuclear activists to have been what I would term "useful idiots" in shutting down the growth in nuclear power industry. I'm not sure whose interest they served. The only reason that coal is coming under scrutiny now is the concern about the one by product of combustion that I'm not as worried about, Carbon Dioxide.

Scientific American article, Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste.

USGS article, Radioactive Elements in Coal and Fly Ash: Abundance, Forms, and Environmental Significance