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Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

It also just isn't a lot of waste. It sounds like a lot, but consider that the US produces 100 million tons of coal waste per year (2014). Hell, solar has ~30ktons of waste a year (just PV panels). 11ktons over 60 years just is astronomically tiny. That's 138 tons a year, 150x less than solar and 500000x less than coal. They just don't compare.

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That coal waste is also radioactive. Natural, but still radioactive.

“Natural” as opposed to? :)

Plutonium is not a naturally occurring element. Plenty of stuff is man made.

Natural as in naturally occurring. Coal is formed and burns in nature with no interaction from humans. Plutonium does not occur naturally in detectable quantities. It only does so through human action.

Asbestos forms naturally too.

Not sure what you’re trying to say? Asbestos is a natural mineral - not sure where you think that fits into this or how it’s relevant, sorry. We aren’t just listing all things that are naturally occurring!

It was implied in the parent context that the fact coal is "naturally" radioactive somehow matters to the fact that it is.

Asbestos is naturally occurring and incredibly dangerous. "natural" has nothing to do with risk to human life.

> "natural" has nothing to do with risk to human life.

Not sure who you think you're disagreeing with? Nobody said otherwise if you read the thread.

Then I have no idea it was necessary to talk about the "naturalness" of radioactive sources at all given the subject matter.

I usually give the "natural" qualification if it is not immediately obvious there are plenty of naturally occuring sources of radioactivity around us. This has mostly to so with human perception of radioactivity being something unnatural, maybe it was not necessary on HN. It does not matter that much in the end with respect to radioactivity.

Depending on location, it could be very radioactive... I studied and worked at lab that did measurements, and it was push for closing a nuclear plant in our city (in Siberia) for coal-based plant, but after evaluation of waste, it was decided to continue to use nuclear-based station.

The problem with coal waste is that most of it is in the atmosphere causing climate change. That might not seem like a storage problem but it is. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.

To me, it's like someone asking where me to choose which part of my house to infect with wood rot:

1. A single scrap of wood, extremely badly affected, stored in a sealed box under the stairs

2. My entire roof mildly affected by rot.

I'd take the box under the stairs.

Tô put in perspective. 11 tons is less than half the tonage of an average cargo ship.

I didn't say it was a lot of waste?

The US produces less coal waste every year, heading rapidly toward zero as the cost of coal power increasingly exceeds that of other sources.

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