User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox
Radioactive trace elements
As most ores in the Earth's crust, coal also contains trace levels of uranium, thorium, and other naturally-occurring radioactive elements.
A report developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) estimated that the amount of coal burned each year in a typical 1000 MW coal-fired power plant contained about 5.2 tonnes of uranium and about 12.8 tonnes of thorium.[1] The basis of ORNL estimate was that the annual coal consumption was 4 Mt and that the coal contained 1.3 ppm of uranium and 3.2 ppm of thorium.
Assuming that all of the uranium and thorium would be emitted into the fly ash and that the electrostatic precipitators would capture and remove 99% of the fly ash, the emissions of radioactive trace elements to the atmosphere from a 1000 MW coal-fired power plant would be 52 kg/yr of uranium and 128 kg/yr of thorium.
The average annual radiation received by a person from all sources (cosmic radiation, ground radiation, food intake, water intake, air intake, air travel, brick or stone or concrete home construction and miscellaneous other sources) is 360 millirem.[2] The annual radiation received by persons living within 80 km of a coal-fired power plant is 0.03 millirem.[2][3]
The ORNL report discussed earlier,[1]states that All studies of potential health hazards associated with the release of radioactive elements from coal combustion conclude that the perturbation of natural background dose levels is almost negligible and a U.S. EPA report [4] states that the lifetime fatal cancer risk from exposure to radionuclides to the vast majority of persons living within 50 km of an electric power plant is estimated to be less than 1×10-6.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Coal Combustion: Nuclear Resource or Danger? (by Alex Gabbard, ORNL Review, Summer/Fall 1993, Vol. 26, Nos. 3 and 4.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Radiation Basics (U.S. DOE website page)
- ↑ Calculate Your Radiation Dose U.S. EPA website page
- ↑ [http://www.epa.gov/ttn/caaa/t3/reports/eurtc1.pdf Study of Hazardous Air Pollutant Emissions from Electric Utility Steam Generating Units -- Final Report to Congress] (EPA Report EPA-453/R-98-004a, February 1998)