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strokes_your_nose t1_j7kv3hz wrote

Reply to comment by SomeRandomIdi0t in Current climate policies lead the world to less than a 5 percent likelihood of phasing out coal by mid-century ,new study shows by 9273629397759992

Could you share more on this? Interested to learn.

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WeAreAllFooked t1_j7mfysr wrote

Basically coal contains trace amounts of radioactive elements and those radioactive particles are spread when the coal is burned and the waste gases are dumped in to the air.

1993 article mentioning it: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1002/ML100280691.pdf

2007 article mentioning it: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/

A Canadian company wanted to buy up all the coal that was sitting around to extract radioactive isotopes from it and turn it in to nuclear fuel, when the coal companies found out about it, they immediately squashed the sale because of potential optics surrounding coal-fired power plants and the release of radioactive material. I'm trying to find the article that talks about it, but it's been a while since I read it

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