Toquop will use 3 million tons of coal per year that will contain, on average, 450,000 tons ash and 15 tons
radioactive material.
According to the United States National Council on Radioactivity Protection and Measurements, the radiation
exposure from an average 750-megawatt power plant comes to 360 person-rem/year for coal-fired power plants
and 3.6 person-rem/year for nuclear-fired power plants. In other words, the average coal-fired power plant puts out
about 100 times more radiation than a nuclear-fired power plant.
Taking into account the complete nuclear fuel cycle, mining, processing, operation and waste disposal, the
radiation dose per citizen from a nuclear-fired power plant rockets to 136 person-rem/year.
You'll still get more than three times more radiation from a coal-fired power plant, than from a nuclear-fired power
plant. A coal-fired power plant looks even less attractive when you include the carcinogenic chemicals and CO2
created by the burning of coal.
Considering that although 99.9 percent of fly ash can be recovered, 0.1 percent still escapes out of the chimney
and some of that "smoke" is radioactive. Incidentally, no carcinogenic chemicals are removed with the fly ash which
together escape into the environment to create future havoc.
Peter Jackson
LaVerkin
