>>>>Alan,
>>>>
>>>>>I thought though, that the newer coal plants these days burn pretty much everything now and have almost no waste at all.
>>>>
>>>>They don't burn anything that is not carbon, coal is not 100% carbon. What doesn't burn comes out of the furnace as slag and flyash. Scrubbers and precipators take SO₂ and particulates out of the smoke stack waste. All in all there is a huge tonnage of waste materials produced at a coal burning power plant every day.
>>>>
>>>>>I haven't read the articles yet. I will, but that really surprises me considering the half life of the stuff being in the 25000 year range. This'll be an interesting read.
>>>>
>>>>Each isotope has a different half-life. ²³⁸U in the ore itself is radioactive, but it's half-life is 4 billion years. Most of the fission by products are very short lived. The 25,000 year number is most often bantied about because that's close to the half-life of the ²³⁹Pu that is created ²³⁸U + neutron inside the reactor core. ²³⁹Pu is hazardous only when ingested or inhaled because the alpha particle it releases when it decays would be blocked by your skin. If it's inside you the alpha radiation can do more celluar damage.
>>>>
>>>>Of course weight that probabilty against the next airplane trip you take that puts you above most of the atmosphere protecting you against the cosmic radiation being emitted by that big yellow ball up in the sky.
>>>
>>>What do you think about the plants that burn garbage for power? How good are their scrubbers etc. If there is one thing humanity produces in abundance, it's garbage.
>>
>>Do not forget manure. It is being used to create electricity. :)
>
>How could I forget manure. It is?
>

Sure. Haven't you tried Eveready's new manure-powered batteries?