This is a reminder that coal, operating under regulation releases more radioactive material over a few decades than a Nuclear power plants worst failure mode.
Yep, the most recent power plant disaster at fukushima (2011) didn't have a single fatality death due radiation (the fatalities have been attributed to non-radioactive causes such as building collapse, fire smoke, etc)
True. On the down side, it’s hard to see a failure mode for a coal plant that leave such a massive area devastated for so long, or one that’s so costly to manage.
The coal/natural gas plant near me was burning what appears to be some nasty coal just yesterday (bright yellow smoke)... is the smoke color a good indicator of it's toxicity? (most of the time, the smoke is white, not sure if it is because they were burning natural gas at that time)
“Coal” plants burn carbon, making carbon dioxide. It’s colorless and pretty much harmless, excepting it’s inpact as a GHG.
However, coal contains (depending on the source), mercury, sulfur, radioactive elements, tars, rare earth elements.
Some of these are volatile when burned. Some become ash.
A plant running anthracite is naturally very clean.
The plant has to have scrubbers to remove the volatile ones.
Especially the yellow smoke (likely sulfur)
However, a one time emission of sulfur is likely insignificant.
Finally you mentioned it could be natural gas. Natural gas, mostly methane, is also colorless except it releases water vapor. Given the right conditions, you might see plumes of white smoke coming out - that’s harmless water vapor.
due to regulations most of the time the smoke is relatively free of particulates. They massive amount of carbon released is another issue but when it comes to health concerns the major one should be the coal ash. It is radioactive and packed with heavy metals and carcinogens.
