From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 06:41:13 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: I thought of an initialy regulated industry!...
In-Reply-To: <199810011243.HAA18113@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <199810021140.HAA19298@mail1.panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 10:46 AM 10/1/98 -0700, Tim May wrote:

>Finally, the "environmental burden" imposed by a coal-fired power plant is
>vastly greater than that from a nuclear plant. Do the math on particulates,
>carbon levels, etc. Many libertarians have proposed better schemes for
>dealing with such environmental burdens....if fossil fuel-powered plants
>had to actually pay their share of environmental costs, they'd be even more
>expensive than nuclear.

A normally operating coal plant releases more radioactive material (carbon
14) than a normally operating nuclear plant.  The waste products from a
coal plant are not only more voluminous (though less dense) than the coal
that goes in but also contain a substance that is more poisonous than
plutonium (arsenic trioxide).

DCF