Abstract
To Editor.— A letter from Mr. Mustard commenting on nuclear reactor safety appeared inThe Journal(223:1158, 1973). His letter is full of errors of fact as well as interpretation. Mr. Mustard's letter begins with a reference to the fallacy of coal-fired plants creating radioactivity, and the fact is that coal-fired plants emit no fission products. That is his first error. Fission products result from fission of uranium fuel in reactor core. They are, of course, radioactive. Coal contains naturally occurring radioactive materials, particularly radium, uranium, and thorium, and these are indeed found in emissions from a coal burning plant. A recent report of National Academy of Engineering concludes: Comparing these quantities of natural activity released from fossil-fueled power plants with that from nuclear power plants on basis of hygienic equivalent quantities of typical radioisotopes associated with nuclear reactor operation, it is apparent that
Published Version
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