Radon is important when it collects. Carbon-14 free carbon is important when it dilutes. You've gotten mixed up again. The dilution of carbon-14 is not about external radiation or even what we breath but about what ends up in our food in solid form. You should just admit that you are carrying water for a corrupt industry that is always trying to deceive the public and regulators. Your method of argument is part of that it would seem from the pattern of misrepresentation we are seeing here. Use of fossil fuels cuts radiation exposure. It has also prevented about 24 serious nuclear accidents, about 16 of which would have resulted in large exclusion zones like Chernobyl and Fukushima under typical accident rates and sizes. So, fossil fuels have also prevented increased exposure, though renewable energy can do the same job.

You've forgotten the carbon content of some soils. Coal ash is similar to low carbon soils such as those used for home building or commercial constructions to avoid subsidence.

You seem to have the radon situation backwards too. "The emanation of radon gas from fly ash is less than from natural soil of similar uranium content. " http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/f...

You are getting thing backwards and mixed up. You don't seem to be able to understand the sources you've cited. There are many reasons not to burn fossil fuels, but their use does cut radiation exposure. The nuclear industry has marred its credibility by claiming otherwise. It does the same thing when it claims there are no pipes under Vermont Yankee. You should come to understand that they can't be trusted. That they have been entrusted with the safekeeping of nuclear power plants is a very grave mistake.

"but then it also not relevant considering the ash has higher concentrations of radioactive elements than soil and surface rocks" except it doesn't since it is soil itself.

Of course it is relevant. You are making the claim that using a bulldozer on a construction site increase background radiation in essence.

That fossil fuels have contributed to cutting the amount of bomb carbon-14 in our diets is a good thing. You are looking at the math all wrong on that. The dilution applies to whatever carbon-14 is out there. Our food comes from this year's atmospheric carbon, not some tree ring record, so don't let yourself get confused.

Confusing mercury chemistry with the essentially glassy behavior of uranium is a problem for you I think. As the USGS points out "The vast majority of coal and the majority of fly ash are not significantly enriched in radioactive elements, or in associated radioactivity, compared to common soils or rocks." http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/f... So, your claim of extra radioactivity as a result of coal burning would have to be the same as a claim of extra radioactivity from using a bulldozer on a construction site. Just moving stuff around with the same uranium content does not change the background level of radiation,

, You've misread the table you cited. Notice that in the first column Fe is already greater than 10% yet it is a minor constituent in table 2.

Think for just a moment. Does coal have a high uranium concentration? It's mostly carbon.... When it burns it just reduces to the concentration of the soil of the forest that made the coal. Since the uranium prefers to stay at the bottom, the escaping fly ash has a reduced concentration compared to even that soil, so when it lands, it may even screen people from the soil background radiation below it more than that soil self-screens.

There is quite a lot of uranium in the crust of the Earth, but we are not subject to radiation from any of it except from that mixed with a very thin layer at the surface. Fly ash is just like that layer or even less concentrated. So, nothing is really changed in terms of radiation from that.

You forgot also to account for the screening effect of piling the coal ash as well. That makes the change in radiation zero. You may also be confusing permil with percent. We know about 30% of the carbon in the atmosphere comes from fossil fuels so that is about the dilution amount presently. We really only care about the atmosphere since that is where the carbon in our food comes from.

You should consider carbon-14 incorporated in a cell nucleus I think.

You are mistaken. Uranium in coal ash is in the same concentration as in soil. There is no increase in background when the screening is the same. Fossil fuels do dilute carbon-14 in the atmosphere so our food is less radioactive as a result.

RTFA

Doesn't go into the atmosphere, it is scrubbed or remains at the bottom. You've likely been bamboozled based on your comment. The nuclear industry put out some false info on this a while back. Fossil fuel use reduces rather than increases radiation exposure.

Part of the EPA's instructions are to consider the costs of regulations. Since new reactors are supposed to be safer, it should be free of cost to tighten regulations. This would be the time to tighten rather than loosen regulations.

Bogus. We are adapted to background radiation but it still causes cancers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

Many were killed by the evacuation.