Belarusian nuclear station more environmentally friendly than coal-fired power plants

The radiation background around the Belarusian nuclear power plant will be much lower than that around coal-fired power plants. The information was released by Mr Sergei Boyarkin, an advisor of ZAO Rusatom Overseas (a daughter enterprise of the Russian state corporation Rosatom), during the online conference hosted by the BelTA website on 22 March.

In his words, the radiation background around coal-fired power plants can be higher than normal up to dozens of percent due to artificial reasons. It can be measured by a common radiation meter. Meanwhile increases in the radiation background around nuclear stations are not that noticeable. “According to our standards, changes of the radiation background cannot exceed 0.1%. In reality they are ten times less, which is 0.01%. Only supersensitive equipment can register the increase,” assured the advisor.

Sergei Boyarkin remarked that coal-fired power plants pollute the environment 200 times more actively than nuclear stations, provided the former experience no major emergencies. There are radioactive substances in everything. In nature there are no objects that do not contain radioactive substances. People and the air they breathe contain certain radioactive substances. Their concentration differs though. Such materials as granite and basalt contain quite a lot. One tonne of granite contains 40g of radioactive substances. “Naturally, coal contains radioactive substances, too. When coal is burnt, some of the substances are released into the atmosphere together with combustion gas and falls down later via precipitation,” explained the expert.

The bulk of the radioactive substances settles down in adjacent areas. “Once the idea of research reactors in Moscow was debated. Environmental organizations surveyed the radioactive background of the city,” said Sergei Boyarkin. “The highest background radiation was registered not where the research reactors are located, but in the three train stations square. Train attendants used to make tea using coal and threw the ash on the tracks. Over the years the ash has created a high radiation background”.

Another example. In 2008 Rosatom performed a survey of the radiation background at the construction site of the future Baltic nuclear power plant. “We registered an abnormal man-caused increase in background radiation in several locations. It turned out it had been caused by fallout of the emissions fired by coal-fired cogeneration plants of Poland. The winds blew westward and therefore the smoke went into the direction of Kaliningrad Oblast and settled down there. Radiation background was considerably higher in the places where the fallout concentrated”.