An interesting piece on the "Freakonomics" blog that I saw recently: apparently (and anything it says on the web must be true, obviously) there is a higher contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere from underground coal fires in coal mines in China, than there is from all the cars and light trucks in the USA. Not from the coal they actually use ... just from what's wasted in mine fires.
I've always felt that there was a deep vein of racism in the environmental world ... "junk food" is always characterised by MacDonalds, though how grilled meat on an unbuttered bun is supposed to be more junky than the stuff they sell in chip shops (cooked in fat that's been cross-linked by being kept too hot too long), or good old british pork pie, or chicken tikka masala, is beyond me ... but there it always is ... junk food ... American ... and CO2 ... caused by American cars. We need somebody we can all agree to blame...
Returning to coal, for a moment though: I always remember a friend of mine who is an X-ray technician telling me about the effect on his instruments when the wind was in the direction from the local power station. He could tell by the fallout when the wind was coming from there.
This was not a nuclear power station. It was a coal-fired one. And coal contains radioactive elements, and when you burn it, they go into the atmosphere, and then fall out.
