Nuclear Power Prevents More Deaths Than It Causes

MTorrice writes "NASA researchers have compared nuclear power to fossil fuel energy sources in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution-related deaths. Using nuclear power in place of coal and gas power has prevented some 1.8 million deaths globally over the past four decades and could save millions of more lives in coming decades, concludes their study. The pair also found that nuclear energy prevents emissions of huge quantities of greenhouse gases. These estimates help make the case that policymakers should continue to rely on and expand nuclear power in place of fossil fuels to mitigate climate change, the authors say."

Comments

So?

[AmiMoJo]

It isn't the deaths we are most worried about.

Re:So?

[ColdWetDog]

. Modern reactors are perfectly safe, and can be constructed in such a way that they produce zero hazardous waste. The only major problem that we carry over from fossil fuels is the limited supply, which certain breeder reactor technologies promise to all but eliminate. Your entire premise is false, and has been for longer than most /. readers have been alive.

1. Nothing is 'perfectly safe'. Nothing.
2. "Modern" reactor designs don't have a very large track record to make one comfortable with the engineering ESTIMATES of safety and reliability. Remember, the 'old' reactor designs were supposed to be safe. And the majority of them have been. Just takes a few to spoil the barrel.
3. Nobody has come up with a commercial scale breeder reactor. There have been a number of annoying and expensive failures so far. Planning on supporting and entire civilization on future technology is more than a little risky. Whatcouldpossiblygowrong?

Re:So?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Keep your 250K year half-life deadly radiation contained and fail-safe for virtual eternity.

Right.

Re:So?

[AmiMoJo]

An AC debunked this one last time:

They release more radiation than nuclear plants that haven't had an accident. Unfortunately, nuclear accidents have released orders of magnitude more radiation than the entire history of operating coal plants.

Re:So?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

All of your statistical gewgaws and sensible, projected data are so very nice - and convincing from the standpoint of isolated argument.

How on earth can you use them to ask for my trust from an industry that cannot be shown to properly manage PCBs, chromium or mercury?

It borders on the suicidal.

Says the nuclear industry...

[Zemran]

ssshh... (they forget to mention that the nuclear industry will continue to kill people for thousands of years after the fallacy has been realised and people realise that it is as foolish as lead water pipes)

This is not an argument for nuclear power

[Ranger]

The airline industry has a much better safety record than the nuclear power industry.They can tout the millions of people they don't kill each year because they intentionally work on safety. The nuclear industry argument is much the same argument that NASA used to launch Challenger. Just because it hasn't blown up yet means it's safe. We still haven't come up with a solution to deal with the tens of thousands of tons of spent fuel sitting in cooling pools at nuclear power plants all over the US. Sure can pretend that clean up of Fukushima and Chernobyl won't take decades if not centuries and will be off limits to human habitation for the same amount of time. But are you aware of all the nuclear accidents, military and civilian? Not to mention the worst nuclear contamination in US and Mexican history involving the recall of thousands of tons of contaminated steel. But you guys keep fucking that radioactive chicken.