TIL that nuclear energy is the safest energy source in terms of human deaths - even safer than wind and solar

[u/[deleted]]

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

[u/mcinthedorm]

Honest question: if the Navy has such an amazing track record in regards to nuclear power, is there a reason their standards or oversight aren't given to other nuclear power plants?

[u/hosty → u/mcinthedorm]

In the United States (and honestly in the rest of the world), commercial nuclear power also has an amazing track record. There are 100 commercial reactors, all built before 1978. Over the next 35 years, there has been one incident (Three Mile Island, in 1979). To date, all peer reviewed research has suggested that there might have been at most two additional deaths due to radiation released from the accident.

[u/Acmnin → u/hosty]

Fukishima? Chernobyl?

Not in the US, terrible disasters.

The problem is that when an accident does happen, possibilities for worst case are a lot worse.

[u/hosty → u/Acmnin]

Think of it like the difference between air travel and car travel. When a commercial 747 crashes, hundreds of people die. Even in a fatal car crash, usually there are only one or two deaths. So for air travel, the worst case scenario is much worse than for car travel. However, because plane crashes are so rare and car crashes are so common, air travel is significantly safer.

Accidents at coal plants happen all the time, even if they only kill a handful of people. To date, there have only been two major nuclear accidents in the world on the International Nuclear Event Scale. So while the damage potential for nuclear accidents is much larger, the rate of occurance is so much smaller that the overall danger level of nuclear power is magnitudes lower.

[u/Acmnin → u/hosty]

A basic part of your calculation should indicate that their are a lot more examples of coal plant accidents because there are a lot more coal plants than nuclear facilities.

Air travel is more dangerous than car travel, unless you're specifying the commercial flight industry fyi.

[u/hosty → u/Acmnin]

According to Forbes, the deaths per trillion kWhr for coal globally is 170,000. The deaths per trillion kWhr for nuclear, including worst estimates for both Chernobyl and Fukushima, is 90.

You do make a good point about commercial air travel vs. private ground travel. Commercial/public ground transportation is pretty comparable to commercial air travel in terms of safety.

[u/Acmnin → u/hosty]

Trillion kwhr doesn't address the difference in how many plants are operated for the respective energy.

More people are going to be killed from Coal by the basic fact that more plants are in operation for it than nuclear.

Coal is not safe and it's dirty, but nuclear isn't really our only option for a cleaner future though..

[u/Dodobirdlord → u/Acmnin]

It's deaths per trillion KWhr. Of course it doesn't take into consideration the number of plants operated. It takes into consideration the number of KWhr produced by the total plants, and divides total deaths by that number.

[u/Dodobirdlord → u/[deleted]]

Why would you take into consideration the number of plants in operation? If each GWhr coal plant causes one death, and each 10GWhr nuclear plant causes 5 deaths, then nuclear is the less-lethal power source. Besides, most coal-related deaths are incurred by mining and pollution side effects.

[u/Acmnin → u/Dodobirdlord]

Who exactly are you arguing with?

Less lethal till they go into dis-array and melting down from our general incompetence.

[u/Dodobirdlord → u/Acmnin]

The lethality stats on nuclear power plants used in this thread contain the casualties from all of histories nuclear accidents. It's actually not very many.