How fear of nuclear power is hurting the environment

Re:How fear of nuclear power is hurting the environment by Symmetry on Monday October 17, 2016 @10:25AM (#12725266)

Well, the radiation from Fukushima is expected to cause a few hundred cancer cases[1] even if nobody died from acute radiation poisoning. And there likely would have been acute radiation poisoning deaths if there hadn't been an evacuation, though probably far less than the 1600 deaths the evacuation caused. But even with all that the ~1 trillionkWhr Fukushima generated over it's lifetime puts it's death toll well below the Forbes numbers for even a US coal plant at 10,000.

On the other hand, Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air gives coal mortality at 350 to 60[2] after converting to the same units which is well below Fukushima's death toll.

[1]http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/TenHoeveEES12.pd... [2]http://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_168.shtml

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How fear of nuclear power is hurting the environment by antris on Monday October 17, 2016 @10:42AM (#12725402)

Yeah, you seem to be closer to the truth. I was assuming old knowledge from this summer, when Wikipedia was still saying that deaths won't be likely to increase:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fukushima_Daiichi...

>As of March 2012, no cases of radiation-related ailments had been reported. Experts cautioned that data was insufficient to allow conclusions on health impacts. Michiaki Kai, professor of radiation protection at Oita University of Nursing and Health Sciences, stated, "If the current radiation dose estimates are correct, (cancer-related deaths) likely won't increase."

Still, it seems pretty ridiculous to worry about nuclear safety when the actual tsunami killed over 15,000 people and nobody seems to be up in arms why there weren't better safeguards against tsunamis.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How fear of nuclear power is hurting the environment by dv_dt on Monday October 17, 2016 @12:06PM (#12726316)

Now compare against an energy technology that is not Coal.

[ Parent | on HN ]