James Hansen was NASA's former point man on climate change and is famed for his testimony on the issue for congressional committees in America. Recently he has become a high-profile advocate for the more widespread adoption of nuclear power, both in the fight against global warming and because of its other obvious advantages over fossil fuels.
The health dangers of burning coal are well-documented; coal pollution kills between 1 and 2 million people annually. On the other hand it has long been known that nuclear power is a much safer way to produce electricity. The number of people killed by nuclear power is orders of magnitude fewer than the number killed by coal, even with the most pessimistic of unproven assumptions.
But until now nobody has tried to estimate the number of lives saved by nuclear power. James Hansen and co-author Pushker Karecha have published a new paper with NASA's Goddard Institute that has put a figure on this. The study is a masterpiece of understated but hugely important findings. The most important finding is that from 1971 until now, nuclear energy has prevented 1.8 million air pollution-related deaths, including 160,000 in Japan alone.
And depending on how many nuclear plants are built and on what fuel it replaces, nuclear power will prevent between 420,000 and 7.04 million deaths by 2050.
These statistics do not take into account damage and deaths caused by climate change. If used to prevent global carbon dioxide emissions by substituting for the burning of coal, nuclear power could be even more effective at death prevention.
This is the kind of story that many so-called environmentalists chose to ignore. Others such as James Hansen have accepted that the only realistic way to both address the world's energy needs and reduce global carbon dioxide emissions is through the embrace of nuclear technology.
No comments:
Post a Comment