New Scientist
New Scientist was founded in 1956, this internationally-focused weekly British magazine aims at giving readers exhaustive information on recent worldwide developments in science from a scientific, technical and philosophical perspective. The magazine, based in London, is published in English by Reed Business Information, a Reed Elsevier subsidiary, and has US and Australian editions as well. The current Editor is Jeremy Webb, a professional physician. The New Scientist is widely read by both scientists and the general public, and often used as an information source for articles in the general press. The New Scientist website provides articles from the magazine’s weekly print edition as well as daily science updates.
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Patricia Espinosa Cantellano is Foreign Minister of Mexico.
Yuliya Tymoshenko was Prime Minister of Ukraine and is now leader of the opposition. © AFP PHOTO /POOL
New Scientist was founded in 1956, this internationally-focused weekly British magazine aims at giving readers exhaustive information on recent worldwide developments in science from a scientific,...
Benjamin K. Sovacool, a professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, is the author of Contesting the Future of Nuclear Power and co-author of the...
The Network to Phase Out the Nuclear Age brings together 842 associations which are opposed to nuclear power in France. In 1997, the Network became a non-profit organisation (1) that campaigns for...
The Network to Phase Out the Nuclear Age brings together 842 associations which are opposed to nuclear power in France. In 1997, the Network became a non-profit organisation (1) that campaigns for...
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established to determine, in a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent manner, the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic findings...
George Monbiot is a well-known investigation reporter and columnist for the British newspaper “The Guardian” as well as a member of the BBC Wildlife magazine’s advisory board. He is also the author...
David Fleming is London-based independent analyst and expert on the impact of climate change on the market economy. He became known in 1996 when he proposed an energy quota market, the TEQ (Tradable...
David Fleming is London-based independent analyst and expert on the impact of climate change on the market economy. He became known in 1996 when he proposed an energy quota market, the TEQ (Tradable...
James Lovelock is a renowed British scientist. With credentials in chemistry, medicine and physical sciences, he first worked in medical research before moving on to university teaching. He acquired...
Fossil fuels are far deadlier than nuclear power
04/04/2011 10:39 am
IN THE wake of the nuclear crisis in Japan, Germany has temporarily shut down seven of its reactors and China, which is building more nuclear power plants than the rest of the world combined, has suspended approval for all new facilities. But this reaction may be more motivated by politics than by fear of a catastrophic death toll. It may be little consolation to those living around Fukushima, but nuclear power kills far fewer people than other energy sources, according to a review by the International Energy Agency (IAE).
"There is no question," says Joseph Romm, an energy expert at the Center for American Progress in Washington DC. "Nothing is worse than fossil fuels for killing people."
A 2002 review by the IAE put together existing studies to compare fatalities per unit of power produced for several leading energy sources. The agency examined the life cycle of each fuel from extraction to post-use and included deaths from accidents as well as long-term exposure to emissions or radiation. Nuclear came out best, and coal was the deadliest energy source.
The explanation lies in the large number of deaths caused by pollution. "It's the whole life cycle that leads to a trail of injuries, illness and death," says Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Fine particles from coal power plants kill an estimated 13,200 people each year in the US alone, according to the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force (The Toll from Coal, 2010). Additional fatalities come from mining and transporting coal, and other forms of pollution associated with coal. In contrast, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN estimate that the death toll from cancer following the 1986 meltdown at Chernobyl will reach around 9000.
In fact, the numbers show that catastrophic events are not the leading cause of deaths associated with nuclear power. More than half of all deaths stem from uranium mining, says the IEA. But even when this is included, the overall toll remains significantly lower than for all other fuel sources.
So why do people fixate on nuclear power? "From coal we have a steady progression of deaths year after year that are invisible to us, things like heart attacks, whereas a large-scale nuclear release is a catastrophic event that we are rightly scared about," says James Hammitt of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis in Boston.
Yet again, popular perceptions are wrong. When, in 1975, about 30 dams in central China failed in short succession due to severe flooding, an estimated 230,000 people died. Include the toll from this single event, and fatalities from hydropower far exceed the number of deaths from all other energy sources.
Fossil fuels are far deadlier than nuclear power
23 march 2011 by Phil McKenna
© New Scientist 2011, Magazine issue 2805
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