Fukushima I nuclear power plant before the 2011 explosion. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Posted on 04/02/2013 5:43:51 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
This is sure to get some enviros in a tizzy.
Fukushima I nuclear power plant before the 2011 explosion. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
From Chemical and Engineering News of the American Chemical Society:
Nuclear Power Prevents More Deaths Than It Causes
Climate Change: Study estimates that nuclear energy leads to substantially fewer pollution-related deaths and greenhouse gas emissions compared with fossil-fuel sources
Using nuclear power in place of fossil-fuel energy sources, such as coal, has prevented some 1.8 million air pollution-related deaths globally and could save millions of more lives in coming decades, concludes a study. The researchers also find 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 (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es3051197).
In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, critics of nuclear power have questioned how heavily the world should rely on the energy source, due to possible risks it poses to the environment and human health.
“I was very disturbed by all the negative and in many cases unfounded hysteria regarding nuclear power after the Fukushima accident,” says report coauthor Pushker A. Kharecha, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York.
Working with Goddard’s James E. Hansen, Kharecha set out to explore the benefits of nuclear power. The pair specifically wanted to look at nuclear power’s advantages over fossil fuels in terms of reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
Kharecha was surprised to find no broad studies on preventable deaths that could be attributed to nuclear power’s pollution savings. But he did find data from a 2007 study on the average number of deaths per unit of energy generated with fossil fuels and nuclear power (Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61253-7). These estimates include deaths related to all aspects of each energy source from mining the necessary natural resources to power generation. For example, the data took into account chronic bronchitis among coal miners and air pollution-related conditions among the public, including lung cancer.
Read more here http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013/04/Nuclear-Power-Prevents-Deaths-Causes.html
Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power
Abstract
In the aftermath of the March 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the future contribution of nuclear power to the global energy supply has become somewhat uncertain. Because nuclear power is an abundant, low-carbon source of base-load power, on balance it could make a large contribution to mitigation of global climate change and air pollution. Using historical production data, we calculate that global nuclear power has prevented about 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes (Gt) CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning. Based on global projection data that take into account the effects of Fukushima, we find that by mid-century, nuclear power could prevent an additional 420,000 to 7.04 million deaths and 80 to 240 GtCO2-eq emissions due to fossil fuels, depending on which fuel it replaces. By contrast, we assess that large-scale expansion of natural gas use would not mitigate the climate problem and would cause far more deaths than expansion of nuclear power.
Full paper: Hi-Res PDF
Verify before Trusting!
“Hansen now to do Good Deeds? Verify before Trusting!”
Almost TO THE DAY of when he leaves NASA...must say something about the culture there.
Well, well, well. Who knew? His name will be mud among the greenies for this, I suspect.
The story earlier was that he had to leave NASA to keep pushing global warming. I found that very hard to believe. Now he pushes nuclear power. Maybe that was the reason he left—aside from the fact that he is 72 years old, and I’m sure has a good retirement plan.
I think they make nuke plants too big and powerful and dangerous.
Make them smaller, encapsulated, no chance of out-of-control fission, and sacrifice some efficiency for safety.
You could make one small enough to bury in a small box, strong enough to power a city.
After 20 years you dig it up and replenish the nuke material.
There are some people who have already built such systems.
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Jimbo says:
Is this information new? WUWT has in the past posted up information showing more people died from the coal industry, no???
Anyway, here is another of their heroes going mad for dirty nuclear and horrid methane fracking. Methane………………a more powerful greenhouse gas than co2. Is Lovelock a fossil fuel funded shill? Does he pocket nuclear cash? I don’t know but I know that Al Gore has pocketed big oil and tobacco cash.
Dr. James Lovelock:
“Nuclear power is the only green solution”
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/james-lovelock-nuclear-power-is-the-only-green-solution-6169341.html“Gas is almost a give-away in the US at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/15/james-lovelock-interview-gaia-theory
So then democrats have been killing people since the 70s?
NASA top climate scientist James Hansen to retire from Goddard Institute, sue gov’t
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Hansen will step down from his $180,000 a year position to join a number of lawsuits challenging the federal and state governments for their failure to police industry over man’s effect on the climate, the New York Times reported.
I sure hope they name CHINA as a defendant...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
...but they WILL NOT.
The government has already approved such a reactor ~ doesn’t quite do a whole city but it would easily handle my neighborhood.
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Petr Beckman detailed the precise ways in which nuclear power would save far more lives in producing electric power than any other method in this book.
Looks like we are going to have to stand and give the Chinese a big ovation.
Their doing a better job then we in trying to prevent the next
ice age from rearing it’s evil head. :)
Bump and thanks.
More people died in Ted Kennedy’s car than in nuclear power accidents.
More people died in Ted Kennedy’s car than in nuclear power accidents.
Yeah, I saw that after I posted. And sue everyone else, probably.
Not exactly. Once an Agent Smith, always an Agent Smith. It is part of their makeup. Yes. Marvelous safe nuclear power. Would you like to see images of what happened to just one of our nuclear power plants over the weekend ? See link below. Yeah, so I am sure by now that our prestigious and prize winning journalists have informed the entire country that a fully function nuclear reactor in Arkansas scrambled and is running on emergency diesel generation to prevent meltdown. What ? They have not informed anyone yet ? Strange. Well, how about the reactor right next to that one which was shutdown but lost external power when they dropped a massive assembly through a floor in the Turbine Building ? What ? They have not informed you that the spent fuel pools for both reactors are without power because their power lines were cut ? Strange. Would assume a maverick like Hansen would be all over this story.
So far.
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