In all the furor during the Fukushima Reactor Complex crisis, there has been a lot of discussion about whether or not nuclear power is a good option and, more generally, what kinds of power should be used to meet increasing demand. An unusual piece that was making the rounds on this topic was an article about the number of deaths per terawatt-hour (TWh) for different kinds of power production. It's an interesting metric to use to weigh different methods of generating power.
Nuclear power, interestingly, is at the bottom of the list, with only 0.04 deaths per TWh, while coal tops the list with a world average of 161 deaths per TWh. The numbers for this were calculated looking at not only at direct impacts from power station accidents, but also indirect effects, such as coal miners' deaths and deaths due to air pollution, as well. The list gets difficult, though, when it starts to ascribe deaths in supporting industries to the total. Steel and concrete are needed to construct wind turbines, and the calculations extend to include industrial deaths in the mining and manufacture of those components, as well as transportation deaths. While it's not unreasonable to ascribe those fractions to the overall calculation, it does make it start to get a bit tenuous.
Rather than take any of these numbers as hard and fast conclusions (any two reasonable people could have long arguments over any number of assumptions in these statistics), the general trends and relative scale of each could instead be given consideration in weighing options. Although nuclear power may have a low associated death rate, the economic cost of the energy produced this way is quite high, and there is a great deal of public opposition and NIMBY reaction to new nuclear power plants.
A lot of the investment in nuclear power goes to safety and security, rather than to producing power. The money spent on backups and redundant safety systems for a nuclear plant isn't increasing power efficiency. A nuclear plant might cost as much as $8,000 (or more) per kW of electrical generating capacity (though this number is speculative, since no new nuclear plants have been built for many years), while a wind turbine might cost $1,200 to $2,600 per kW. A wind turbine won't necessarily generate power as steadily as a reactor, but it's a lot less expensive to build.
Operating costs are another big, but rarely discussed element in favor of many renewable power systems. Actively operated electrical generating facilities need many full-time employees operating the plant's various systems. However, solar and wind power facilities do not typically need the same active management. While the construction and installation costs may be higher, the operating costs might be far lower.
Construction costs, environmental costs, operating costs, financing and regulatory costs all enter into the power generation equation. All of these factors need to be taken into account to make more reasonable decisions about power generation.
link: Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants (Wikipedia)
images: CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported by KEI at ja.wikipedia; Wikimedia Commons
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written by Jake Jackson, July 13, 2011
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written by Jeff, July 14, 2011
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written by Seb, July 14, 2011
As per EIA data, nuclear has roughly generated 70.000 TWh since it started producing civil electricity. 70.000 x 0.04 = 2800 death in nuclear history. Low figures of Chernobyl disaster from WHO already state 4.000+ death for this disaster ALONE. The 2006 TORCH report suggest 30 to 60.000, Greenpeace claims 200.000 and a Russian publication concludes to 1 million!
So even taking the low WHO death toll, numbers are already wrong by 30% issue Chernobyl data alone!
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written by Edouard Stenger, July 18, 2011
George Monbiot in the Guardian stated something that I would like to share :
" You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology."
For more reflection on this, please check out my blog post, cf. http://t.co/d98kW35
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written by Brian Wang, July 19, 2011
If those possible 4000 deaths occur over the next 25 years, then with 2800 TWh being assumed average for 2005 through 2030, then it would be 4000 deaths over 112,000 TWh generated over 45 years or 0.037 deaths/TWh.
Also, the comparison would be with the estimated deaths and estimated generation for other kinds of energy (oil and coal will also have high estimates for expected cancer and heart disease.)
Lifetime deaths per twh
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/lifetime-deaths-per-twh-from-energy.html
I propose a cutoff of 2 years of life shortening, which equates to being 15% overweight. If we were playing the maximum Chernobyl numbers, then any statistical shortening by days then has the same issue for pilots and stewardesses who lose about 30-60 days from increased lifetime exposure to radiation.
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written by Brian Wang, July 19, 2011
The russian publication of 1 million assumes that any increase in deaths was because of chernobyl. Even if it was increased alcoholism because the collapse of the soviet union stopped anti-drinking controls. The 30,000- 60,000 estimates applied to air travel would mean would be 200,000 excess cancers and 100,000 excess deaths from commercial aviation over the last 25 years.
Note however that, because exposure only increases the probability of developing cancer, we should keep in mind that no given cancer can be attributed to flying. Moreover, because these additional cancers will be distributed among hundreds of millions of people, it is practically impossible to discern them among all the other cancer cases. (About 42% of the general population have cancer at some point in their lives, and about 20% of the population die because of cancer or complications that result from cancer.)
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