This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap. People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart – between nuclear, solar, and wind. A small number of people die in accidents in supply chains – ranging from helicopter collisions with turbines fires during the installation of turbines or panels and drownings on offshore wind sites. The death rates from both of these sources are low, but not zero. Otherwise, hydropower was very safe, with a death rate of just 0.04 deaths per TWh – comparable to nuclear, solar, and wind.įinally, we have solar and wind. This rate is almost completely dominated by one event: the Banqiao Dam Failure in China in 1975. Its death rate since 1965 is 1.3 deaths per TWh. The other source which is heavily influenced by a few large-scale accidents is hydropower. 4 If you are interested in this, I look at how many died in each accident in detail in a related article. To calculate the death rates used here I assume a death toll of 433 from Chernobyl, and 2,314 from Fukushima. However, compared to the millions that die from fossil fuels every year the final death tolls were very low. Our perceptions of the safety of nuclear energy are strongly influenced by two accidents: Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. As I discuss in more detail at the end of this article, global death rates from fossil fuels based on the most recent research on air pollution are likely to be even higher. They are based on power plants in Europe, which have good pollution controls, and are based on older models of the health impacts of air pollution. Coal is, by far, the dirtiest.Įven then, these estimates for fossil fuels are likely to be very conservative. Fossil fuels and biomass kill many more people than nuclear and modern renewables per unit of electricity. Let’s look at this comparison in the chart. This includes deaths from air pollution and accidents in the supply chain. One terawatt-hour is about the same as the annual electricity consumption of 150,000 citizens in the European Union. Instead, we compare them based on the estimated number of deaths they cause per unit of electricity. To make these comparisons fair we can’t just look at the total deaths from each source: fossil fuels still dominate our global electricity mix, so we would expect that they would kill more people. From the perspective of both human health and climate change, it matters less whether we transition to nuclear power or renewable energy, and more that we stop relying on fossil fuels.īefore we consider the long-term impacts of climate change, let’s look at how each source stacks up in terms of short-term health risks. This means that there are thankfully no trade-offs here: low-carbon energy sources are also the safest. Fossil fuels are both the dirtiest and most dangerous in the short term, and emit the most greenhouse gases per unit of energy. And they all have long-term impacts by contributing to climate change.īut, their contribution to each differs enormously. They all have short-term impacts on human health, either through air pollution or accidents. In 2020, 91% of global CO 2 emissions came from fossil fuels and industry.
#Low carbon emissions driver
The third is greenhouse gas emissions: fossil fuels are the main source of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of climate change. And it also includes accidents that occur in the transport of raw materials and infrastructure, the construction of the power plant, or their maintenance. This includes accidents that happen in the mining and extraction of the fuels – coal, uranium, rare metals, oil, and gas. Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass – wood, dung, and charcoal – are responsible for most of those deaths.
The first is air pollution: millions of people die prematurely every year as a result of air pollution. Energy production can have negative impacts on human health and the environment in three ways. As the United Nations rightly says: “energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.”īut while energy brings us massive benefits, it’s not without its downsides. But they differ enormously in size: as we will see, fossil fuels are the dirtiest and most dangerous, while nuclear and modern renewable energy sources are vastly safer and cleaner.įrom the perspective of both human health and climate change, it matters less whether we transition to nuclear power or renewable energy, and more that we stop relying on fossil fuels.Įnergy has been critical to the human progress we’ve seen over the last few centuries. All energy sources have negative effects.
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