7 HN users recommended this explainer4 months2021–2023score 5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN uses it as a short, well-sourced overview showing that fossil fuels kill far more people than nuclear power.
Kurzgesagt compares how many people nuclear accidents have killed against other energy sources. It walks through the worst nuclear accidents and puts their death tolls in context per unit of energy.
“I really recommend watching this short video which gives a really excellent overview” (HN, 2021)
This reminds me of a video I watched, just 6 days ago[0]. The video goes into detail about how deadly each of our energy gathering methods are. It also goes into detail about how many are killed per kWh. I had no idea hydro was as deadly as it is before this video, I highly recommend anyone with 10 minutes to spare give it a watch. The channel is incredibly great in general. [0]: [this video]
I really find it gross the extent to which fear mongering over nuclear happens. Countries decommissioning nuclear plants to switch to coal, which kill far more people, even scaling by use. Instead of using a source of power that's overall incredibly safe, and which produces relatively small amounts of highly manageable waste, people have pushed to switch to these incredibly environmentally harmful power sources. This is especially surprising from countries like Germany that, as someone who doesn't live anywhere near them, see them as technically adept. My province in Canada got 60% of our power in 2018 from nuclear (plus 1/4 from hydro), and a different province got 95% of theirs from hydro, but then that's offset by other provinces that get 90% of theirs from natural gas and coal. Sure not every place is ideally suited for a lot of nuclear (though hopefully SMRs will help), but 90% is too high. We need less fossil fuels and more nuclear to bridge the gap to more renewables. For an interesting comparison of the deaths from nuclear energy, compared to other sources, I highly recommend "How Many People Did Nuclear Energy Kill? Nuclear Death Toll" [1]. [1] [this video]
Compares nuclear deaths with other energy sources.
Yes, there were a lot of deaths from these nuclear disasters, they were horrible, we should have avoided them. But nuclear energy is still much less deadly than fossil fuels. Air pollution-caused diseases are lung cancer and stroke for example. I think nuclear plants have become much safer and there is more international regulation to maintain their safety. I recommend this excellent video on this topic from Kurzgesagt: [this video]
Excellent overview of nuclear versus fossil fuel deaths.
Did a control-F for "kurzgesagt" and saw that it had not been mentioned yet. I really recommend watching this short video which gives a really excellent overview of the dangers of nuclear power in the context of the alternatives. The TLDW is even if a very pessimistic estimate of the dangers of nuclear power is still much better than a very optimistic take on the dangers of fossil fuels once you combine the effects of air pollution and climate change. That includes both Chernobyl and Fukushima. [this video]
Overview of nuclear dangers in the context of alternatives.
Mining and shipping is required for all forms of energy. Of course it's gonna be per twh because that is the only way to measure that makes any sense. Kurzgesagt has a great video explaining everything here: [this video]
So much anti nuclear absolutism I recommend watching this [this video] for a pragmatic lense Fossil fuels, even temporary, kills several magnitudes more people than nuclear
Pragmatic view that fossil fuels kill far more than nuclear.
Will you be factoring in the healthcare costs associated with burning more diesel and natural gas? (Not even getting into the externalities of climate change.) --- I thought Kurzgesagt did a pretty good job of breaking this down: [this video] . Basically, no matter how you look at it, nuclear is among the safest forms of energy we have, behind only solar, wind, and hydropower. Admittedly, deaths ≠ costs, but I imagine the numbers would be similar.
It's worth noting that, even taking second-order effects into account, the total number of deaths from nuclear accidents is actually quite low compared to other methods of generating electricity. [this video] Nuclear seems more dangerous for the same reason planes seem more dangerous than cars—when something goes wrong, it's a big news event.
Here are some stats on fossil fuel deaths in general [this video] On average in the US, the CO2 output required to power an electric vehicle is 1/3 of an ICE vehicle. So theoretically this would translate to less deaths as bb123 suggests, but hard to compare to direct pedestrian deaths. (Yes there are some logical gaps as ICE C02 output is a very low percentage of total fossil fuel output).
> The potential for loss is much higher with nuclear power. This isn't true. Fossil fuels kill much, much more people per Kwh than nuclear [1]. But much like airplanes vs car accidents, fossil fuels kill constantly and widespread in small amounts, while nuclear kills very rarely in high amounts. [1] [this video]
>they still kill fewer people per installed GW and produced GW-h compared to coal, gas and even solar. By orders of magnitude. The worst hydroelectic catastrophe killed over 200,000. [link] Coal has killed magnitudes above that. [this video]
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