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The Age
11 July 2013
The record of deaths and diseases over the past 60 years shows
nuclear power is safer than every other source of energy.
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While I
must admit a fondness for the counter-intuitive, after examining the figures¹ quoted in this article, I feel that the calculations
contain a number of flaws. The 0.04 deaths per TWh for nuclear power was
arrived by presuming 4000 Chernobyl-related deaths over 112000 TWh for the
total extrapolated nuclear power generated between the Chernobyl disaster and
25 years into the future, over which time those deaths are expected to occur.
Three problems immediately come to mind:
- The 4000 Chernobyl-related deaths is a lower estimate, calculated from the effects on only the worst affected areas. Other studies² which consider a larger geographical area of contamination estimate up to 60000 excess deaths.
- The divisor of 112000 TWh is blatantly invalid as it assumes that there will be no further nuclear accidents (such as Fukushima) between the index year of 2005 and 2030. Instead, the deaths should be calculated at the time of their causation. The argument that these deaths are chronic and not presently attributable should not apply because the author has also used similar chronic deaths associated with air pollution to arrive at his figure for coal-related deaths.
- The author has only considered nuclear power deaths associated with the Chernobyl disaster itself, ignoring other deaths related to nuclear power, such as the Kyshtym disaster of 1957. Meanwhile, deaths for other power sources have been derived from accidents associated with mining and facility maintenance, whereas these figures have not been included in the nuclear power calculation.
After
accounting for the issues above, one may arrive at a figure of over 1.4 deaths
per TWh for nuclear power. While still a small figure compared to fossil fuels,
the author's contention that nuclear power is significantly safer than
renewable energy is no longer tenable.
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