Death Rate From Nuclear Power Vs Coal? This May Surprise You

Stats can be difficult. What if the death rate was compared to people in the industry? Would this be different?

As Seth wrote a book called All Marketers Are Liars I am hardly likely to take any chart of his as trustworthy!

Hmmm…Evan, not sure that makes sense. Why would you compare to people in the industry? Can you explain what you mean. Also, the stats he uses are not his: If you read his post he quotes his source: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

This quote made it a little more clear to me: “Air pollution from fossil fuel (coal plants and oil used in cars and trucks) and developing countries burning wood or coal inside their homes are one of the biggest causes of all kinds of death and illness.”

As a side note, Seth Godin’s book, “All Marketers are Liars” doesn’t actually say that marketers are liars, merely that people want to be told what they want to hear…

Good point Dean, that is a long, long time to look after the waste. There is the possibility of a tech innovation that could help that, but we can’t count on that.

We’re on a ride to nowhere.
Come on inside.
Takin’ that ride to nowhwere
We’ll take that ride.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWtCittJyr0

Yes, nice dystopic warning in a chirpy guise. Byrne is more optimistic now than he was then..

Ah, yes. The specter of radiation raises it’s ugly head. Try to remember that low level radiation lasts for a long time and high level radiation for a short time. Iodine-131 has a half life of 8 days while Uranium-238 has a half life of about 4.5 billion years. Which is worse? Iodine-131 by far. It might also be of concern to realize that coal fired power plants produce mercury, arsenic and uranium in their emissions. Long term effects? Try the thousands of tons of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere which, regardless of what we do now, has altered the climate of our planet and will continue to do so. There is not a single source of energy that we can commercially produce that does not have some sort of detrimental side effect. The doping for PV panels is extremely toxic. Not to mention the embodied energy needed to produce them. Wind has its issues with siting and a lot of expensive maintenance and its embodied energy for production of the components. What we might try to do is to look at what we might do to increase efficiency by reducing consumption and try to take a thoughtful and long term outlook on how to supply the energy needs with the least harm to the environment which most likely is in the form of renewable energy.

You will get more radiation from drinking a glass of milk each day for 45 years than you will from living directly next to a reactor for a full year.

Think a moment about what you’re seeing there. How surprised are you? Not so much? Quite? VERY? If youre surprised in any way, that’s how much you should be asking yourself why you believe what you see on TV and read in the news. That’s how angry you should be about being mislead. 

But dont take one websites word for it. 

Do research. Find actual facts and figures instead of propaganda and spin. Find out for yourself, that Nuclear, even in its most deadly era (by far) was far, FAR less deadly than that of oil or coal.

The investment into alternative power generating technologies such as nuclear energy may need to be measured against the potential cost when things turn against you as unfortunately happened this year  in Japan. The use of thermal coal (steam coal) that is mostly burnt for power generation may be valid for other countries who may not be able to allocate resources and funds to alternative and more greener sources of power.  Coal  newsletters and coal statistics show developing economies are more likely to increase their investment into & their use of thermal coal & metallurgical coal in coming years because of coal’s affordability and ability to quickly meet increasing demands for electricity and steel.  www.coalportal.com

We know how to deal with radioactive waste – boost it to orbit and kick it toward the biggest nuclear reactor of all.

Actually doing so, of course, is expensive, not 100% foolproof in the boost phase, and thusly, a big target for the overconcerned. You’ll remember the hysteria surrounding the launch and slingshot passed of NASA’s Galileo mission to Saturn.

loooooooooooooooooooooooooool

The 600,000 from Chernobyl were people exposed to radiation, not the deaths, and that was a freak problem caused by soviet tests, only 4000 people died, along with the 4000 cancer deaths, not to mention with your version of power, the mining for the last century of coal in the USA has resulted in over 100,000 deaths. Many more have been in other countries, and thousands have died at plants, and have had many accidents. Also pollution form all these other sources have greater exceeded the results from nuclear power. (Chile mine accident, BP oil spill, Exxon-Valdez)

Coal burning plants release over a thousand times the amount of radiation that nuclear power plants do.  Radon gas gets embedded in the coal which would normally allow its relatively safe decay with a 3 day half life.  Burning it causes plumes of radioactive to cover continents- if coal power plants had the same regulation as nuclear power plants for radiation emission there would not be one single coal plant in operation today.

 Good intentions are nice- but not great.  The same regulation spawned to protect people by setting limits are a double edged sword.  It also sets an often arbitrary and insider made standard which sets an acceptable level of harm.  It strips recourse through the court system through property and personal rights by making its death and destruction a legal act.

Excuse me what about the Japanese nuclear catastrophe where 20,000 people were killed, missing or made ill per Wikipedia?  Plus nuclear plants are potential terrorist targets.  If we teach the developing world to use nuclear what happens when a dictator steps in like Iran?  Coal is by far a better alternative to Nuclear.  Plus clean coal liquid technology is remarkable.  Everyone loves wind and solar but they are in infant stages.  Three generations of my family live in a town that burns coal and we’ve never had a single health related issue nor have any of our thousands of neighbors.  Coal is the best option and with the economy in the toilet there’s no time to talk fantasy.  Millions of jobs are involved in our nations tradition of making reliable home grown energy.

Just mentioning Chernobyl makes your argument invalid. The Soviets were playing with fire with no concern for safety 60 years ago. Did you know that 0 people in the U.S. have died from this “deadly form of energy”? If proper safety measures are taken, nuclear power is almost completely harmless. Please do your homework on current reactor designs.

Greenpeace are completely hysterical about anything and couldn’t write or sponsor an objective report on what sort of cake to buy for morning tea

The plant catastrophe didn’t kill 20,000 people. The quake and tsunami did.

If you want something else to worry about. How about natural gas, and all of the old pipe
networks that do not stand up well to earthquakes or anything else that can cause a leak, and ignition.

Doesn’t anyone care about the birds (some rare) that are killed by wind turbines?

Not building powerplants will not keep people from building bombs. there are too many people that know how. That is the reason we need to keep some of our own. we would be better off to use old bombs and warheads to be converted to fuel for powerplants. Then build a lot of power plants to replace oil, and coal fired plants. Natural gas should also be used in power plants and LGN Vehicles, and not be piped into our houses. We can store waste instead of weapons, until we shoot it into the sun.
PEOPLE NEED TO LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN POWER PLANTS AND BOMBS

In Eastern Oregon, however, they are planning to run 115 carloads of coal each day to barges on the Columbia. It will then be shipped to countries such as south Korea. They don’t use scrubbers and don’t have an EPA. Therefore it gets burned much dirtier thus killing more people and adding that much more to the global atmosphere. Is that a win or just another disguised loss?

i did an essay on nuclear power and it is safe. there is no problem as long as they keep up with regular maintenance. also its renewable and does not produce any waste. even radioactive rods after use just sit in a pool in a concrete bunker under ground

Your an idiot first off. Well if terrorists ever get one of the worlds most gurarded weapons, then a couple million poeple are most likely, going to die. we are not teaching third world countries about going nuclear. we are trying to prevent it. A study found that a nuclear power plant is the best place for a terrorist attack due to the fact that an american power plant can stop a 767 boeing commercial airliner at the best possible speed to hit a target accurately on the ground and the plant would still contain the material. The japanese catastophe was caused, if you didnt know, by a huge earthquake and tsunami. Also the japanese nuclear disaster did not kill anyone. One man did die but he was 60 and it was not due to radiation. guess what, if we stop coal, then those workers are put on wind, solar, and nuclear jobs so stop saying bullshit. sadly dude, we are the country that pretty much has to lead the world so, if we went as green as we could, i gurantee that western countries would follow and that would cause the world to follow as well from international pressure. Lastly look up coal deaths and injuries. Employees in coal mining are more likely to be killed or to incur a non-fatal injury or illness, and their injuries are more likely to be severe than workers in private industry as a whole, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. facts are what matter dude. not what you think is true

Coal releases radiation via fly-ash and people who live near coal plants die from cancers form the radiation and children a born with mental retardation and other birth defects because of the very high levels of mercury and other toxins that coal plants emit. We should switch over to Thorium which has absolutely no risk of ever melting down since the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor is well, liquid and you can’t melt a liquid. Please go to the link and sign the petition to support LFTR reactors for a future where there is no more climate change and we all breathe cleaner air. http://www.change.org/petitions/the-nuclear-regulatory-commission-departments-of-energy-and-the-epa-to-grant-licenses-and-finance-the-construction-of-lftr-reactors

1. It does not remain deadly, just more radioactive than the background. The radioactivity is only dangerous if you get very close to it.
2. Decades ago the USA developed a technology to eliminate nuclear waste by burning it in a nuclear reactor called the ‘Integral Fast Reactor’ – IFR. The Green-influenced Democrats closed down that project in 1994, 3 years before a prototype was ready. Maybe just to make sure that long-lasting nuclear waste would continue to fester?