Image Source: http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2805/28053601.jpg
This image is very powerful in that it shows you side by side the deaths (recorded) of these power sources. A huge worry for many people related to Nuclear energy is that it could have devastating deaths if something went wrong. This graph shows, even with Chernobyl, the numbers are vastly below Coal. The other thing to keep in mind when looking at this is that, those deaths related to Nuclear power were most all accidents and unfortunate events where as with Coal, nothing went wrong, there were no Coal plant disasters. The deaths related to coal come mainly from air pollution. So when thinking about Nuclear vs. Coal, remember that Nuclear may not be as dangerous as you think and even still, it's less dangerous than Coal already is.
Interesting graph! I saw one very similar but the nuclear deaths were 0.9 instead of 1.2. I can't remember the date of the graph and yours may be newer or just a different variable is being measured!
ReplyDelete