Nuclear Power Prevents More Deaths Than It Causes

MTorrice writes "NASA researchers have compared nuclear power to fossil fuel energy sources in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution-related deaths. Using nuclear power in place of coal and gas power has prevented some 1.8 million deaths globally over the past four decades and could save millions of more lives in coming decades, concludes their study. The pair also found that nuclear energy prevents emissions of huge quantities of greenhouse gases. These estimates help make the case that policymakers should continue to rely on and expand nuclear power in place of fossil fuels to mitigate climate change, the authors say."

Re:Long term?

[AmiMoJo]

If only there was some other way of generating electricity that wasn't coal or nuclear...

Long Term Waste EASY..

[wanfuse123]

Simple as changing from Uranium to Thorium as a fuel supply. It consumes a small amount of Uranium to keep it's reaction going (which is why it can't go boom ) and burns with 99.9 % efficiency. Most of the remaining waste only remains radioactive for 10 years while a small amount the size of a coke can per MW remains radioactive for 300 years instead of Uranium's 10,000 years. It also is hugely less possible to proliferate than Uranium at the same time. In addition Thorium is so abundant and easy to refine that it appears easy compared to mining coal. It would cost us 1.6 Trillion in capital cost to convert all coal plants to LFTR Reactors [rawcell.com] (starting in about a 5 year time frame, once we have made the investment (23 Billion ) to overcome the inner containers materials problem. All other problems have been solved. In fact India will have their first full scale Thorium test reactor online THIS YEAR [rawcell.com]. A 500MW boohemoth! Within 3 years they will have 6 more that will follow for COMMERCIAL USE. So why not the US? I will leave it with this note there is other types of reactors that burn spent Uranium in larger quantities so consideration of them is also is an important feature to getting rid of long term waste.

Re:Long term?

[Nadaka]

Better than the french we can use next generation feeder breeder reactors to eliminate the already minimal transportation and mechanical processing risks.

Re:So?

[jellomizer]

Yes.
You got "Environmentalists" not the actually scientists per say but average guy who feels the need to stop all things that are bad, not really realizing that most things has some sort of trade-off, So they just say NO NO BAD BAD all the time. Oddly enough these people side with the left leaning parties, thus influence their policies.

You got other energy companies who won't cry to see nuclear go away. These guys tend to side with the right leaning parties, thus influence their policies.

As a counterpoint you have the supporters touting Clean, Safe, too cheap to meter. Who are just pushing the opposing side.

Nuclear Energy is dangerous, it produces a lot of hazardous wastes. However it is manageable when you have all the sides playing fairly and stop trying to discredit each other.

Nuclear Energy is part of a complete energy plan. Hydroelectric, Wind, Solar, Fossil Fuels, etc. are needed to. As of right now we are using too much Fossil Fuels, its side effects are outweighing its benefits. So we should start dialing it back a bit and replace it with other sources, yes they have their own side effects too, but they are different and if you get the right balance you are good.

One small problem

[ThatsNotPudding]

The only entities that can afford to build a nuclear power plant such as Entergy, Duke, PG&E always end up doing the double whammy of cutting back on maintenance just as the plants start to age out. Then, they quickly spin off the plant ownership to a separate division, then a separate DBA, then quietly sell it or convert it to a wholly separate no-liability company just as the expensive chickens of total rebuilt or shutdown come home to roost.

As an aside, the folks running SONGS for PG&E decided to redesign the tube bundles when they had to be replaced. They arrogantly redesigned them - without even telling the NRC, mind you - to get more [Jeremy Clarkson] Power! [/JC], but only managed to make them wear out in mere months due to so much vibration the tubes eroded each other.

So nuclear power does make sense, if it weren't the actual short-term greedy bastards that own and run them.

The case against coal...

[HockeyPuck]

I've got quite a few friends who are anti-nuclear power and they constantly site Chernobyl, 3-mile Island and Fukushima...

The problem is that they refuse to travel to enjoy the fresh air [google.com]" in Beijing. I spent 3 weeks there in February, and let me tell you, after about 3 days there my nose was constantly congested. Within about 4 days of returning to the US, it cleared up. That air is not too fresh.

Also on the few days when it is clear there, the Japanese complain because all the smog has blown it's way into Japan.

Nuclear waste is much better than greenhouse gases

[mathimus1863]

With nuclear waste, at least we can choose what do with it. This is not the same as coal, where the waste goes into the atmosphere and we couldn't reverse it even if we wanted to. Sure, we need to solve the waste problem -- but at least we have the option to solve it, long after the waste has been created.

Re:Long term?

[Mashiki]

How about like the french. We reprocess what we can, and bury what we can't. Safe and Effective.

Why like the French? We do this in Canada, Japan does it and so does South Korea. It's not exactly "new and exciting" technology, the US is the odd-man-out like usual because of nimbys and environmentalists.

Relevant xkcd

[alispguru]

Here [xkcd.com]. Refined nuclear fuel has roughly a million times as much energy per gram as any chemical source. Even counting the ore and refining, you just have to move much less stuff to get your energy - 1/100 to 1/1000 as much.

Re:Long term?

[tibit]

Hydroelectric generation is tapped out. Hydroelectric storage is nowhere near tapped out -- there simply hasn't been enough demand for it. Keep that in mind.