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Coal pollution kills more people per day globally[1] than all nuclear disasters combined[2] ever have. Pollution kills between 7500 and 52000 annually just in U
by Swizec 7y ago
Coal pollution kills more people per day globally[1] than all nuclear disasters combined[2] ever have. Pollution kills between 7500 and 52000 annually just in USA. The range is wide because it's hard to measure.
That's 20/day dead from pollution just in USA.
Nuclear disasters are verified at about 2400 deaths over 41 years. Around 1/week.
Yeah ... crazy hard to make a safe energy source.
1: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-to-shift-away-from-coal-air-pollution-that-kills-thousands-every-year/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-...
2:
0 deaths for 3 Mile Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_Nuclear_Gene...
142 deaths for chernobyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
2203 deaths for Fukushima (2202 of which were due to the evacuation itself) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
PS: the "more per day than nuclear ever" bit comes from The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace
- ThinkBeat 7y agoThe death from coal pollution is cumulative over time. By that, I mean that they absorb chemicals over time that is believed to have contributed to the dying. 20 / day are not killed in coal plant explosions ever day. Yet the numbers you compare are from nuclear disasters. As far as I know, there are no numbers for the number of people killed in coal plant explosions and they certainly would not be 20/day Now, how to count the number of people impacted by Chernobyl. Do the numbers include the increase in cancer deaths in the north of Norway? The radiation in the moss that reindeer eat meant the meat could not be eaten for quite a long time and it is still not over. I think that is more like comparing apples to apples, than explosions vs long term exposure.