

Deaths per TWh for all energy sources: Rooftop solar power relatively dangerous - lemming
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html

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Udo
Okay, that's DIY _rooftop_ installations and though I'm usually against atomic
fear-mongering I have to say that it's difficult to accurately gauge the
effects of the Chernobyl incident. And to be fair, we also need to count birth
defects and other permanent injuries. So I don't know if this is a valid
comparison. By the way, without having the facts to support it, I'd wager that
fossil fuels cost the most lives of all energy sources, but again, that's also
impossible to ever measure accurately and in islolation.

~~~
lemming
Yeah, sorry, I had to edit the title to get it into 80 characters, and I cut
out "Rooftop". I still thought the comparison was interesting. Edited: title
to be a little less alarmist.

~~~
Udo
It is interesting, don't get me wrong! The larger message for me is that we
have a lot of strange causes of death, simply because of the large population
size. Of course every death is a tragedy to be avoided, but it follows -
somewhat counterintuitively - that sometimes a few thousand highly linked and
direct casualties drown out an even larger number of people who die routinely
without anyone questioning why. The same issue became apparent when we started
looking at the number of deaths resulting from terrorism compared to ...pretty
much any other cause of death.

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shod
"The World Health Organization study in 2005 indicated that 50 people died to
that point as a direct result of Chernobyl. 4000 people may eventually die
earlier as a result of Chernobyl, but those deaths would be more than 20 years
after the fact and the cause and effect becomes more tenuous."

In other words, this article only counts the deaths of reactor staff and
emergency crew, and goes on to outrightly dismiss cancer deaths.

The article's stated purpose is to show a comparison of death tolls. The
dramatic loss of quality of life due to radiation poisoning for thousands of
people exposed to the highest levels of radiation surrounding the Chernobyl
disaster, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands, is also worth
considering when weighing the negative impact.

That said, with Chernobyl, we're talking about the absolute worst-case
scenario for a nuclear reactor improperly contained (actually, not contained
at all) and neglected long after warning signs were shown. We shouldn't
practice historical revisionism or insult its victims by downplaying its
impact, but we should also remember that its particular history will not be
repeated with the containment barriers and safety measures in place at today's
plants.

~~~
advnano2045
The 4000 people have not started dieing yet. Otherwise the two years of
lifespan reduction from air pollution

[https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-DW9Uoz93Cvo/TXZo0dHQDNI/A...](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-DW9Uoz93Cvo/TXZo0dHQDNI/AAAAAAAAKow/goGPMXlkyqM/s1600/globalhealthrisks4.jpg)

[http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GlobalHe...](http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GlobalHealthRisks_report_full.pdf)

Would be applied to the shorten lifespans of billions of people.

Air pollution increases the cost of public health by about 30%. The effect is
so widespread that people do not know it because it is constant and pervasive

~~~
shod
To be clear: the NASB estimates that 93,000 deaths so far (as opposed to
"eventual" deaths), the ICRIN estimates 500,000 deaths so far, and the RAS
estimates 60,000 deaths so far and in Russia alone, were caused by Chernobyl.
These are the deaths the article outrightly dismisses in favor of the
IAEA/WHO's figure of 9.

The latter figure may be the correct one, but the article is still wrong in
using this death toll to decide that "rooftop solar is several times more
dangerous than nuclear power" if Chernobyl is the example of nuclear power
against which we are comparing rooftop solar: this is a callous and casual
dismissal of the horrific disfigurements we see in children at Novinki, the
hundreds of thousands of displaced families, the rescue workers who lost body
parts to the cancer they subsequently suffered, and to the many other horrors
and humiliations Chernobyl's victims have suffered.

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3pt14159
Woah, so that basically means that for coal in the US of the 3 or 4 cents per
khw (wholesale price, not yet transmitted to your house) there is a hidden
cost that is between 35 and 50% more, assuming $1mm / life (a standard non-
conservative assumption by engineers). So basically coal isn't worth it at
all? It's not just nuclear, natural gas could be made cheaper (and greener)
than coal after you take in the human life costs. I also question why the oil
cost in human life is so high. Do they take into account oil related conflicts
like the Gulf War?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I'm doubtful that the large round number quoted as deaths due to coal
pollution have any foundation. China has half a million? How can we know that?
Its such a large, round, made-up number.

Fewer people die from car accidents. I know several dead from car accidents.
Why don't I know one person dead from "coal pollution"?

~~~
advnano2045
Global health risk studies (by the world Health Organization) compiled many
other health impact studies. It was easiest for them to analyze and correlate
particulate matter (10 micron and 2.5 micron)

<http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/global-health-risks.html>

[http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GlobalHe...](http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GlobalHealthRisks_report_full.pdf)

In the year 2004, outdoor air pollution in urban areas was responsible for
almost 1.2 million deaths (2% of all deaths) and 0.6% of the global burden of
disease

Exposure to particulate matter, including metals, has been linked to a range
of adverse health outcomes, including modest transient changes in the
respiratory tract and impaired pulmonary function, increased risk of symptoms
requiring emergency room or hospital treatment, and increased risk of death
from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases or lung cancer. Particulate
matter is estimated to cause about 8% of deaths from lung cancer, 5% of deaths
from cardiopulmonary disease and about 3% of deaths from respiratory
infections.

The impact of outdoor air pollution on the burden of disease in the world’s
cities is large, but an assessment of sources of uncertainty, including the
fact that only mortality impacts of exposure to PM were estimated, suggests
that the impact is actually underestimated.

The coal pollution deaths are increased heart attacks and lung disease and
more hospitalization from asthma and other illnesses.

------
kevin_morrill
Seems like at some point you also have to factor opportunity cost into this as
well--so the numbers probably become even more compelling. So if a form of
energy is especially expensive, that's dollars you could have spent on say
healthcare, food, etc.

To me this is the real indictment against things like solar, not the risk of
people falling off roofs.

~~~
patio11
Another problem is that solar is an alternative to nuclear in the same sense
that sex is an alternative to food: no matter how much you enjoy it,
attempting full substitution would be fatal. The alternative to nuclear is
fossil fuels (+). Thus, you don't get the moderate increase in deaths from
going nukes to solar, you get the massive increase in deaths from going nukes
to fossil fuels. (And that's before you get to worrying about global warming,
if that is your thing.)

There are a variety of reasons for this: the necessity of meeting the base
loads, the fact that solar is ridiculously geographically restricted, the cost
issues, etc etc.

\+ Or decreasing per capita energy needs to below that of the late 1800s,
which has aesthetic appeal to some people but absolutely nothing else to
recommend it. Among other reasons, it would condemn the worldwide poor to
perpetual grinding poverty, which kills a heck of a lot more people
prematurely than _every other cause combined_.

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pieter
> $4 billion is about the cost of one of the new 1.5 GW nuclear power plants,
> which would generate 12 TWh/year

In China maybe, but not in the western world. The EPR for example, is 1.65GWe,
and is projected to cost €6.4 billion, or almost $9 billion in Finland. The
one being built in France is now projected at €5 billion ($7 bililon), but may
cost more as it'll take another 3 years to complete.

~~~
Havoc
Why isn't that gap being arbitraged away? Sure reactors aren't exactly
portable, but a 5bn gap surely can't be right.

1\. Build reactor pieces in China 4bn 2\. Ship over to Finland at 1bn cost 3\.
Installation 2bn 4\. = 2bn profit

~~~
ultrasaurus
I'd love to see the NIMBY crowd's take on importing a cut-rate Chinese
reactor.

But surely the electricity itself is fungible. I guess there's no grid
connecting China to Finland to arbitrage the power directly (or conceivably no
way to build Chinese reactors any faster than domestic demand and imperfect
pricing mechanisms).

~~~
derobert
Electricity itself is hard to move over large distances due to resistive
losses. However, energy-intensive industry will move, accomplishing a similar
thing.

------
zb
One difference: if you're killed falling off a roof it's probably because you
failed to take appropriate safety precautions; if you're killed by one of
those other things it's probably because it was out of your control. People
are, understandably, happier to take risks where they feel in control of the
outcome - which is why so many of them fall off roofs.

------
encoderer
My first thought is that once a solar panel is installed on the roof, that
death rate has to drop nearly to 0. That is, the risk is foremost in hoisting
and installing these heavy fragile panels on your pitched roof.

With nuclear, though, I'd think that very little comparative risk is
associated with construction. The bulk of the risk is in ongoing operation.

So the die is not yet cast on nuclear deaths.

I'm reminded of a case a few years ago at a nuke plant in Ohio where an acid
leak above the reactor head had slowly eaten away... The 6-inch thick reactor
head was, in this spot, corroded down to just 1/8 (!!!!) inch thick.

Now, politically, I do favor nuclear power. I think it's a national security
issue to wean off fossil fuels. But i think this "study" is a little
overheated and needed a healthy dousing of sea-water.

~~~
jerf
How many decades do nuclear plants need to run before you're willing to make a
call?

It's stupidly irrational how people require hundreds and hundreds of time more
proof for a power source that has OMGRadiation!!1! but require _no_ evidence
of the safety of other much _much_ more dangerous sources of power.

~~~
notahacker
After three decades of nuclear power went by without incident you'd have
presumably have felt confident making the call that there was no threat
whatsoever from nuclear power accidents. But the number of deaths attributable
to nuclear power in the its fourth decade were more than the first three
decades put together. Would it be fair to say that the first three decades
weren't a sufficient sample size?

Evaluating the safety record of something which due to extreme safety measures
fails only very occasionally, but renders cities unsafe for human habitation
and livestock _on the other side of Europe_ unfit for human consumption
decades later, clearly requires a different approach to evaluating risk than
something which kills people only in regular small industrial accidents during
manufacturing and on-site erections.

The _known_ safety record of nuclear power thus far is pretty good, _which is
mainly because of huge investment in safety driven by paranoia_. But even
looking purely at the catastrophic failure scenario as the only nuclear-
related cause of death, if you design nuclear power stations to be able to
withstand natural disasters that only occur once every hundred years then you
might have to wait sixty years for the first breach and another sixty for the
first _bad_ unavoidable breach. Making a call about the long term safety of
something which can potentially cut short the life of millions of people just
because it hasn't happened yet[1] could be a little premature, although with
any luck we'll have something sufficiently better and safer than U235 fission
to render most of today's power generation technology obsolete in a couple of
decades time anyway.

[1]If you take the most extravagant claimed death figures published by
scientists ["Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the
Environment" - Yablokov; V & A Nesterenko], Chernobyl could have been
responsible for the premature deaths of as many as a million.

------
ugh
I would also like a more complete comparison of costs (including deaths, loss
of arable land, ...) but I very much suspect that the picture would be
similar. Renewable energies combined with nuclear energy seem to be a good
idea.

------
Tichy
I think if more people would operate nuclear power plants in their backyard
(as they do with solar panels), we would see a different kind of statistic to
emerge.

Also, what goes into this statistic? Maybe a lot of people die in chinese coal
mines (don't know), or somewhere where they don't use up to date technology?
People die from pollution, but could better filters be installed? And so on...

In the end, no power source will be free of side effects. Best to reduce power
consumption.

~~~
henrikschroder
You're missing the point which is that all forms of energy production are
unsafe, and all forms of energy production can be made safer, but the public
perception of the _relative_ dangers between the different forms is completely
wrong, and people are focusing their energy and fears on what _feels_ the most
dangerous instead of what actually kills most people.

The events at Fukushima will lead to a global backlash against nuclear power,
and some countries will most probably shut down some plants or postpone the
building of new ones in response to public fears, and since the same public is
unwilling to cut back on their power consumption, some other form has to
increase, which means that more people will die.

And to anyone with a rational mindset, this is just infuriating.

~~~
Tichy
Let's wait how Fukushima plays out. If all is fine in the end, maybe the
public opinion will also turn.

I don't think this "killing most people" comparison is very useful, there some
to be a lot of aspects and details missing from the picture.

~~~
chc
What kinds of "aspects and details" are you thinking of?

~~~
Tichy
Production, consumption and disposal of fuels. Is it coal mined in some shoddy
third world mine, could things be improved with better technology? (nuclear
power received a lot of research money, can the same be said for other power
sources?). Environmental impact (oil spills - blame on power plants, or on
cars?). Quality of life (just surviving is not enough).

Sustainability (nuclear power also seems to be a limited resource).

small chance for big damage (nuclear power) vs higher chance for lower damage
(fossile fuels).

And so on - honestly, I am not an expert on this stuff.

------
waterlesscloud
Do you know who is completely insane? People who think statistics like "deaths
per TWh" have any meaning at all in public policy debates. You're in complete
denial if you think the populace at large cares.

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borism
safety isn't just about deaths. we're all gonna die eventually, independently
of our power source.

what is the most important factor to me is the quality of life provided by
different energy sources.

personally wind is the big winner there for me.

Full disclosure: I like sailing.

~~~
fabjan
Hydro works well here in Sweden:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_production_in_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_production_in_Sweden.PNG)

~~~
jarek
And geothermal works pretty well in Iceland, but we're not all in Sweden or
Iceland.

~~~
borism
well, we all live on planet Earth, so the question about geothermal is just
about how deep you're willing to dig. Geothermal is pretty nice IMHO.

------
msy
Disingenuous opinionated twaddle masquerading as statistical reasoning.

~~~
jerf
Because you have some sort of substantiative criticism, or because it
challenges your preconceptions and you have no rational response to make to
it?

~~~
msy
They're comparing an arbitrary and selective pool of deaths to the modern
death rate of roofers & DIY and pretending it has some significance in energy
policy. If you take that seriously maybe you need to look closely at why
you're so keen on such questionable material.

