Monday, May 04, 2009

Excess Death: Risk Threats

Just poking around some numbers.

Coal fired power plants cause upwards of 24,000 excess deaths from pollution, radiation, etc. each year. Assuming we've had 70 years of serious coal fired power plants, thats 280,000 excess deaths.

Nuclear power plants caused between 0 and 19 excess deaths in that same time frame in the US; up to 4,000 worldwide including the Chernobyl foulup.

(The 19 comes from a vociferous anti-nuclear group. (or another, quoting 'just borderline statisticaly significant [deaths]') - the 4,000 is from Greenpeace, who'd be happiest if we weren't here.) The zero comes from everywhere else. Further reading:


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