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id	title	slug	type	status	content	archieml	archieml_update_statistics	published_at	updated_at	gdocSuccessorId	authors	excerpt	created_at_in_wordpress	updated_at_in_wordpress	featured_image	formattingOptions	markdown	wpApiSnapshot
34893	Nuclear Energy	nuclear-energy	page	publish	<!-- wp:html --> <!-- formatting-options subnavId:energy subnavCurrentId:nuclear-energy --> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>As the world attempts to transition its energy systems away from <a href="http://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels">fossil fuels</a> towards low-carbon sources of energy, we have a range of energy options: <a href="http://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy">renewable energy</a> technologies such as hydropower, wind and solar, but also nuclear power. Nuclear energy and renewable technologies typically emit very little CO<sub>2</sub> per unit of energy production, and are <a href="http://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy#as-well-as-being-safe-modern-renewables-and-nuclear-energy-are-both-extremely-low-carbon">also much better</a> than fossil fuels in limiting levels of local air pollution.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>But whilst some countries are investing heavily in increasing their nuclear energy supply, others are taking their plants offline. The role that nuclear energy plays in the energy system is therefore very specific to the given country.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>How much of our energy comes from nuclear power? How is its role changing over time? In this article we look at levels and changes in nuclear energy generation across the world, and its safety record in comparison to other sources of energy.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Nuclear energy generation</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Global generation of nuclear energy</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-left"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Nuclear energy – alongside hydropower – is one of our oldest low-carbon energy technologies.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Nuclear power generation has been around since the 1960s, but saw massive growth globally in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. In the interactive chart shown we see how global nuclear generation has changed over the past half-century.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Following fast growth during the 1970s to 1990s, global generation has slowed significantly. In fact, we see a sharp dip in nuclear output following the Fukushima tsunami in Japan in 2011 <em>[we look at the impacts of this disaster later in this article]</em>, as countries took plants offline due to safety concerns.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>But we also see that in recent years, production has once again increased.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Nuclear energy generation by country</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-left"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":5} --> <h5>Related charts:</h5> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:owid/prominent-link {"title":"Per capita consumption of nuclear energy","linkUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-nuclear","className":"is-style-thin"} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Which countries consume the most nuclear energy <em>per person</em>?</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/prominent-link --> <!-- wp:owid/prominent-link {"title":"Annual change in nuclear energy consumption","linkUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-change-nuclear","className":"is-style-thin"} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in <em>absolute</em> terms?</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/prominent-link --> <!-- wp:owid/prominent-link {"title":"Annual percentage change in nuclear energy consumption","linkUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-percentage-change-nuclear","className":"is-style-thin"} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in <em>percentage</em> terms?</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/prominent-link --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The global trend in nuclear energy generation masks the large differences in what role it plays at the country level.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Some countries get no energy at all from nuclear – or are aiming to eliminate it completely – whilst others get the majority of their power from it.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This interactive chart shows the amount of nuclear energy generated by country. We see that France, the USA, China, Russia and Canada all produce relatively large amounts of nuclear power.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:owid/help --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Two tips on how you can interact with this chart</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><strong>View the data for any country as a line chart:</strong> click on any country to see its change over time, or by using the 'CHART' tab at the bottom.</li><li><strong>Add any other country to the line chart:</strong> click on the Add country button to compare with any other country.</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- /wp:owid/help --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Nuclear in the energy and electricity mix</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>What share of primary energy comes from nuclear?</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-left"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-primary-energy" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We previously looked nuclear output in terms of energy units – how much each country produces in terawatt-hours. But to understand how large of a role nuclear plays in the energy system we need to put this in perspective of total energy consumption.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from nuclear sources.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Note that this data is based on primary energy calculated by the 'substitution method' which attempts to correct for the inefficiencies in fossil fuel production. It does this by converting non-fossil fuel sources to their 'input equivalents': the amount of primary energy that would be required to produce the same amount of energy if it came from fossil fuels. Here <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/energy-substitution-method">we describe this adjustment</a> in more detail.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In 2019, just over 4% of global primary energy came from nuclear power.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Note that this is based on nuclear energy's share in the <em>energy</em> mix. Energy consumption represents the sum of electricity, transport and heating. We look at the <em>electricity</em> mix below.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>What share of electricity comes from nuclear?</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-left"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In the sections above we looked at the role of nuclear in the total <em>energy</em> mix<em>. </em>This includes not only electricity, but also transport and heating. Electricity forms only one component of energy consumption.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Since transport and heating tend to be harder to decarbonize – they are more reliant on oil and gas – nuclear and renewables tend to have a higher share in the electricity mix versus the total energy mix.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from nuclear sources.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Globally, around 10% of our electricity comes from nuclear. But some countries rely on it heavily: it provides more than 70% of electricity in France, and more than 40% in Sweden.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Safety of nuclear energy</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>What are the safest sources of energy?</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp-block-tombstone 30007 --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Energy has been critical to the human progress we’ve seen over the last few centuries. As the United Nations rightly <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/">says</a>: “energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.”</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>But while energy brings us massive benefits, it’s not without its downsides. Energy production can have negative impacts on human health and the environment in three ways.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The first is <strong>air pollution</strong>: millions of people die prematurely every year as a result of <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths">air pollution</a>. Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass – wood, dung, and charcoal – are responsible for most of those deaths.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The second is <strong>accidents</strong>. This includes accidents that happen in the mining and extraction of the fuels – coal, uranium, rare metals, oil, and gas. And it also includes accidents that occur in the transport of raw materials and infrastructure, the construction of the power plant, or their maintenance.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The third is <strong>greenhouse gas emissions</strong>: fossil fuels are the main source of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of climate change. In 2020, 91% of <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-co2-emissions-fossil-land?stackMode=relative">global CO<sub>2</sub> emissions</a> came from fossil fuels and industry.{ref}Pierre Friedlingstein, Matthew W. Jones, Michael O'Sullivan, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee, C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Quéré, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Rob B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Laurent Bopp, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Kim I. Currie, Bertrand Decharme, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Wiley Evans, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Thomas Gasser, Dennis Gilfillan, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Atul Jain, Steve D. Jones, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne Körtzinger, Peter Landschützer, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lefèvre, Sebastian Lienert, Junjie Liu, Gregg Marland, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, David R. Munro, Julia E.M.S Nabel Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Tsuneo Ono, Denis Pierrot, Benjamin Poulter, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Thais M Rosan, Jörg Schwinger, Clemens Schwingshackl, Roland Séférian, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Francesco Tubiello, Guido van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Chisato Wada Rik Wanninkhof, Andrew J. Watson, David Willis, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng. Global Carbon Budget 2021, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 2021.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>No energy source is completely safe. They all have short-term impacts on human health, either through air pollution or accidents. And they all have long-term impacts by contributing to climate change.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>But, their contribution to each differs enormously. Fossil fuels are both the dirtiest and most dangerous in the short term, and emit the most greenhouse gases per unit of energy. This means that there are thankfully no trade-offs here: low-carbon energy sources are also the safest. From the perspective of both human health and climate change, it matters less whether we transition to nuclear power <em>or</em> renewable energy, and more that we stop relying on fossil fuels.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Nuclear and renewables are far, far safer than fossil fuels</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns --> <div class="wp-block-columns"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Before we consider the long-term impacts of climate change, let’s look at how each source stacks up in terms of short-term health risks.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>To make these comparisons fair we can’t just look at the <em>total</em> deaths from each source: fossil fuels still dominate our global electricity mix, so we would expect that they would kill more people.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Instead, we compare them based on the estimated number of deaths they cause <em>per unit of electricity</em>. This is measured in terawatt-hours. One terawatt-hour is about the same as the annual electricity consumption of 150,000 citizens in the European Union.{ref}Per capita electricity consumption in the EU-27 in 2021 <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~European+Union+%2827%29&Total+or+Breakdown=Total&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Per+capita+generation">was around</a> 6,400 kWh.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>1 terawatt-hour is equal to 1,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours. So, we get this figure by dividing 1,000,000,000 by 6,400 ≈ 150,000 people.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This includes deaths from air pollution and accidents in the supply chain.{ref}The following sources were used to calculate these death rates.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Fossil fuels and biomass:</strong> these figures are taken directly from Markandya, A., & Wilkinson, P. (2007). <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61253-7">Electricity generation and health</a>. <em>The Lancet</em>, 370(9591), 979-990.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Nuclear: </strong>I have calculated these figures based on the assumption of 433 deaths from Chernobyl and 2314 from Fukushima. These figures are based on the most recent estimates from UNSCEAR and the Government of Japan. In a <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima"><strong>related article</strong></a>, I detail where these figures come from.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>I have calculated death <em>rates</em> by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL">from nuclear</a> from 1965 to 2021, which is 96,876 TWh.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Hydropower:</strong> The paper by Sovacool et al. (2016) provides a death <em>rate</em> for hydropower from 1990 to 2013. However, this period excludes some very large hydropower accidents which occurred prior to 1990. I have therefore calculated a death rate for hydropower from 1965 to 2021 based on the list of hydropower accidents provided in Sovacool et al. (2016), which extends back to the 1950s. Since this database ends in 2013, I have also included the Saddle Dam accident in Laos in 2018, which killed 71 people.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The total number of deaths from hydropower accidents from 1965 to 2021 was approximately 176,000. 171,000 of these deaths were from the Banqian Dam Failure in China in 1975.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>I have calculated death <em>rates</em> by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/hydropower-consumption?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL">from hydropower</a> from 1965 to 2021, which is 138,175 TWh.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Solar and wind: </strong>these figures are taken directly from: Sovacool, B. K., Andersen, R., Sorensen, S., Sorensen, K., Tienda, V., Vainorius, A., … & Bjørn-Thygesen, F. (2016). <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615009877">Balancing safety with sustainability: assessing the risk of accidents for modern low-carbon energy systems</a>. <em>Journal of Cleaner Production</em>, 112, 3952-3965. In this analysis the authors compiled a database of as many energy-related accidents as possible based on an extensive search of academic databases and news reports, and derived death rates for each source over the period from 1990 to 2013. Since this database has not been extended since then, it’s not possible to provide post-2013 death rates.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Let’s look at this comparison in the chart. Fossil fuels and biomass kill many more people than nuclear and modern renewables per unit of electricity. Coal is, by far, the dirtiest.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Even then, these estimates for fossil fuels are likely to be very conservative. They are based on power plants in Europe, which have good pollution controls, and are based on older models of the health impacts of air pollution. As I discuss in more detail at the end of this article, <em>global</em> death rates from fossil fuels based on the most recent research on air pollution are likely to be even higher.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Our perceptions of the safety of nuclear energy are strongly influenced by two accidents: Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. These were tragic events. However, compared to the millions that die from fossil fuels <em>every year </em>the final death tolls were very low. To calculate the death rates used here I assume a death toll of 433 from Chernobyl, and 2,314 from Fukushima.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available <a href="https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html"><strong>online</strong></a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27–31, 2013.{/ref} If you are interested in this, I look at how many died in each accident in detail in a <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima"><strong>related article</strong></a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The other source which is heavily influenced by a few large-scale accidents is hydropower. Its death rate since 1965 is 1.3 deaths per TWh. This rate is almost completely dominated by one event: the Banqiao Dam Failure in China in 1975. It killed approximately 171,000 people. Otherwise, hydropower was very safe, with a death rate of just 0.04 deaths per TWh – comparable to nuclear, solar, and wind.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Finally, we have solar and wind. The death rates from both of these sources are low, but not zero. A small number of people die in accidents in supply chains – ranging from helicopter collisions with turbines; fires during the installation of turbines or panels; and drownings on offshore wind sites.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart – between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The key insight is that they are <em>all</em> much, much safer than fossil fuels.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Putting death rates from energy in perspective</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns --> <div class="wp-block-columns"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Looking at deaths per terawatt-hour can seem abstract. Let’s try to put it in perspective.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Let’s consider how many deaths each source would cause for an average town of 150,000 people in the European Union, which – as I’ve said before – consumes one terawatt-hour of electricity per year. Let’s call this town ‘Euroville’.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>If Euroville was completely powered by coal we’d expect <em>at least</em> 25 people to die prematurely every year from it.  Most of these people would die from air pollution. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This is how a coal-powered Euroville would compare with towns powered entirely by each energy source:</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><strong>Coal: </strong>25 people would die prematurely every year;</li><li><strong>Oil:</strong> 18 people would die prematurely every year;</li><li><strong>Gas:</strong> 3 people would die prematurely every year;</li><li><strong>Hydropower:</strong> In an average year 1 person would die;</li><li><strong>Wind:</strong> In an average year nobody would die. A death rate of 0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour means every 25 years a single person would die;</li><li><strong>Nuclear:</strong> In an average year nobody would die – only every 33 years would someone die.</li><li><strong>Solar:</strong> In an average year nobody would die – only every 50 years would someone die.</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>The safest energy sources are also the cleanest</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns --> <div class="wp-block-columns"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The good news is that there is no trade-off between the safest sources of energy in the short term, and the least damaging for the climate in the long term. They are one and the same, as the chart below shows.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In the chart, on the left-hand side, we have the same comparison of death rates from accidents and air pollution that we just looked at. On the right, we have the amount of greenhouse gas that are emitted <em>per unit</em> of electricity production. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>These are not just the emissions from the burning of fuels, but also from the mining, transportation and maintenance over a power plant’s lifetime.{ref}Schlömer S., T. Bruckner, L. Fulton, E. Hertwich, A. McKinnon, D. Perczyk, J. Roy, R. Schaeffer, R. Sims, P. Smith, and R. Wiser, 2014: Annex III: Technology-specific cost and performance parameters. In: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The IPCC AR5 report was published in 2014, and relies on studies conducted several years prior to its publication. For technologies which have been developing rapidly – namely solar, wind and other renewables, production technologies and intensities have changed significantly since then, and will continue to change as energy systems decarbonize. Life-cycle figures for nuclear, solar, wind and hydropower have therefore been adopted by the more recent publication by Pehl et al. (2017), published in <em>Nature Energy.</em></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Humpenöder, F., Popp, A., Hertwich, E. G., & Luderer, G. (2017). <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0032-9">Understanding future emissions from low-carbon power systems by integration of life-cycle assessment and integrated energy modelling</a>. <em>Nature Energy</em>, 2(12), 939-945.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Carbon Brief provides a clear discussion of the significance of these more recent lifecycle analyses in detail <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints"><strong>here</strong></a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Since oil is conventionally not used for electricity production, it is not included in the IPCC’s reported figures per kilowatt-hour. Figures for oil have therefore been taken from Turconi et al. (2013). It reports emissions in kilograms of CO2eq per megawatt-hour. Emissions factors for all other technologies are consistent with results from the IPCC. The range it gives for oil is 530–900: I have here taken the midpoint estimate (715 kgCO2eq/MWh, which is also 715 gCO2eq/kWh).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Turconi, R., Boldrin, A., & Astrup, T. (2013). <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032113005534">Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations</a>. <em>Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews</em>, 28, 555-565.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Coal, again, is the dirtiest fuel. It emits much more greenhouse gases than other sources – hundreds of times more than nuclear, solar, and wind.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Oil and gas are also much worse than nuclear and renewables, but to a lesser extent than coal.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Unfortunately, the global electricity mix is still dominated by fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas account for <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~OWID_WRL&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Select+a+source=Fossil+fuels&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Share+of+total+generation">around 60%</a>. If we want to stop climate change we have a great opportunity in front of us: we can transition away from them to nuclear and renewables, and also reduce deaths from accidents and air pollution as a side effect.{ref}Burgherr, P., & Hirschberg, S. (2014). <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142151400072X">Comparative risk assessment of severe accidents in the energy sector</a>. Energy Policy, 74, S45-S56.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>McCombie, C., & Jefferson, M. (2016). Renewable and nuclear electricity: Comparison of environmental impacts. Energy Policy, 96, 758-769.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Hirschberg, S., Bauer, C., Burgherr, P., Cazzoli, E., Heck, T., Spada, M., & Treyer, K. (2016). <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301240">Health effects of technologies for power generation: Contributions from normal operation, severe accidents and terrorist threat</a>. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 145, 373-387.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Luderer, G., Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Gibon, T., Bodirsky, B. L., de Boer, H. S., … & Mima, S. (2019). <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095183201500277X">Environmental co-benefits and adverse side-effects of alternative power sector decarbonization strategies</a>. Nature Communications, 10(1), 1-13.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Hertwich, E. G., Gibon, T., Bouman, E. A., Arvesen, A., Suh, S., Heath, G. A., … & Shi, L. (2015). <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6277">Integrated life-cycle assessment of electricity-supply scenarios confirms global environmental benefit of low-carbon technologies</a>. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(20), 6277-6282.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This transition will not only protect future generations, but it will also come with huge health benefits for the current one.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:image {"id":37712,"sizeSlug":"full","linkDestination":"none"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-–-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy.png" alt="" class="wp-image-37712"/></figure> <!-- /wp:image --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>How many people has nuclear energy saved?</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>When people discuss the safety of nuclear energy they often focus on the number of deaths it has caused. But as we looked at previously, nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest energy sources – per unit of energy it results in hundreds of fewer deaths than coal, oil or gas, and is comparable to modern renewables such as solar or wind.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>By this reasoning, we should perhaps turn this question on its head and ask: "How many lives has nuclear energy saved?", or "How many lives could have been saved if countries had not abandoned it?"</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Germany announced plans to phase out nuclear power generation: over the period from 2011 to 2017 it shut down 10 of its 17 nuclear facilities, and plans to close the remaining reactors in 2022.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598">The Private and External Costs of Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out</a> (No. w26598). <em>National Bureau of Economic Research</em>.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Because nuclear is safer than its main alternatives this policy decision cost lives. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Replacing nuclear energy with fossil fuels kills people. This is likely to be the case in the recent example of Germany. Most of Germany’s energy deficit from scrapping nuclear was filled by increased coal production – which is, as we just saw, the most polluting source with the largest health impacts. Analysis by Stephen Jarvis, Olivier Deschenes, and Akshaya Jha (2020) estimates that Germany’s nuclear phase-out has come at the cost of more than 1,100 additional deaths each year as a result of air pollution.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598">The Private and External Costs of Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out</a> (No. w26598). <em>National Bureau of Economic Research</em>.{/ref} Germany’s plan to make its energy systems safer has done exactly the opposite.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In a study published in the journal <em>Environmental Science and Technology</em>, Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen (2013) aimed to answer the question ‘how many lives has nuclear power saved?’.{ref}Kharecha, P. A., & Hansen, J. E. (2013). <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es3051197">Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power</a>. <em>Environmental Science & Technology</em>, 47(9), 4889-4895.{/ref} They analysed how many more people would have died over the period from 1971 to 2009 if nuclear energy had been replaced by fossil fuels. The death toll would have depended on the mix of fossil fuels used to replace nuclear – more would have died if more coal was used than oil or gas – but they estimate that nuclear power has globally saved about two million lives.{ref}van der Merwe, A. (2019). <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01749-8">Nuclear energy saves lives</a>. <em>Nature</em>, 570(7759), 36.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>What was the death toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima?</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp-block-tombstone 35461 --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Nuclear energy is an important source of low-carbon energy. But, there is <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/public-opposition-to-nuclear-energy-production">strong public opposition</a> to it, often because of concerns around safety.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>These concerns are often sparked by memories of two nuclear accidents: the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011.{ref}The third incident that often comes to mind was the Three Mile Island accident in the US in 1979. This was rated as a level five event (“Accident with Wider Consequences”) on the seven-point <em>International Nuclear Event Scale</em>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>No one died directly from this incident, and follow-up epidemiological studies have not found a clear link between the incident and long-term health impacts.<br><br>Hatch, M. C., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1990). <a href="https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/132/3/397/103678">Cancer near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant: radiation emissions</a>. <em>American Journal of Epidemiology</em>, 132(3), 397-412.<br><br>Hatch, M. C., Wallenstein, S., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1991). <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1405170/">Cancer rates after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and proximity of residence to the plant</a>. <em>American Journal of Public Healt</em>h, 81(6), 719-724.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>These two events were by far the largest nuclear accidents in history; the only disasters to receive a level 7 (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>How many people died in these nuclear disasters, and what can we learn from them?</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>How many died from the nuclear accident in Chernobyl?</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In April 1986, the core of one of the four reactors at Chernobyl nuclear plant, in Ukraine, melted down and exploded. It was the worst nuclear disaster in human history.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>There are several categories of deaths linked to the disaster – for some we have a good idea of how many died, for others we have a range of plausible deaths.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Direct deaths from the accident</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>30 people died during or very soon after the incident. </strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Two plant workers died almost immediately in the explosion from the reactor. Overall, 134 emergency workers, plant operators, and firemen were exposed to levels of radiation high enough to suffer from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). 28 of these 134 workers died in the weeks that followed, which takes the total to 30.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available <a href="https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html"><strong>online</strong></a>.{/ref} </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Later deaths of workers and firemen</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>A point of dispute is whether any more of the 134 workers with ARS died as a result of radiation exposure. In 2008, several decades after the incident, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published a large synthesis of the latest scientific evidence.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available <a href="https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html"><strong>online</strong></a>.{/ref} It reported that a <strong>further 19 ARS survivors had died by 2006</strong>. But many of these deaths were not related to any condition caused by radiation exposure. Seven were related to diseases not related to cancers including tuberculosis, liver disease, and stroke; six were from heart attacks; one from a trauma incident; and five died from cancers.{ref}The UNSCEAR (2008) report lists the causes of death in each of these survivors in Table D4 of the appendix.{/ref} It’s difficult to say how many of these deaths could be attributed to the Chernobyl accident – it’s not implausible it played a role in at least some of them, especially the five cancer deaths.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Thyroid cancer deaths in children through contaminated milk</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Most of the population was not exposed to levels of radiation that would put them at risk of negative health impacts. However, the slow response to the disaster meant that some individuals were exposed to the short-lived radionuclide Iodine-131 (<sup>131</sup>I) through the contamination of milk. Radioactive fallout settled on pasture grass across the region; this contaminated milk supplies and leafy vegetables that were consumed in the days immediately after the incident.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This exposure to <sup>131</sup>I has not been linked to increased cancer risk in the <em>adult</em> population, but several studies have shown an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in those who were children and adolescents around this time. Figuring out how many cases of thyroid cancer in this young population were caused by the accident is not straightforward. This is because there was a large increase in screening efforts in the aftermath of the disaster. It’s not uncommon for thyroid cancer cases to go undetected – and have no negative impact on an individual’s life. Increased screening, particularly in child populations, would result in finding many cases of cancer that would normally go undetected.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In 2018, UNSCEAR published its latest findings on thyroid cancers attributed to the Chernobyl disaster. Over the period from 1991 to 2015, there were 19,233 cases of thyroid cancer in patients who were younger than 18 at the time of the disaster across Ukraine, Belarus, and exposed regions of Russia. UNSCEAR concluded that around one-quarter of these cases <em>could</em> be linked to radiation exposure. That would mean 4,808 thyroid cancer cases.{ref}25% of 19,233 is 4808 cases.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>By 2005, it was reported that <strong>15 of these thyroid cancer cases had been fatal</strong>.{ref}This figure was included in the UNSCEAR’s 2008 report. I found no updated figure for fatalities in its 2018 report.{/ref} However, it was likely that this figure would increase: at least some of those still living with thyroid cancer will eventually die from it.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>It’s therefore not possible to give a definitive number, but we can look at survival rates and outcomes to get an estimate. Thankfully the prognosis for thyroid cancer in children is very good. Many patients that have undergone treatment have seen either a partial or complete remission.{ref}Reiners, C. (2011). Clinical experiences with radiation induced thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. Genes, 2(2), 374-383.{/ref} Large-scale studies report a 20-year survival rate of 92% for thyroid cancer.{ref}Hogan, A. R., Zhuge, Y., Perez, E. A., Koniaris, L. G., Lew, J. I., & Sola, J. E. (2009). Pediatric thyroid carcinoma: incidence and outcomes in 1753 patients. Journal of Surgical Research, 156(1), 167-172.{/ref}. Others show an even better prognosis, with a survival rate of 98% after 40 years.{ref}Hay, I. D., Gonzalez-Losada, T., Reinalda, M. S., Honetschlager, J. A., Richards, M. L., & Thompson, G. B. (2010). Long-term outcome in 215 children and adolescents with papillary thyroid cancer treated during 1940 through 2008. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00268-009-0364-0">World Journal of Surgery</a>, 34(6), 1192-1202.{/ref}  </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>If we combine standard survival rates with our number of radiation-induced cancer cases – 4,808 cases – we might estimate that the <strong>number of deaths could be in the range of 96 to 385</strong>. This comes from the assumption of a survival rate of 92% to 98% (or, to flip it, a mortality rate of 2% to 8%).{ref}2% of 4808 is 96, and 8% is 385.{/ref} This figure comes with significant uncertainty.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Deaths in the general population</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Finally, there has been significant concern about cancer risks to the wider population across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other parts of Europe. This topic remains controversial. Some reports in the early 2000s estimated much higher death tolls ranging from 16,000 to 60,000.{ref}Cardis et al. (2006). Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. International Journal of Cancer. Available <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7087/full/440982a.html?foxtrotcallback=true"><strong>online</strong></a>.<br><br>Fairlie and Sumner (2006). An independent scientific evaluation of health and environmental effects 20 years after the nuclear disaster providing critical analysis of a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Available <a href="http://www.chernobylreport.org/?p=summary"><strong>online</strong></a>.{/ref} In its 2005 report, the WHO estimated a potential death toll of 4,000.{ref}IAEA, WHO (2005/06). <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/">Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts</a>.{/ref} These estimates were based on the assumption that a large number of people were exposed to elevated levels of radioactivity, and that radioactivity increases cancer risk, even at very low levels of exposure (the so-called ‘<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model">linear no-threshold model</a>’ of radiation exposure).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>More recent studies suggest that these estimates were too high. In 2008, the UNSCEAR concluded that radioactive exposure to the general public was very low, and that it does not expect adverse health impacts in the countries affected by Chernobyl, or the rest of Europe.{ref}As it details in its report:<br>“The vast majority of the population were exposed to low levels of radiation comparable, at most, to a few times the annual natural background radiation levels and need not live in fear of serious health consequences. This is true for the populations of the three countries most affected by the Chernobyl accident, Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and even more so for the populations of other European countries.”</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>“To date, there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure”{/ref} In 2018 it published a follow-up report, which came to the same conclusion. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>If the health impacts of radiation were directly and linearly related to the level of exposure, we would expect to find that cancer rates were highest in regions closest to the Chernobyl site, and would decline with distance from the plant. But studies do not find this. Cancer rates in Ukraine, for example, were not higher in locations closer to the site{ref}Leung, K. M., Shabat, G., Lu, P., Fields, A. C., Lukashenko, A., Davids, J. S., & Melnitchouk, N. (2019). <a href="https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JGO.19.00099">Trends in solid tumor incidence in Ukraine 30 years after chernobyl</a>. <em>Journal of Global Oncology</em>, <em>5</em>, 1-10.{/ref} This suggests that there is a lower limit to the level at which radiation exposure has negative health impacts. And that most people were not exposed to doses higher than this.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Combined death toll from Chernobyl</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>To summarize the previous paragraphs: </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><strong>2 workers died in the blast.</strong></li><li><strong>28 workers and firemen died in the weeks that followed from acute radiation syndrome (ARS).</strong></li><li><strong>19 ARS survivors had died later, by 2006</strong>; most from causes not related to radiation, but it’s not possible to rule all of them out (especially five that were cancer-related).</li><li><strong>15 people died from thyroid cancer due to milk contamination</strong>. These deaths were among children who were exposed to <sup>131</sup>I from milk and food in the days after the disaster. This could increase to between 96 and 384 deaths, however, this figure is highly uncertain.</li><li><strong>There is currently no evidence of adverse health impacts in the general population across affected countries, or wider Europe</strong>.</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Combined, the <em>confirmed</em> death toll from Chernobyl is less than 100. We still do not know the <em>true</em> death toll of the disaster. My best approximation is that the true death toll is in the range of 300 to 500 based on the available evidence.{ref}When we report on the safety of energy sources – in <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy"><strong>this article</strong></a> – I take the upper number of 433 deaths to be conservative.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>How many died from the nuclear accident in Fukushima?</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In March 2011, there was an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. This accident was caused by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami">2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami</a> – the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan’s history.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Despite it being such a large event, so far, only one death has been attributed to the disaster. This includes both the direct impact of the accident itself and the radiation exposure that followed. However, it’s estimated that several thousand died indirectly from the stress and disruption of evacuation.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Direct and cancer deaths from the accident</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>No one died directly from the disaster. </strong>However, 40 to 50 people were injured as a result of physical injury from the blast, or radiation burns.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In 2018, the Japanese government <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45423575">reported that</a> <strong>one worker has since died</strong> from lung cancer as a result of radiation exposure from the event.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Over the last decade, many studies have assessed whether there has been any increased cancer risk for local populations. <strong>There appears to be no increased risk of cancer or other radiation-related health impacts</strong>. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In 2016, the World Health Organization noted that there was a very low risk of increased cancer deaths in Japan.{ref}World Health Organization (2016). FAQs: Fukushima Five Years On. Available online at: <a href="https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.%7B/ref">https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.{/ref</a>} Several reports from the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation came to the same conclusion: they report that any increase in radiation exposure for local populations was very low and they do not expect any increase in radiation-related health impacts.{ref}To quote UNSCEAR directly: “The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.”<br><br><a href="http://www.unscear.org/docs/GAreports/A-68-46_e_V1385727.pdf">Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records</a>, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27–31, 2013.{/ref} </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Deaths from evacuation</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>A more difficult question is how many people died indirectly through the <em>response</em> and evacuation of locals from the area around Fukushima. Within a few weeks of the accident more than 160,000 people had moved away, either from official evacuation efforts or voluntarily from fear of further radioactive releases. Many were forced to stay in overcrowded gyms, schools, and public facilities for several months until more permanent emergency housing became available.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The year after the 2011 disaster, the Japanese government estimated that 573 people had died indirectly as a result of the physical and mental stress of evacuation.{ref}The Yomiuri Shimbun, 573 deaths ‘related to nuclear crisis’, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 February 2012, <a href="https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.%7B/ref">https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.</a>{/ref} Since then, more rigorous assessments of increased mortality have been done, and this figure <a href="https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/main-cat2/sub-cat2-6/20201225_kanrenshi.pdf">was revised</a> to 2,313 deaths in September 2020.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>These indirect deaths were attributed to the overall physical and mental stress of evacuation; being moved out of care settings; and disruption to healthcare facilities. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>It’s important to bear in mind that the region was also trying to deal with the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami: this makes it difficult to completely separate the indirect deaths related to the nuclear disaster disruptions, and those of the tsunami itself.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Combined, the <em>confirmed</em> death toll from Fukushima is therefore 2,314.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>What can we learn from these nuclear disasters?</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The context and response to these disasters were very different, and this is reflected in what people died from in the aftermath.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Many more people died from Chernobyl than from Fukushima. There are several reasons for this.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The first was <strong>reactor design</strong>. The nuclear reactors at Chernobyl were poorly designed to deal with this meltdown scenario. Its fatal RBMK reactor had no containment structure, allowing radioactive material to spill into the atmosphere. Fukushima’s reactors did have steel-and-concrete containment structures, although it’s likely that at least one of these was also breached. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Crucially, the cooling systems of both plants worked very differently; at Chernobyl, the loss of cooling water as steam actually served to accelerate reactivity levels in the reactor core, creating a positive feedback loop toward the fatal explosion. The opposite is true of Fukushima, where the reactivity reduced as temperatures rose, effectively operating as a self-shutdown measure.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The second factor was <strong>government response</strong>. In the case of Fukushima, the Japanese government responded quickly to the crisis with evacuation efforts extending rapidly from a 3-kilometer (km), to a 10-km, to a 20-km radius whilst the incident at the site continued to unfold. In contrast, the response in the former Soviet Union was one of denial and secrecy.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>It’s reported that in the days which followed the Chernobyl disaster, residents in surrounding areas were uninformed of the radioactive material in the air around them. In fact, it took at least three days for the Soviet Union to admit an accident had taken place, and did so after radioactive sensors at a Swedish plant were triggered by dispersing radionuclides. As we saw above, it’s estimated that approximately 4,808 thyroid cancer cases in children and adolescents could be linked to radiation exposure from contaminated milk and foods. This could have been prevented by an earlier response.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Finally, while an early response from the Japanese government may have prevented a significant number of deaths, many <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b189ea">have questioned</a> whether the scale of the evacuation effort – where more than 160,000 people were displaced – was necessary.{ref}Hayakawa, M. (2016). <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146645316666707">Increase in disaster-related deaths: risks and social impacts of evacuation</a>. Annals of the ICRP, 45(2_suppl), 123-128.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Normile (2021). <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat">Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk</a>. <em>Science</em>.{/ref} As we see from the figures above, evacuation stress and disruption are estimated to have contributed to several thousand early deaths. Only one death has been linked to the impact of radiation. We don’t know what the possible death toll would have been <em>without</em> any evacuation. That’s why a no-evacuation strategy, if a future accident was to occur, seems unlikely. However, many have called for governments to develop early assessments and protocols of radiation risks, the scale of evacuation needed, and infrastructure to make sure that the disruption to those that are displaced is kept to a minimum.{ref}Normile (2021). <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat">Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk</a>. <em>Science</em>.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Nuclear is one of the safest energy sources</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>No energy source comes with zero negative impact. We often think of nuclear energy as being more dangerous than other sources because these low-frequency but highly-visible events come to mind.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>However, when we <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy">compare the death rates</a> from nuclear energy to other sources, we see that it’s one of the safest. The numbers that have died from nuclear accidents are very small in comparison to the <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths"><em>millions</em> that die</a> from air pollution from fossil fuels <em>every year</em>. As the linked post shows, the death rate from nuclear is roughly comparable with most renewable energy technologies.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Since nuclear is also a key source of low-carbon energy, it can play a key role in a sustainable energy mix alongside renewables.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Explore more of our work on Energy</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp-block-tombstone 41045 --> <!-- wp:owid/grid --> <!-- wp:owid/card {"linkUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy","mediaId":39373,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured.png","mediaAlt":"COVID-19 data explorer"} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Explore all the metrics – energy production, electricity consumption, and breakdown of fossil fuels, renewable and nuclear energy.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/card --> <!-- wp:owid/card {"linkUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/energy#country-profiles","mediaId":39372,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured.png","mediaAlt":"COVID-19 country profiles"} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Get an overview of energy for any country on a single page.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/card --> <!-- wp:owid/card {"linkUrl":"https://github.com/owid/energy-data","mediaId":39375,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured.png","mediaAlt":"download complete COVID-19 dataset"} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Download our complete dataset of energy metrics on GitHub. It's open-access and free for anyone to use.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/card --> <!-- wp:owid/card {"title":"","linkUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/energy-access","mediaId":41041,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>See how access to electricity and clean cooking fuels vary across the world.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/card --> <!-- wp:owid/card {"linkUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption","mediaId":41039,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Explore long-term changes in energy production and consumption across the world.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/card --> <!-- wp:owid/card {"linkUrl":"https://owid.cloud/energy-mix","mediaId":41040,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>How much of our energy comes from fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear energy? See the breakdown of the energy mix.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/card --> <!-- wp:owid/card {"linkUrl":"https://owid.cloud/electricity-mix","mediaId":41042,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Explore the breakdown of the electricity mix and how this is changing.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/card --> <!-- wp:owid/card {"linkUrl":"https://owid.cloud/fossil-fuels","mediaId":41037,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>See the long-term changes in coal, oil and gas production and consumption.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/card --> <!-- wp:owid/card {"linkUrl":"https://owid.cloud/renewable-energy","mediaId":41035,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>How quickly are countries scaling up the production of renewable technologies? Explore the data.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/card --> <!-- wp:owid/card {"linkUrl":"https://owid.cloud/nuclear-energy","mediaId":41036,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Explore the long-term changes in nuclear energy production across the world.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/card --> <!-- wp:owid/card {"linkUrl":"ourworldindata.org/transport","mediaId":45158,"mediaUrl":"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail.png","mediaAlt":""} --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Explore trends in transport technologies and emissions across the world.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/card --> <!-- /wp:owid/grid -->	{ "id": "wp-34893", "slug": "nuclear-energy", "content": { "toc": [], "body": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "As the world attempts to transition its energy systems away from ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels", "children": [ { "text": "fossil fuels", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " towards low-carbon sources of energy, we have a range of energy options: ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy", "children": [ { "text": "renewable energy", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " technologies such as hydropower, wind and solar, but also nuclear power. Nuclear energy and renewable technologies typically emit very little CO", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "2", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-subscript" }, { "text": " per unit of energy production, and are ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy#as-well-as-being-safe-modern-renewables-and-nuclear-energy-are-both-extremely-low-carbon", "children": [ { "text": "also much better", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " than fossil fuels in limiting levels of local air pollution.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "But whilst some countries are investing heavily in increasing their nuclear energy supply, others are taking their plants offline. The role that nuclear energy plays in the energy system is therefore very specific to the given country.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "How much of our energy comes from nuclear power? How is its role changing over time? In this article we look at levels and changes in nuclear energy generation across the world, and its safety record in comparison to other sources of energy.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Nuclear energy generation", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Global generation of nuclear energy", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 4, "parseErrors": [] }, { "left": [ { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] } ], "type": "sticky-right", "right": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Nuclear energy \u2013 alongside hydropower \u2013 is one of our oldest low-carbon energy technologies.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Nuclear power generation has been around since the 1960s, but saw massive growth globally in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. In the interactive chart shown we see how global nuclear generation has changed over the past half-century.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Following fast growth during the 1970s to 1990s, global generation has slowed significantly. In fact, we see a sharp dip in nuclear output following the Fukushima tsunami in Japan in 2011 ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "[we look at the impacts of this disaster later in this article]", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", as countries took plants offline due to safety concerns.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "But we also see that in recent years, production has once again increased.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Nuclear energy generation by country", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 4, "parseErrors": [] }, { "left": [ { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Related charts:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 5, "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-nuclear", "type": "prominent-link", "title": "Per capita consumption of nuclear energy", "description": "Which countries consume the most nuclear energy per person?", "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-change-nuclear", "type": "prominent-link", "title": "Annual change in nuclear energy consumption", "description": "How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in absolute terms?", "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-percentage-change-nuclear", "type": "prominent-link", "title": "Annual percentage change in nuclear energy consumption", "description": "How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in percentage terms?", "parseErrors": [] } ], "type": "sticky-right", "right": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The global trend in nuclear energy generation masks the large differences in what role it plays at the country level.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Some countries get no energy at all from nuclear \u2013 or are aiming to eliminate it completely \u2013 whilst others get the majority of their power from it.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This interactive chart shows the amount of nuclear energy generated by country. We see that France, the USA, China, Russia and Canada all produce relatively large amounts of nuclear power.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Two tips on how you can interact with this chart", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 4, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "View the data for any country as a line chart:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " click on any country to see its change over time, or by using the 'CHART' tab at the bottom.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Add any other country to the line chart:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " click on the Add country button to compare with any other country.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Nuclear in the energy and electricity mix", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "What share of primary energy comes from nuclear?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "left": [ { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-primary-energy", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] } ], "type": "sticky-right", "right": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "We previously looked nuclear output in terms of energy units \u2013 how much each country produces in terawatt-hours. But to understand how large of a role nuclear plays in the energy system we need to put this in perspective of total energy consumption.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from nuclear sources.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Note that this data is based on primary energy calculated by the 'substitution method' which attempts to correct for the inefficiencies in fossil fuel production. It does this by converting non-fossil fuel sources to their 'input equivalents': the amount of primary energy that would be required to produce the same amount of energy if it came from fossil fuels. Here ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/energy-substitution-method", "children": [ { "text": "we describe this adjustment", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " in more detail.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In 2019, just over 4% of global primary energy came from nuclear power.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Note that this is based on nuclear energy's share in the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "energy", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " mix. Energy consumption represents the sum of electricity, transport and heating. We look at the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "electricity", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " mix below.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "What share of electricity comes from nuclear?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "left": [ { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] } ], "type": "sticky-right", "right": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In the sections above we looked at the role of nuclear in the total ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "energy", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " mix", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "This includes not only electricity, but also transport and heating. Electricity forms only one component of energy consumption.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Since transport and heating tend to be harder to decarbonize \u2013 they are more reliant on oil and gas \u2013 nuclear and renewables tend to have a higher share in the electricity mix versus the total energy mix.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from nuclear sources.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Globally, around 10% of our electricity comes from nuclear. But some countries rely on it heavily: it provides more than 70% of electricity in France, and more than 40% in Sweden.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Safety of nuclear energy", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "What are the safest sources of energy?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Energy has been critical to the human progress we\u2019ve seen over the last few centuries. As the United Nations rightly ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/", "children": [ { "text": "says", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ": \u201cenergy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.\u201d", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "But while energy brings us massive benefits, it\u2019s not without its downsides. Energy production can have negative impacts on human health and the environment in three ways.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The first is ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "air pollution", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": ": millions of people die prematurely every year as a result of ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths", "children": [ { "text": "air pollution", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass \u2013 wood, dung, and charcoal \u2013 are responsible for most of those deaths.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The second is ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "accidents", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": ". This includes accidents that happen in the mining and extraction of the fuels \u2013 coal, uranium, rare metals, oil, and gas. And it also includes accidents that occur in the transport of raw materials and infrastructure, the construction of the power plant, or their maintenance.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The third is ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "greenhouse gas emissions", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": ": fossil fuels are the main source of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of climate change. In 2020, 91% of ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-co2-emissions-fossil-land?stackMode=relative", "children": [ { "text": "global CO", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "2", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-subscript" }, { "text": " emissions", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " came from fossil fuels and industry.{ref}\u200b\u200bPierre Friedlingstein, Matthew W. Jones, Michael O'Sullivan, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee, C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Qu\u00e9r\u00e9, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Rob B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Laurent Bopp, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Kim I. Currie, Bertrand Decharme, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Wiley Evans, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Thomas Gasser, Dennis Gilfillan, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, \u00d6zg\u00fcr G\u00fcrses, Ian Harris, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Atul Jain, Steve D. Jones, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, J\u00fcrgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne K\u00f6rtzinger, Peter Landsch\u00fctzer, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lef\u00e8vre, Sebastian Lienert, Junjie Liu, Gregg Marland, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, David R. Munro, Julia E.M.S Nabel Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Tsuneo Ono, Denis Pierrot, Benjamin Poulter, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian R\u00f6denbeck, Thais M Rosan, J\u00f6rg Schwinger, Clemens Schwingshackl, Roland S\u00e9f\u00e9rian, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Francesco Tubiello, Guido van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Chisato Wada Rik Wanninkhof, Andrew J. Watson, David Willis, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, S\u00f6nke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng. Global Carbon Budget 2021, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 2021.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "No energy source is completely safe. They all have short-term impacts on human health, either through air pollution or accidents. And they all have long-term impacts by contributing to climate change.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "But, their contribution to each differs enormously. Fossil fuels are both the dirtiest and most dangerous in the short term, and emit the most greenhouse gases per unit of energy. This means that there are thankfully no trade-offs here: low-carbon energy sources are also the safest. From the perspective of both human health and climate change, it matters less whether we transition to nuclear power ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "or", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " renewable energy, and more that we stop relying on fossil fuels.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Nuclear and renewables are far, far safer than fossil fuels", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "left": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Before we consider the long-term impacts of climate change, let\u2019s look at how each source stacks up in terms of short-term health risks.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "To make these comparisons fair we can\u2019t just look at the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "total", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " deaths from each source: fossil fuels still dominate our global electricity mix, so we would expect that they would kill more people.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Instead, we compare them based on the estimated number of deaths they cause ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "per unit of electricity", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ". This is measured in terawatt-hours. One terawatt-hour is about the same as the annual electricity consumption of 150,000 citizens in the European Union.{ref}Per capita electricity consumption in the EU-27 in 2021 ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~European+Union+%2827%29&Total+or+Breakdown=Total&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Per+capita+generation", "children": [ { "text": "was around", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " 6,400 kWh.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "1 terawatt-hour is equal to 1,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours. So, we get this figure by dividing 1,000,000,000 by 6,400 \u2248 150,000 people.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This includes deaths from air pollution and accidents in the supply chain.{ref}The following sources were used to calculate these death rates.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Fossil fuels and biomass:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " these figures are taken directly from Markandya, A., & Wilkinson, P. (2007). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61253-7", "children": [ { "text": "Electricity generation and health", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "The Lancet", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", 370(9591), 979-990.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Nuclear: ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": "I have calculated these figures based on the assumption of 433 deaths from Chernobyl and 2314 from Fukushima. These figures are based on the most recent estimates from UNSCEAR and the Government of Japan. In a ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima", "children": [ { "children": [ { "text": "related article", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ", I detail where these figures come from.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "I have calculated death ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "rates", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL", "children": [ { "text": "from nuclear", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " from 1965 to 2021, which is 96,876 TWh.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Hydropower:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " The paper by Sovacool et al. (2016) provides a death ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "rate", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " for hydropower from 1990 to 2013. However, this period excludes some very large hydropower accidents which occurred prior to 1990. I have therefore calculated a death rate for hydropower from 1965 to 2021 based on the list of hydropower accidents provided in Sovacool et al. (2016), which extends back to the 1950s. Since this database ends in 2013, I have also included the Saddle Dam accident in Laos in 2018, which killed 71 people.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The total number of deaths from hydropower accidents from 1965 to 2021 was approximately 176,000. 171,000 of these deaths were from the Banqian Dam Failure in China in 1975.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "I have calculated death ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "rates", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/hydropower-consumption?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL", "children": [ { "text": "from hydropower", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " from 1965 to 2021, which is 138,175 TWh.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Solar and wind: ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": "these figures are taken directly from: Sovacool, B. K., Andersen, R., Sorensen, S., Sorensen, K., Tienda, V., Vainorius, A., \u2026 & Bj\u00f8rn-Thygesen, F. (2016). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615009877", "children": [ { "text": "Balancing safety with sustainability: assessing the risk of accidents for modern low-carbon energy systems", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Journal of Cleaner Production", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", 112, 3952-3965. In this analysis the authors compiled a database of as many energy-related accidents as possible based on an extensive search of academic databases and news reports, and derived death rates for each source over the period from 1990 to 2013. Since this database has not been extended since then, it\u2019s not possible to provide post-2013 death rates.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Let\u2019s look at this comparison in the chart. Fossil fuels and biomass kill many more people than nuclear and modern renewables per unit of electricity. Coal is, by far, the dirtiest.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Even then, these estimates for fossil fuels are likely to be very conservative. They are based on power plants in Europe, which have good pollution controls, and are based on older models of the health impacts of air pollution. As I discuss in more detail at the end of this article, ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "global", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " death rates from fossil fuels based on the most recent research on air pollution are likely to be even higher.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Our perceptions of the safety of nuclear energy are strongly influenced by two accidents: Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. These were tragic events. However, compared to the millions that die from fossil fuels ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "every year ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "the final death tolls were very low. To calculate the death rates used here I assume a death toll of 433 from Chernobyl, and 2,314 from Fukushima.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html", "children": [ { "children": [ { "text": "online", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27\u201331, 2013.{/ref} If you are interested in this, I look at how many died in each accident in detail in a ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima", "children": [ { "children": [ { "text": "related article", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The other source which is heavily influenced by a few large-scale accidents is hydropower. Its death rate since 1965 is 1.3 deaths per TWh. This rate is almost completely dominated by one event: the Banqiao Dam Failure in China in 1975. It killed approximately 171,000 people. Otherwise, hydropower was very safe, with a death rate of just 0.04 deaths per TWh \u2013 comparable to nuclear, solar, and wind.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Finally, we have solar and wind. The death rates from both of these sources are low, but not zero. A small number of people die in accidents in supply chains \u2013 ranging from helicopter collisions with turbines; fires during the installation of turbines or panels; and drownings on offshore wind sites.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart \u2013 between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The key insight is that they are ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "all", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " much, much safer than fossil fuels.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "type": "sticky-right", "right": [ { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Putting death rates from energy in perspective", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Looking at deaths per terawatt-hour can seem abstract. Let\u2019s try to put it in perspective.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Let\u2019s consider how many deaths each source would cause for an average town of 150,000 people in the European Union, which \u2013 as I\u2019ve said before \u2013 consumes one terawatt-hour of electricity per year. Let\u2019s call this town \u2018Euroville\u2019.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "If Euroville was completely powered by coal we\u2019d expect ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "at least", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " 25 people to die prematurely every year from it.\u00a0 Most of these people would die from air pollution.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This is how a coal-powered Euroville would compare with towns powered entirely by each energy source:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Coal: ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": "25 people would die prematurely every year;", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Oil:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " 18 people would die prematurely every year;", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Gas:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " 3 people would die prematurely every year;", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Hydropower:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " In an average year 1 person would die;", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Wind:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " In an average year nobody would die. A death rate of 0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour means every 25 years a single person would die;", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Nuclear:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " In an average year nobody would die \u2013 only every 33 years would someone die.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Solar:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " In an average year nobody would die \u2013 only every 50 years would someone die.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "The safest energy sources are also the cleanest", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "left": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The good news is that there is no trade-off between the safest sources of energy in the short term, and the least damaging for the climate in the long term. They are one and the same, as the chart below shows.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In the chart, on the left-hand side, we have the same comparison of death rates from accidents and air pollution that we just looked at. On the right, we have the amount of greenhouse gas that are emitted ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "per unit", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " of electricity production.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "These are not just the emissions from the burning of fuels, but also from the mining, transportation and maintenance over a power plant\u2019s lifetime.{ref}Schl\u00f6mer S., T. Bruckner, L. Fulton, E. Hertwich, A. McKinnon, D. Perczyk, J. Roy, R. Schaeffer, R. Sims, P. Smith, and R. Wiser, 2014: Annex III: Technology-specific cost and performance parameters. In: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schl\u00f6mer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The IPCC AR5 report was published in 2014, and relies on studies conducted several years prior to its publication. For technologies which have been developing rapidly \u2013 namely solar, wind and other renewables, production technologies and intensities have changed significantly since then, and will continue to change as energy systems decarbonize. Life-cycle figures for nuclear, solar, wind and hydropower have therefore been adopted by the more recent publication by Pehl et al. (2017), published in ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Nature Energy.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Humpen\u00f6der, F., Popp, A., Hertwich, E. G., & Luderer, G. (2017). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0032-9", "children": [ { "text": "Understanding future emissions from low-carbon power systems by integration of life-cycle assessment and integrated energy modelling", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Nature Energy", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", 2(12), 939-945.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The Carbon Brief provides a clear discussion of the significance of these more recent lifecycle analyses in detail ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints", "children": [ { "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Since oil is conventionally not used for electricity production, it is not included in the IPCC\u2019s reported figures per kilowatt-hour. Figures for oil have therefore been taken from Turconi et al. (2013). It reports emissions in kilograms of CO2eq per megawatt-hour. Emissions factors for all other technologies are consistent with results from the IPCC. The range it gives for oil is 530\u2013900: I have here taken the midpoint estimate (715 kgCO2eq/MWh, which is also 715 gCO2eq/kWh).", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Turconi, R., Boldrin, A., & Astrup, T. (2013). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032113005534", "children": [ { "text": "Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", 28, 555-565.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Coal, again, is the dirtiest fuel. It emits much more greenhouse gases than other sources \u2013 hundreds of times more than nuclear, solar, and wind.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Oil and gas are also much worse than nuclear and renewables, but to a lesser extent than coal.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Unfortunately, the global electricity mix is still dominated by fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas account for ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~OWID_WRL&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Select+a+source=Fossil+fuels&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Share+of+total+generation", "children": [ { "text": "around 60%", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". If we want to stop climate change we have a great opportunity in front of us: we can transition away from them to nuclear and renewables, and also reduce deaths from accidents and air pollution as a side effect.{ref}Burgherr, P., & Hirschberg, S. (2014). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142151400072X", "children": [ { "text": "Comparative risk assessment of severe accidents in the energy sector", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". Energy Policy, 74, S45-S56.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "McCombie, C., & Jefferson, M. (2016). Renewable and nuclear electricity: Comparison of environmental impacts. Energy Policy, 96, 758-769.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Hirschberg, S., Bauer, C., Burgherr, P., Cazzoli, E., Heck, T., Spada, M., & Treyer, K. (2016). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301240", "children": [ { "text": "Health effects of technologies for power generation: Contributions from normal operation, severe accidents and terrorist threat", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 145, 373-387.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Luderer, G., Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Gibon, T., Bodirsky, B. L., de Boer, H. S., \u2026 & Mima, S. (2019). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095183201500277X", "children": [ { "text": "Environmental co-benefits and adverse side-effects of alternative power sector decarbonization strategies", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". Nature Communications, 10(1), 1-13.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Hertwich, E. G., Gibon, T., Bouman, E. A., Arvesen, A., Suh, S., Heath, G. A., \u2026 & Shi, L. (2015). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6277", "children": [ { "text": "Integrated life-cycle assessment of electricity-supply scenarios confirms global environmental benefit of low-carbon technologies", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(20), 6277-6282.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This transition will not only protect future generations, but it will also come with huge health benefits for the current one.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "type": "sticky-right", "right": [ { "alt": "", "size": "wide", "type": "image", "filename": "5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy.png", "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "How many people has nuclear energy saved?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "When people discuss the safety of nuclear energy they often focus on the number of deaths it has caused. But as we looked at previously, nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest energy sources \u2013 per unit of energy it results in hundreds of fewer deaths than coal, oil or gas, and is comparable to modern renewables such as solar or wind.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "By this reasoning, we should perhaps turn this question on its head and ask: \"How many lives has nuclear energy saved?\", or \"How many lives could have been saved if countries had not abandoned it?\"", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Germany announced plans to phase out nuclear power generation: over the period from 2011 to 2017 it shut down 10 of its 17 nuclear facilities, and plans to close the remaining reactors in 2022.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598", "children": [ { "text": "The Private and External Costs of Germany\u2019s Nuclear Phase-Out", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " (No. w26598). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "National Bureau of Economic Research", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Because nuclear is safer than its main alternatives this policy decision cost lives.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Replacing nuclear energy with fossil fuels kills people. This is likely to be the case in the recent example of Germany. Most of Germany\u2019s energy deficit from scrapping nuclear was filled by increased coal production \u2013 which is, as we just saw, the most polluting source with the largest health impacts. Analysis by Stephen Jarvis, Olivier Deschenes, and Akshaya Jha (2020) estimates that Germany\u2019s nuclear phase-out has come at the cost of more than 1,100 additional deaths each year as a result of air pollution.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598", "children": [ { "text": "The Private and External Costs of Germany\u2019s Nuclear Phase-Out", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " (No. w26598). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "National Bureau of Economic Research", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ".{/ref} Germany\u2019s plan to make its energy systems safer has done exactly the opposite.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In a study published in the journal ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Environmental Science and Technology", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen (2013) aimed to answer the question \u2018how many lives has nuclear power saved?\u2019.{ref}Kharecha, P. A., & Hansen, J. E. (2013). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es3051197", "children": [ { "text": "Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Environmental Science & Technology", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", 47(9), 4889-4895.{/ref} They analysed how many more people would have died over the period from 1971 to 2009 if nuclear energy had been replaced by fossil fuels. The death toll would have depended on the mix of fossil fuels used to replace nuclear \u2013 more would have died if more coal was used than oil or gas \u2013 but they estimate that nuclear power has globally saved about two million lives.{ref}van der Merwe, A. (2019). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01749-8", "children": [ { "text": "Nuclear energy saves lives", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Nature", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", 570(7759), 36.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "What was the death toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Nuclear energy is an important source of low-carbon energy. But, there is ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/public-opposition-to-nuclear-energy-production", "children": [ { "text": "strong public opposition", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " to it, often because of concerns around safety.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "These concerns are often sparked by memories of two nuclear accidents: the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011.{ref}The third incident that often comes to mind was the Three Mile Island accident in the US in 1979. This was rated as a level five event (\u201cAccident with Wider Consequences\u201d) on the seven-point ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "International Nuclear Event Scale", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "No one died directly from this incident, and follow-up epidemiological studies have not found a clear link between the incident and long-term health impacts.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "Hatch, M. C., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1990). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/132/3/397/103678", "children": [ { "text": "Cancer near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant: radiation emissions", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "American Journal of Epidemiology", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", 132(3), 397-412.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "Hatch, M. C., Wallenstein, S., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1991). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1405170/", "children": [ { "text": "Cancer rates after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and proximity of residence to the plant", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "American Journal of Public Healt", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "h, 81(6), 719-724.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "These two events were by far the largest nuclear accidents in history; the only disasters to receive a level 7 (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "How many people died in these nuclear disasters, and what can we learn from them?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "How many died from the nuclear accident in Chernobyl?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In April 1986, the core of one of the four reactors at Chernobyl nuclear plant, in Ukraine, melted down and exploded. It was the worst nuclear disaster in human history.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "There are several categories of deaths linked to the disaster \u2013 for some we have a good idea of how many died, for others we have a range of plausible deaths.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Direct deaths from the accident", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 4, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "30 people died during or very soon after the incident.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Two plant workers died almost immediately in the explosion from the reactor. Overall, 134 emergency workers, plant operators, and firemen were exposed to levels of radiation high enough to suffer from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). 28 of these 134 workers died in the weeks that followed, which takes the total to 30.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html", "children": [ { "children": [ { "text": "online", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref}\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Later deaths of workers and firemen", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 4, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "A point of dispute is whether any more of the 134 workers with ARS died as a result of radiation exposure. In 2008, several decades after the incident, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published a large synthesis of the latest scientific evidence.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html", "children": [ { "children": [ { "text": "online", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref} It reported that a ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "further 19 ARS survivors had died by 2006", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": ". But many of these deaths were not related to any condition caused by radiation exposure. Seven were related to diseases not related to cancers including tuberculosis, liver disease, and stroke; six were from heart attacks; one from a trauma incident; and five died from cancers.{ref}The UNSCEAR (2008) report lists the causes of death in each of these survivors in Table D4 of the appendix.{/ref} It\u2019s difficult to say how many of these deaths could be attributed to the Chernobyl accident \u2013 it\u2019s not implausible it played a role in at least some of them, especially the five cancer deaths.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Thyroid cancer deaths in children through contaminated milk", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 4, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Most of the population was not exposed to levels of radiation that would put them at risk of negative health impacts. However, the slow response to the disaster meant that some individuals were exposed to the short-lived radionuclide Iodine-131 (", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "131", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-superscript" }, { "text": "I) through the contamination of milk. Radioactive fallout settled on pasture grass across the region; this contaminated milk supplies and leafy vegetables that were consumed in the days immediately after the incident.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This exposure to ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "131", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-superscript" }, { "text": "I has not been linked to increased cancer risk in the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "adult", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " population, but several studies have shown an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in those who were children and adolescents around this time. Figuring out how many cases of thyroid cancer in this young population were caused by the accident is not straightforward. This is because there was a large increase in screening efforts in the aftermath of the disaster. It\u2019s not uncommon for thyroid cancer cases to go undetected \u2013 and have no negative impact on an individual\u2019s life. Increased screening, particularly in child populations, would result in finding many cases of cancer that would normally go undetected.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In 2018, UNSCEAR published its latest findings on thyroid cancers attributed to the Chernobyl disaster. Over the period from 1991 to 2015, there were 19,233 cases of thyroid cancer in patients who were younger than 18 at the time of the disaster across Ukraine, Belarus, and exposed regions of Russia. UNSCEAR concluded that around one-quarter of these cases ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "could", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " be linked to radiation exposure. That would mean 4,808 thyroid cancer cases.{ref}25% of 19,233 is 4808 cases.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "By 2005, it was reported that ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "15 of these thyroid cancer cases had been fatal", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": ".{ref}This figure was included in the UNSCEAR\u2019s 2008 report. I found no updated figure for fatalities in its 2018 report.{/ref} However, it was likely that this figure would increase: at least some of those still living with thyroid cancer will eventually die from it.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "It\u2019s therefore not possible to give a definitive number, but we can look at survival rates and outcomes to get an estimate. Thankfully the prognosis for thyroid cancer in children is very good. Many patients that have undergone treatment have seen either a partial or complete remission.{ref}Reiners, C. (2011). Clinical experiences with radiation induced thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. Genes, 2(2), 374-383.{/ref} Large-scale studies report a 20-year survival rate of 92% for thyroid cancer.{ref}Hogan, A. R., Zhuge, Y., Perez, E. A., Koniaris, L. G., Lew, J. I., & Sola, J. E. (2009). Pediatric thyroid carcinoma: incidence and outcomes in 1753 patients. Journal of Surgical Research, 156(1), 167-172.{/ref}. Others show an even better prognosis, with a survival rate of 98% after 40 years.{ref}Hay, I. D., Gonzalez-Losada, T., Reinalda, M. S., Honetschlager, J. A., Richards, M. L., & Thompson, G. B. (2010). Long-term outcome in 215 children and adolescents with papillary thyroid cancer treated during 1940 through 2008. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00268-009-0364-0", "children": [ { "text": "World Journal of Surgery", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ", 34(6), 1192-1202.{/ref}\u00a0\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "If we combine standard survival rates with our number of radiation-induced cancer cases \u2013 4,808 cases \u2013 we might estimate that the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "number of deaths could be in the range of 96 to 385", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": ". This comes from the assumption of a survival rate of 92% to 98% (or, to flip it, a mortality rate of 2% to 8%).{ref}2% of 4808 is 96, and 8% is 385.{/ref} This figure comes with significant uncertainty.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Deaths in the general population", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 4, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Finally, there has been significant concern about cancer risks to the wider population across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other parts of Europe. This topic remains controversial. Some reports in the early 2000s estimated much higher death tolls ranging from 16,000 to 60,000.{ref}Cardis et al. (2006). Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. International Journal of Cancer. Available ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7087/full/440982a.html?foxtrotcallback=true", "children": [ { "children": [ { "text": "online", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "Fairlie and Sumner (2006). An independent scientific evaluation of health and environmental effects 20 years after the nuclear disaster providing critical analysis of a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Available ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.chernobylreport.org/?p=summary", "children": [ { "children": [ { "text": "online", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref} In its 2005 report, the WHO estimated a potential death toll of 4,000.{ref}IAEA, WHO (2005/06). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/", "children": [ { "text": "Chernobyl\u2019s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref} These estimates were based on the assumption that a large number of people were exposed to elevated levels of radioactivity, and that radioactivity increases cancer risk, even at very low levels of exposure (the so-called \u2018", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model", "children": [ { "text": "linear no-threshold model", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "\u2019 of radiation exposure).", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "More recent studies suggest that these estimates were too high. In 2008, the UNSCEAR concluded that radioactive exposure to the general public was very low, and that it does not expect adverse health impacts in the countries affected by Chernobyl, or the rest of Europe.{ref}As it details in its report:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "\u201cThe vast majority of the population were exposed to low levels of radiation comparable, at most, to a few times the annual natural background radiation levels and need not live in fear of serious health consequences. This is true for the populations of the three countries most affected by the Chernobyl accident, Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and even more so for the populations of other European countries.\u201d", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "\u201cTo date, there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure\u201d{/ref} In 2018 it published a follow-up report, which came to the same conclusion.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "If the health impacts of radiation were directly and linearly related to the level of exposure, we would expect to find that cancer rates were highest in regions closest to the Chernobyl site, and would decline with distance from the plant. But studies do not find this. Cancer rates in Ukraine, for example, were not higher in locations closer to the site{ref}Leung, K. M., Shabat, G., Lu, P., Fields, A. C., Lukashenko, A., Davids, J. S., & Melnitchouk, N. (2019). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JGO.19.00099", "children": [ { "text": "Trends in solid tumor incidence in Ukraine 30 years after chernobyl", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Journal of Global Oncology", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "5", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", 1-10.{/ref} This suggests that there is a lower limit to the level at which radiation exposure has negative health impacts. And that most people were not exposed to doses higher than this.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Combined death toll from Chernobyl", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 4, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "To summarize the previous paragraphs:\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "2 workers died in the blast.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "28 workers and firemen died in the weeks that followed from acute radiation syndrome (ARS).", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "19 ARS survivors had died later, by 2006", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": "; most from causes not related to radiation, but it\u2019s not possible to rule all of them out (especially five that were cancer-related).", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "15 people died from thyroid cancer due to milk contamination", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": ". These deaths were among children who were exposed to ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "131", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-superscript" }, { "text": "I from milk and food in the days after the disaster. This could increase to between 96 and 384 deaths, however, this figure is highly uncertain.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "There is currently no evidence of adverse health impacts in the general population across affected countries, or wider Europe", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Combined, the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "confirmed", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " death toll from Chernobyl is less than 100. We still do not know the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "true", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " death toll of the disaster. My best approximation is that the true death toll is in the range of 300 to 500 based on the available evidence.{ref}When we report on the safety of energy sources \u2013 in ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy", "children": [ { "children": [ { "text": "this article", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " \u2013 I take the upper number of 433 deaths to be conservative.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "How many died from the nuclear accident in Fukushima?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In March 2011, there was an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in \u014ckuma, Fukushima, Japan. This accident was caused by the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami", "children": [ { "text": "2011 T\u014dhoku earthquake and tsunami", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " \u2013 the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan\u2019s history.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Despite it being such a large event, so far, only one death has been attributed to the disaster. This includes both the direct impact of the accident itself and the radiation exposure that followed. However, it\u2019s estimated that several thousand died indirectly from the stress and disruption of evacuation.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Direct and cancer deaths from the accident", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 4, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "No one died directly from the disaster. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": "However, 40 to 50 people were injured as a result of physical injury from the blast, or radiation burns.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In 2018, the Japanese government ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45423575", "children": [ { "text": "reported that", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "children": [ { "text": "one worker has since died", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " from lung cancer as a result of radiation exposure from the event.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Over the last decade, many studies have assessed whether there has been any increased cancer risk for local populations. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "There appears to be no increased risk of cancer or other radiation-related health impacts", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": ".\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In 2016, the World Health Organization noted that there was a very low risk of increased cancer deaths in Japan.{ref}World Health Organization (2016). FAQs: Fukushima Five Years On. Available online at: ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.%7B/ref", "children": [ { "text": "https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.{/ref", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "} Several reports from the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation came to the same conclusion: they report that any increase in radiation exposure for local populations was very low and they do not expect any increase in radiation-related health impacts.{ref}To quote UNSCEAR directly: \u201cThe doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.\u201d", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "url": "http://www.unscear.org/docs/GAreports/A-68-46_e_V1385727.pdf", "children": [ { "text": "Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ", Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27\u201331, 2013.{/ref}\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Deaths from evacuation", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 4, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "A more difficult question is how many people died indirectly through the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "response", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " and evacuation of locals from the area around Fukushima. Within a few weeks of the accident more than 160,000 people had moved away, either from official evacuation efforts or voluntarily from fear of further radioactive releases. Many were forced to stay in overcrowded gyms, schools, and public facilities for several months until more permanent emergency housing became available.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The year after the 2011 disaster, the Japanese government estimated that 573 people had died indirectly as a result of the physical and mental stress of evacuation.{ref}The Yomiuri Shimbun, 573 deaths \u2018related to nuclear crisis\u2019, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 February 2012, ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.%7B/ref", "children": [ { "text": "https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": "{/ref} Since then, more rigorous assessments of increased mortality have been done, and this figure ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/main-cat2/sub-cat2-6/20201225_kanrenshi.pdf", "children": [ { "text": "was revised", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " to 2,313 deaths in September 2020.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "These indirect deaths were attributed to the overall physical and mental stress of evacuation; being moved out of care settings; and disruption to healthcare facilities.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "It\u2019s important to bear in mind that the region was also trying to deal with the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami: this makes it difficult to completely separate the indirect deaths related to the nuclear disaster disruptions, and those of the tsunami itself.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Combined, the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "confirmed", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " death toll from Fukushima is therefore 2,314.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "What can we learn from these nuclear disasters?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The context and response to these disasters were very different, and this is reflected in what people died from in the aftermath.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Many more people died from Chernobyl than from Fukushima. There are several reasons for this.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The first was ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "reactor design", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": ". The nuclear reactors at Chernobyl were poorly designed to deal with this meltdown scenario. Its fatal RBMK reactor had no containment structure, allowing radioactive material to spill into the atmosphere. Fukushima\u2019s reactors did have steel-and-concrete containment structures, although it\u2019s likely that at least one of these was also breached.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Crucially, the cooling systems of both plants worked very differently; at Chernobyl, the loss of cooling water as steam actually served to accelerate reactivity levels in the reactor core, creating a positive feedback loop toward the fatal explosion. The opposite is true of Fukushima, where the reactivity reduced as temperatures rose, effectively operating as a self-shutdown measure.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The second factor was ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "government response", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": ". In the case of Fukushima, the Japanese government responded quickly to the crisis with evacuation efforts extending rapidly from a 3-kilometer (km), to a 10-km, to a 20-km radius whilst the incident at the site continued to unfold. In contrast, the response in the former Soviet Union was one of denial and secrecy.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "It\u2019s reported that in the days which followed the Chernobyl disaster, residents in surrounding areas were uninformed of the radioactive material in the air around them. In fact, it took at least three days for the Soviet Union to admit an accident had taken place, and did so after radioactive sensors at a Swedish plant were triggered by dispersing radionuclides. As we saw above, it\u2019s estimated that approximately 4,808 thyroid cancer cases in children and adolescents could be linked to radiation exposure from contaminated milk and foods. This could have been prevented by an earlier response.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Finally, while an early response from the Japanese government may have prevented a significant number of deaths, many ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b189ea", "children": [ { "text": "have questioned", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " whether the scale of the evacuation effort \u2013 where more than 160,000 people were displaced \u2013 was necessary.{ref}Hayakawa, M. (2016). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146645316666707", "children": [ { "text": "Increase in disaster-related deaths: risks and social impacts of evacuation", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". Annals of the ICRP, 45(2_suppl), 123-128.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Normile (2021). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat", "children": [ { "text": "Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Science", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ".{/ref} As we see from the figures above, evacuation stress and disruption are estimated to have contributed to several thousand early deaths. Only one death has been linked to the impact of radiation. We don\u2019t know what the possible death toll would have been ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "without", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " any evacuation. That\u2019s why a no-evacuation strategy, if a future accident was to occur, seems unlikely.\u00a0However, many have called for governments to develop early assessments and protocols of radiation risks, the scale of evacuation needed, and infrastructure to make sure that the disruption to those that are displaced is kept to a minimum.{ref}Normile (2021). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat", "children": [ { "text": "Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Science", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Nuclear is one of the safest energy sources", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "No energy source comes with zero negative impact. We often think of nuclear energy as being more dangerous than other sources because these low-frequency but highly-visible events come to mind.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "However, when we ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy", "children": [ { "text": "compare the death rates", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " from nuclear energy to other sources, we see that it\u2019s one of the safest. The numbers that have died from nuclear accidents are very small in comparison to the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths", "children": [ { "children": [ { "text": "millions", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " that die", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " from air pollution from fossil fuels ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "every year", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ". As the linked post shows, the death rate from nuclear is roughly comparable with most renewable energy technologies.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Since nuclear is also a key source of low-carbon energy, it can play a key role in a sustainable energy mix alongside renewables.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Explore more of our work on Energy", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Explore all the metrics \u2013 energy production, electricity consumption, and breakdown of fossil fuels, renewable and nuclear energy.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Get an overview of energy for any country on a single page.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Download our complete dataset of energy metrics on GitHub. It's open-access and free for anyone to use.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "See how access to electricity and clean cooking fuels vary across the world.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Explore long-term changes in energy production and consumption across the world.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "How much of our energy comes from fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear energy? See the breakdown of the energy mix.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Explore the breakdown of the electricity mix and how this is changing.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "See the long-term changes in coal, oil and gas production and consumption.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "How quickly are countries scaling up the production of renewable technologies? Explore the data.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Explore the long-term changes in nuclear energy production across the world.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Explore trends in transport technologies and emissions across the world.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "type": "article", "title": "Nuclear Energy", "authors": [ "Hannah Ritchie", "Pablo Rosado", "Max Roser" ], "excerpt": "Explore global data on nuclear energy production, and the safety of nuclear technologies.", "dateline": "July 10, 2020", "subtitle": "Explore global data on nuclear energy production, and the safety of nuclear technologies.", "sidebar-toc": false, "featured-image": "Nuclear-Energy.png" }, "createdAt": "2020-07-10T09:24:11.000Z", "published": false, "updatedAt": "2023-05-28T08:43:04.000Z", "revisionId": null, "publishedAt": "2020-07-10T08:24:11.000Z", "relatedCharts": [], "publicationContext": "listed" }	{ "errors": [ { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag list" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/help" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag list" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag image" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag list" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/card" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/card" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/card" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/card" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/card" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/card" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/card" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/card" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/card" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/card" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/card" }, { "name": "unexpected wp component tag", "details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag owid/grid" } ], "numBlocks": 108, "numErrors": 17, "wpTagCounts": { "html": 6, "list": 3, "image": 1, "column": 14, "columns": 7, "heading": 27, "owid/card": 11, "owid/grid": 1, "owid/help": 1, "paragraph": 132, "owid/prominent-link": 3 }, "htmlTagCounts": { "p": 132, "h2": 4, "h3": 12, "h4": 10, "h5": 1, "ul": 3, "div": 21, "figure": 1, "iframe": 5 } }	2020-07-10 08:24:11	2024-02-16 14:22:40	1LdHeNsv0EK1r9S8dumhRxMcyg0_Xc8xP8lep7rkWdyE	[ "Hannah Ritchie", "Pablo Rosado" ]	Explore global data on nuclear energy production, and the safety of nuclear technologies.	2020-07-10 09:24:11	2023-05-28 08:43:04	https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy.png	{ "subnavId": "energy", "subnavCurrentId": "nuclear-energy" }	As the world attempts to transition its energy systems away from [fossil fuels](http://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels) towards low-carbon sources of energy, we have a range of energy options: [renewable energy](http://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy) technologies such as hydropower, wind and solar, but also nuclear power. Nuclear energy and renewable technologies typically emit very little CO2 per unit of energy production, and are [also much better](http://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy#as-well-as-being-safe-modern-renewables-and-nuclear-energy-are-both-extremely-low-carbon) than fossil fuels in limiting levels of local air pollution. But whilst some countries are investing heavily in increasing their nuclear energy supply, others are taking their plants offline. The role that nuclear energy plays in the energy system is therefore very specific to the given country. How much of our energy comes from nuclear power? How is its role changing over time? In this article we look at levels and changes in nuclear energy generation across the world, and its safety record in comparison to other sources of energy. ## Nuclear energy generation #### Global generation of nuclear energy <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL"/> Nuclear energy – alongside hydropower – is one of our oldest low-carbon energy technologies. Nuclear power generation has been around since the 1960s, but saw massive growth globally in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. In the interactive chart shown we see how global nuclear generation has changed over the past half-century. Following fast growth during the 1970s to 1990s, global generation has slowed significantly. In fact, we see a sharp dip in nuclear output following the Fukushima tsunami in Japan in 2011 _[we look at the impacts of this disaster later in this article]_, as countries took plants offline due to safety concerns. But we also see that in recent years, production has once again increased. #### Nuclear energy generation by country <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation"/> ##### Related charts: ### Per capita consumption of nuclear energy Which countries consume the most nuclear energy per person? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-nuclear ### Annual change in nuclear energy consumption How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in absolute terms? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-change-nuclear ### Annual percentage change in nuclear energy consumption How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in percentage terms? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-percentage-change-nuclear The global trend in nuclear energy generation masks the large differences in what role it plays at the country level. Some countries get no energy at all from nuclear – or are aiming to eliminate it completely – whilst others get the majority of their power from it. This interactive chart shows the amount of nuclear energy generated by country. We see that France, the USA, China, Russia and Canada all produce relatively large amounts of nuclear power. #### Two tips on how you can interact with this chart * View the data for any country as a line chart: click on any country to see its change over time, or by using the 'CHART' tab at the bottom. * Add any other country to the line chart: click on the Add country button to compare with any other country. ## Nuclear in the energy and electricity mix ### What share of primary energy comes from nuclear? <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-primary-energy"/> We previously looked nuclear output in terms of energy units – how much each country produces in terawatt-hours. But to understand how large of a role nuclear plays in the energy system we need to put this in perspective of total energy consumption. This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from nuclear sources. Note that this data is based on primary energy calculated by the 'substitution method' which attempts to correct for the inefficiencies in fossil fuel production. It does this by converting non-fossil fuel sources to their 'input equivalents': the amount of primary energy that would be required to produce the same amount of energy if it came from fossil fuels. Here [we describe this adjustment](https://ourworldindata.org/energy-substitution-method) in more detail. In 2019, just over 4% of global primary energy came from nuclear power. Note that this is based on nuclear energy's share in the _energy_ mix. Energy consumption represents the sum of electricity, transport and heating. We look at the _electricity_ mix below. ### What share of electricity comes from nuclear? <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear"/> In the sections above we looked at the role of nuclear in the total _energy_ mix_. _This includes not only electricity, but also transport and heating. Electricity forms only one component of energy consumption. Since transport and heating tend to be harder to decarbonize – they are more reliant on oil and gas – nuclear and renewables tend to have a higher share in the electricity mix versus the total energy mix. This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from nuclear sources. Globally, around 10% of our electricity comes from nuclear. But some countries rely on it heavily: it provides more than 70% of electricity in France, and more than 40% in Sweden. ## Safety of nuclear energy ### What are the safest sources of energy? Energy has been critical to the human progress we’ve seen over the last few centuries. As the United Nations rightly [says](https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/): “energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.” But while energy brings us massive benefits, it’s not without its downsides. Energy production can have negative impacts on human health and the environment in three ways. The first is air pollution: millions of people die prematurely every year as a result of [air pollution](https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths). Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass – wood, dung, and charcoal – are responsible for most of those deaths. The second is accidents. This includes accidents that happen in the mining and extraction of the fuels – coal, uranium, rare metals, oil, and gas. And it also includes accidents that occur in the transport of raw materials and infrastructure, the construction of the power plant, or their maintenance. The third is greenhouse gas emissions: fossil fuels are the main source of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of climate change. In 2020, 91% of [global CO2 emissions](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-co2-emissions-fossil-land?stackMode=relative) came from fossil fuels and industry.{ref}Pierre Friedlingstein, Matthew W. Jones, Michael O'Sullivan, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee, C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Quéré, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Rob B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Laurent Bopp, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Kim I. Currie, Bertrand Decharme, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Wiley Evans, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Thomas Gasser, Dennis Gilfillan, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Atul Jain, Steve D. Jones, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne Körtzinger, Peter Landschützer, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lefèvre, Sebastian Lienert, Junjie Liu, Gregg Marland, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, David R. Munro, Julia E.M.S Nabel Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Tsuneo Ono, Denis Pierrot, Benjamin Poulter, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Thais M Rosan, Jörg Schwinger, Clemens Schwingshackl, Roland Séférian, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Francesco Tubiello, Guido van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Chisato Wada Rik Wanninkhof, Andrew J. Watson, David Willis, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng. Global Carbon Budget 2021, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 2021.{/ref} No energy source is completely safe. They all have short-term impacts on human health, either through air pollution or accidents. And they all have long-term impacts by contributing to climate change. But, their contribution to each differs enormously. Fossil fuels are both the dirtiest and most dangerous in the short term, and emit the most greenhouse gases per unit of energy. This means that there are thankfully no trade-offs here: low-carbon energy sources are also the safest. From the perspective of both human health and climate change, it matters less whether we transition to nuclear power _or_ renewable energy, and more that we stop relying on fossil fuels. ### Nuclear and renewables are far, far safer than fossil fuels Before we consider the long-term impacts of climate change, let’s look at how each source stacks up in terms of short-term health risks. To make these comparisons fair we can’t just look at the _total_ deaths from each source: fossil fuels still dominate our global electricity mix, so we would expect that they would kill more people. Instead, we compare them based on the estimated number of deaths they cause _per unit of electricity_. This is measured in terawatt-hours. One terawatt-hour is about the same as the annual electricity consumption of 150,000 citizens in the European Union.{ref}Per capita electricity consumption in the EU-27 in 2021 [was around](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~European+Union+%2827%29&Total+or+Breakdown=Total&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Per+capita+generation) 6,400 kWh. 1 terawatt-hour is equal to 1,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours. So, we get this figure by dividing 1,000,000,000 by 6,400 ≈ 150,000 people.{/ref} This includes deaths from air pollution and accidents in the supply chain.{ref}The following sources were used to calculate these death rates. Fossil fuels and biomass: these figures are taken directly from Markandya, A., & Wilkinson, P. (2007). [Electricity generation and health](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61253-7). _The Lancet_, 370(9591), 979-990. Nuclear: I have calculated these figures based on the assumption of 433 deaths from Chernobyl and 2314 from Fukushima. These figures are based on the most recent estimates from UNSCEAR and the Government of Japan. In a [related article](https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima), I detail where these figures come from. I have calculated death _rates_ by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production [from nuclear](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL) from 1965 to 2021, which is 96,876 TWh. Hydropower: The paper by Sovacool et al. (2016) provides a death _rate_ for hydropower from 1990 to 2013. However, this period excludes some very large hydropower accidents which occurred prior to 1990. I have therefore calculated a death rate for hydropower from 1965 to 2021 based on the list of hydropower accidents provided in Sovacool et al. (2016), which extends back to the 1950s. Since this database ends in 2013, I have also included the Saddle Dam accident in Laos in 2018, which killed 71 people. The total number of deaths from hydropower accidents from 1965 to 2021 was approximately 176,000. 171,000 of these deaths were from the Banqian Dam Failure in China in 1975. I have calculated death _rates_ by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production [from hydropower](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/hydropower-consumption?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL) from 1965 to 2021, which is 138,175 TWh. Solar and wind: these figures are taken directly from: Sovacool, B. K., Andersen, R., Sorensen, S., Sorensen, K., Tienda, V., Vainorius, A., … & Bjørn-Thygesen, F. (2016). [Balancing safety with sustainability: assessing the risk of accidents for modern low-carbon energy systems](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615009877). _Journal of Cleaner Production_, 112, 3952-3965. In this analysis the authors compiled a database of as many energy-related accidents as possible based on an extensive search of academic databases and news reports, and derived death rates for each source over the period from 1990 to 2013. Since this database has not been extended since then, it’s not possible to provide post-2013 death rates.{/ref} Let’s look at this comparison in the chart. Fossil fuels and biomass kill many more people than nuclear and modern renewables per unit of electricity. Coal is, by far, the dirtiest. Even then, these estimates for fossil fuels are likely to be very conservative. They are based on power plants in Europe, which have good pollution controls, and are based on older models of the health impacts of air pollution. As I discuss in more detail at the end of this article, _global_ death rates from fossil fuels based on the most recent research on air pollution are likely to be even higher. Our perceptions of the safety of nuclear energy are strongly influenced by two accidents: Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. These were tragic events. However, compared to the millions that die from fossil fuels _every year _the final death tolls were very low. To calculate the death rates used here I assume a death toll of 433 from Chernobyl, and 2,314 from Fukushima.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available [online](https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html). Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27–31, 2013.{/ref} If you are interested in this, I look at how many died in each accident in detail in a [related article](https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima). The other source which is heavily influenced by a few large-scale accidents is hydropower. Its death rate since 1965 is 1.3 deaths per TWh. This rate is almost completely dominated by one event: the Banqiao Dam Failure in China in 1975. It killed approximately 171,000 people. Otherwise, hydropower was very safe, with a death rate of just 0.04 deaths per TWh – comparable to nuclear, solar, and wind. Finally, we have solar and wind. The death rates from both of these sources are low, but not zero. A small number of people die in accidents in supply chains – ranging from helicopter collisions with turbines; fires during the installation of turbines or panels; and drownings on offshore wind sites. People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart – between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap. The key insight is that they are _all_ much, much safer than fossil fuels. Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh"/> ### Putting death rates from energy in perspective Looking at deaths per terawatt-hour can seem abstract. Let’s try to put it in perspective. Let’s consider how many deaths each source would cause for an average town of 150,000 people in the European Union, which – as I’ve said before – consumes one terawatt-hour of electricity per year. Let’s call this town ‘Euroville’. If Euroville was completely powered by coal we’d expect _at least_ 25 people to die prematurely every year from it. Most of these people would die from air pollution. This is how a coal-powered Euroville would compare with towns powered entirely by each energy source: * Coal: 25 people would die prematurely every year; * Oil: 18 people would die prematurely every year; * Gas: 3 people would die prematurely every year; * Hydropower: In an average year 1 person would die; * Wind: In an average year nobody would die. A death rate of 0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour means every 25 years a single person would die; * Nuclear: In an average year nobody would die – only every 33 years would someone die. * Solar: In an average year nobody would die – only every 50 years would someone die. ### The safest energy sources are also the cleanest The good news is that there is no trade-off between the safest sources of energy in the short term, and the least damaging for the climate in the long term. They are one and the same, as the chart below shows. In the chart, on the left-hand side, we have the same comparison of death rates from accidents and air pollution that we just looked at. On the right, we have the amount of greenhouse gas that are emitted _per unit_ of electricity production. These are not just the emissions from the burning of fuels, but also from the mining, transportation and maintenance over a power plant’s lifetime.{ref}Schlömer S., T. Bruckner, L. Fulton, E. Hertwich, A. McKinnon, D. Perczyk, J. Roy, R. Schaeffer, R. Sims, P. Smith, and R. Wiser, 2014: Annex III: Technology-specific cost and performance parameters. In: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. The IPCC AR5 report was published in 2014, and relies on studies conducted several years prior to its publication. For technologies which have been developing rapidly – namely solar, wind and other renewables, production technologies and intensities have changed significantly since then, and will continue to change as energy systems decarbonize. Life-cycle figures for nuclear, solar, wind and hydropower have therefore been adopted by the more recent publication by Pehl et al. (2017), published in _Nature Energy._ Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Humpenöder, F., Popp, A., Hertwich, E. G., & Luderer, G. (2017). [Understanding future emissions from low-carbon power systems by integration of life-cycle assessment and integrated energy modelling](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0032-9). _Nature Energy_, 2(12), 939-945. The Carbon Brief provides a clear discussion of the significance of these more recent lifecycle analyses in detail [here](https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints). Since oil is conventionally not used for electricity production, it is not included in the IPCC’s reported figures per kilowatt-hour. Figures for oil have therefore been taken from Turconi et al. (2013). It reports emissions in kilograms of CO2eq per megawatt-hour. Emissions factors for all other technologies are consistent with results from the IPCC. The range it gives for oil is 530–900: I have here taken the midpoint estimate (715 kgCO2eq/MWh, which is also 715 gCO2eq/kWh). Turconi, R., Boldrin, A., & Astrup, T. (2013). [Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032113005534). _Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews_, 28, 555-565.{/ref} Coal, again, is the dirtiest fuel. It emits much more greenhouse gases than other sources – hundreds of times more than nuclear, solar, and wind. Oil and gas are also much worse than nuclear and renewables, but to a lesser extent than coal. Unfortunately, the global electricity mix is still dominated by fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas account for [around 60%](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~OWID_WRL&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Select+a+source=Fossil+fuels&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Share+of+total+generation). If we want to stop climate change we have a great opportunity in front of us: we can transition away from them to nuclear and renewables, and also reduce deaths from accidents and air pollution as a side effect.{ref}Burgherr, P., & Hirschberg, S. (2014). [Comparative risk assessment of severe accidents in the energy sector](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142151400072X). Energy Policy, 74, S45-S56. McCombie, C., & Jefferson, M. (2016). Renewable and nuclear electricity: Comparison of environmental impacts. Energy Policy, 96, 758-769. Hirschberg, S., Bauer, C., Burgherr, P., Cazzoli, E., Heck, T., Spada, M., & Treyer, K. (2016). [Health effects of technologies for power generation: Contributions from normal operation, severe accidents and terrorist threat](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301240). Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 145, 373-387. Luderer, G., Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Gibon, T., Bodirsky, B. L., de Boer, H. S., … & Mima, S. (2019). [Environmental co-benefits and adverse side-effects of alternative power sector decarbonization strategies](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095183201500277X). Nature Communications, 10(1), 1-13. Hertwich, E. G., Gibon, T., Bouman, E. A., Arvesen, A., Suh, S., Heath, G. A., … & Shi, L. (2015). [Integrated life-cycle assessment of electricity-supply scenarios confirms global environmental benefit of low-carbon technologies](https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6277). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(20), 6277-6282.{/ref} This transition will not only protect future generations, but it will also come with huge health benefits for the current one. <Image filename="5-Bar-chart-–-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy.png" alt=""/> ### How many people has nuclear energy saved? When people discuss the safety of nuclear energy they often focus on the number of deaths it has caused. But as we looked at previously, nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest energy sources – per unit of energy it results in hundreds of fewer deaths than coal, oil or gas, and is comparable to modern renewables such as solar or wind. By this reasoning, we should perhaps turn this question on its head and ask: "How many lives has nuclear energy saved?", or "How many lives could have been saved if countries had not abandoned it?" In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Germany announced plans to phase out nuclear power generation: over the period from 2011 to 2017 it shut down 10 of its 17 nuclear facilities, and plans to close the remaining reactors in 2022.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). [The Private and External Costs of Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out](https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598) (No. w26598). _National Bureau of Economic Research_.{/ref} Because nuclear is safer than its main alternatives this policy decision cost lives. Replacing nuclear energy with fossil fuels kills people. This is likely to be the case in the recent example of Germany. Most of Germany’s energy deficit from scrapping nuclear was filled by increased coal production – which is, as we just saw, the most polluting source with the largest health impacts. Analysis by Stephen Jarvis, Olivier Deschenes, and Akshaya Jha (2020) estimates that Germany’s nuclear phase-out has come at the cost of more than 1,100 additional deaths each year as a result of air pollution.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). [The Private and External Costs of Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out](https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598) (No. w26598). _National Bureau of Economic Research_.{/ref} Germany’s plan to make its energy systems safer has done exactly the opposite. In a study published in the journal _Environmental Science and Technology_, Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen (2013) aimed to answer the question ‘how many lives has nuclear power saved?’.{ref}Kharecha, P. A., & Hansen, J. E. (2013). [Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es3051197). _Environmental Science & Technology_, 47(9), 4889-4895.{/ref} They analysed how many more people would have died over the period from 1971 to 2009 if nuclear energy had been replaced by fossil fuels. The death toll would have depended on the mix of fossil fuels used to replace nuclear – more would have died if more coal was used than oil or gas – but they estimate that nuclear power has globally saved about two million lives.{ref}van der Merwe, A. (2019). [Nuclear energy saves lives](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01749-8). _Nature_, 570(7759), 36.{/ref} ### What was the death toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima? Nuclear energy is an important source of low-carbon energy. But, there is [strong public opposition](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/public-opposition-to-nuclear-energy-production) to it, often because of concerns around safety. These concerns are often sparked by memories of two nuclear accidents: the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011.{ref}The third incident that often comes to mind was the Three Mile Island accident in the US in 1979. This was rated as a level five event (“Accident with Wider Consequences”) on the seven-point _International Nuclear Event Scale_. No one died directly from this incident, and follow-up epidemiological studies have not found a clear link between the incident and long-term health impacts. Hatch, M. C., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1990). [Cancer near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant: radiation emissions](https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/132/3/397/103678). _American Journal of Epidemiology_, 132(3), 397-412. Hatch, M. C., Wallenstein, S., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1991). [Cancer rates after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and proximity of residence to the plant](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1405170/). _American Journal of Public Healt_h, 81(6), 719-724.{/ref} These two events were by far the largest nuclear accidents in history; the only disasters to receive a level 7 (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale. How many people died in these nuclear disasters, and what can we learn from them? ### How many died from the nuclear accident in Chernobyl? In April 1986, the core of one of the four reactors at Chernobyl nuclear plant, in Ukraine, melted down and exploded. It was the worst nuclear disaster in human history. There are several categories of deaths linked to the disaster – for some we have a good idea of how many died, for others we have a range of plausible deaths. #### Direct deaths from the accident 30 people died during or very soon after the incident. Two plant workers died almost immediately in the explosion from the reactor. Overall, 134 emergency workers, plant operators, and firemen were exposed to levels of radiation high enough to suffer from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). 28 of these 134 workers died in the weeks that followed, which takes the total to 30.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available [online](https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html).{/ref} #### Later deaths of workers and firemen A point of dispute is whether any more of the 134 workers with ARS died as a result of radiation exposure. In 2008, several decades after the incident, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published a large synthesis of the latest scientific evidence.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available [online](https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html).{/ref} It reported that a further 19 ARS survivors had died by 2006. But many of these deaths were not related to any condition caused by radiation exposure. Seven were related to diseases not related to cancers including tuberculosis, liver disease, and stroke; six were from heart attacks; one from a trauma incident; and five died from cancers.{ref}The UNSCEAR (2008) report lists the causes of death in each of these survivors in Table D4 of the appendix.{/ref} It’s difficult to say how many of these deaths could be attributed to the Chernobyl accident – it’s not implausible it played a role in at least some of them, especially the five cancer deaths. #### Thyroid cancer deaths in children through contaminated milk Most of the population was not exposed to levels of radiation that would put them at risk of negative health impacts. However, the slow response to the disaster meant that some individuals were exposed to the short-lived radionuclide Iodine-131 (131I) through the contamination of milk. Radioactive fallout settled on pasture grass across the region; this contaminated milk supplies and leafy vegetables that were consumed in the days immediately after the incident. This exposure to 131I has not been linked to increased cancer risk in the _adult_ population, but several studies have shown an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in those who were children and adolescents around this time. Figuring out how many cases of thyroid cancer in this young population were caused by the accident is not straightforward. This is because there was a large increase in screening efforts in the aftermath of the disaster. It’s not uncommon for thyroid cancer cases to go undetected – and have no negative impact on an individual’s life. Increased screening, particularly in child populations, would result in finding many cases of cancer that would normally go undetected. In 2018, UNSCEAR published its latest findings on thyroid cancers attributed to the Chernobyl disaster. Over the period from 1991 to 2015, there were 19,233 cases of thyroid cancer in patients who were younger than 18 at the time of the disaster across Ukraine, Belarus, and exposed regions of Russia. UNSCEAR concluded that around one-quarter of these cases _could_ be linked to radiation exposure. That would mean 4,808 thyroid cancer cases.{ref}25% of 19,233 is 4808 cases.{/ref} By 2005, it was reported that 15 of these thyroid cancer cases had been fatal.{ref}This figure was included in the UNSCEAR’s 2008 report. I found no updated figure for fatalities in its 2018 report.{/ref} However, it was likely that this figure would increase: at least some of those still living with thyroid cancer will eventually die from it. It’s therefore not possible to give a definitive number, but we can look at survival rates and outcomes to get an estimate. Thankfully the prognosis for thyroid cancer in children is very good. Many patients that have undergone treatment have seen either a partial or complete remission.{ref}Reiners, C. (2011). Clinical experiences with radiation induced thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. Genes, 2(2), 374-383.{/ref} Large-scale studies report a 20-year survival rate of 92% for thyroid cancer.{ref}Hogan, A. R., Zhuge, Y., Perez, E. A., Koniaris, L. G., Lew, J. I., & Sola, J. E. (2009). Pediatric thyroid carcinoma: incidence and outcomes in 1753 patients. Journal of Surgical Research, 156(1), 167-172.{/ref}. Others show an even better prognosis, with a survival rate of 98% after 40 years.{ref}Hay, I. D., Gonzalez-Losada, T., Reinalda, M. S., Honetschlager, J. A., Richards, M. L., & Thompson, G. B. (2010). Long-term outcome in 215 children and adolescents with papillary thyroid cancer treated during 1940 through 2008. [World Journal of Surgery](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00268-009-0364-0), 34(6), 1192-1202.{/ref} If we combine standard survival rates with our number of radiation-induced cancer cases – 4,808 cases – we might estimate that the number of deaths could be in the range of 96 to 385. This comes from the assumption of a survival rate of 92% to 98% (or, to flip it, a mortality rate of 2% to 8%).{ref}2% of 4808 is 96, and 8% is 385.{/ref} This figure comes with significant uncertainty. #### Deaths in the general population Finally, there has been significant concern about cancer risks to the wider population across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other parts of Europe. This topic remains controversial. Some reports in the early 2000s estimated much higher death tolls ranging from 16,000 to 60,000.{ref}Cardis et al. (2006). Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. International Journal of Cancer. Available [online](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7087/full/440982a.html?foxtrotcallback=true). Fairlie and Sumner (2006). An independent scientific evaluation of health and environmental effects 20 years after the nuclear disaster providing critical analysis of a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Available [online](http://www.chernobylreport.org/?p=summary).{/ref} In its 2005 report, the WHO estimated a potential death toll of 4,000.{ref}IAEA, WHO (2005/06). [Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/).{/ref} These estimates were based on the assumption that a large number of people were exposed to elevated levels of radioactivity, and that radioactivity increases cancer risk, even at very low levels of exposure (the so-called ‘[linear no-threshold model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model)’ of radiation exposure). More recent studies suggest that these estimates were too high. In 2008, the UNSCEAR concluded that radioactive exposure to the general public was very low, and that it does not expect adverse health impacts in the countries affected by Chernobyl, or the rest of Europe.{ref}As it details in its report: “The vast majority of the population were exposed to low levels of radiation comparable, at most, to a few times the annual natural background radiation levels and need not live in fear of serious health consequences. This is true for the populations of the three countries most affected by the Chernobyl accident, Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and even more so for the populations of other European countries.” “To date, there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure”{/ref} In 2018 it published a follow-up report, which came to the same conclusion. If the health impacts of radiation were directly and linearly related to the level of exposure, we would expect to find that cancer rates were highest in regions closest to the Chernobyl site, and would decline with distance from the plant. But studies do not find this. Cancer rates in Ukraine, for example, were not higher in locations closer to the site{ref}Leung, K. M., Shabat, G., Lu, P., Fields, A. C., Lukashenko, A., Davids, J. S., & Melnitchouk, N. (2019). [Trends in solid tumor incidence in Ukraine 30 years after chernobyl](https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JGO.19.00099). _Journal of Global Oncology_, _5_, 1-10.{/ref} This suggests that there is a lower limit to the level at which radiation exposure has negative health impacts. And that most people were not exposed to doses higher than this. #### Combined death toll from Chernobyl To summarize the previous paragraphs: * 2 workers died in the blast. * 28 workers and firemen died in the weeks that followed from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). * 19 ARS survivors had died later, by 2006; most from causes not related to radiation, but it’s not possible to rule all of them out (especially five that were cancer-related). * 15 people died from thyroid cancer due to milk contamination. These deaths were among children who were exposed to 131I from milk and food in the days after the disaster. This could increase to between 96 and 384 deaths, however, this figure is highly uncertain. * There is currently no evidence of adverse health impacts in the general population across affected countries, or wider Europe. Combined, the _confirmed_ death toll from Chernobyl is less than 100. We still do not know the _true_ death toll of the disaster. My best approximation is that the true death toll is in the range of 300 to 500 based on the available evidence.{ref}When we report on the safety of energy sources – in [this article](https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy) – I take the upper number of 433 deaths to be conservative.{/ref} ### How many died from the nuclear accident in Fukushima? In March 2011, there was an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. This accident was caused by the [2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami) – the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan’s history. Despite it being such a large event, so far, only one death has been attributed to the disaster. This includes both the direct impact of the accident itself and the radiation exposure that followed. However, it’s estimated that several thousand died indirectly from the stress and disruption of evacuation. #### Direct and cancer deaths from the accident No one died directly from the disaster. However, 40 to 50 people were injured as a result of physical injury from the blast, or radiation burns. In 2018, the Japanese government [reported that](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45423575)one worker has since died from lung cancer as a result of radiation exposure from the event. Over the last decade, many studies have assessed whether there has been any increased cancer risk for local populations. There appears to be no increased risk of cancer or other radiation-related health impacts. In 2016, the World Health Organization noted that there was a very low risk of increased cancer deaths in Japan.{ref}World Health Organization (2016). FAQs: Fukushima Five Years On. Available online at: [https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.{/ref](https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.%7B/ref)} Several reports from the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation came to the same conclusion: they report that any increase in radiation exposure for local populations was very low and they do not expect any increase in radiation-related health impacts.{ref}To quote UNSCEAR directly: “The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.” [Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records](http://www.unscear.org/docs/GAreports/A-68-46_e_V1385727.pdf), Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27–31, 2013.{/ref} #### Deaths from evacuation A more difficult question is how many people died indirectly through the _response_ and evacuation of locals from the area around Fukushima. Within a few weeks of the accident more than 160,000 people had moved away, either from official evacuation efforts or voluntarily from fear of further radioactive releases. Many were forced to stay in overcrowded gyms, schools, and public facilities for several months until more permanent emergency housing became available. The year after the 2011 disaster, the Japanese government estimated that 573 people had died indirectly as a result of the physical and mental stress of evacuation.{ref}The Yomiuri Shimbun, 573 deaths ‘related to nuclear crisis’, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 February 2012, [https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.](https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.%7B/ref){/ref} Since then, more rigorous assessments of increased mortality have been done, and this figure [was revised](https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/main-cat2/sub-cat2-6/20201225_kanrenshi.pdf) to 2,313 deaths in September 2020. These indirect deaths were attributed to the overall physical and mental stress of evacuation; being moved out of care settings; and disruption to healthcare facilities. It’s important to bear in mind that the region was also trying to deal with the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami: this makes it difficult to completely separate the indirect deaths related to the nuclear disaster disruptions, and those of the tsunami itself. Combined, the _confirmed_ death toll from Fukushima is therefore 2,314. ### What can we learn from these nuclear disasters? The context and response to these disasters were very different, and this is reflected in what people died from in the aftermath. Many more people died from Chernobyl than from Fukushima. There are several reasons for this. The first was reactor design. The nuclear reactors at Chernobyl were poorly designed to deal with this meltdown scenario. Its fatal RBMK reactor had no containment structure, allowing radioactive material to spill into the atmosphere. Fukushima’s reactors did have steel-and-concrete containment structures, although it’s likely that at least one of these was also breached. Crucially, the cooling systems of both plants worked very differently; at Chernobyl, the loss of cooling water as steam actually served to accelerate reactivity levels in the reactor core, creating a positive feedback loop toward the fatal explosion. The opposite is true of Fukushima, where the reactivity reduced as temperatures rose, effectively operating as a self-shutdown measure. The second factor was government response. In the case of Fukushima, the Japanese government responded quickly to the crisis with evacuation efforts extending rapidly from a 3-kilometer (km), to a 10-km, to a 20-km radius whilst the incident at the site continued to unfold. In contrast, the response in the former Soviet Union was one of denial and secrecy. It’s reported that in the days which followed the Chernobyl disaster, residents in surrounding areas were uninformed of the radioactive material in the air around them. In fact, it took at least three days for the Soviet Union to admit an accident had taken place, and did so after radioactive sensors at a Swedish plant were triggered by dispersing radionuclides. As we saw above, it’s estimated that approximately 4,808 thyroid cancer cases in children and adolescents could be linked to radiation exposure from contaminated milk and foods. This could have been prevented by an earlier response. Finally, while an early response from the Japanese government may have prevented a significant number of deaths, many [have questioned](https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b189ea) whether the scale of the evacuation effort – where more than 160,000 people were displaced – was necessary.{ref}Hayakawa, M. (2016). [Increase in disaster-related deaths: risks and social impacts of evacuation](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146645316666707). Annals of the ICRP, 45(2_suppl), 123-128. Normile (2021). [Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk](https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat). _Science_.{/ref} As we see from the figures above, evacuation stress and disruption are estimated to have contributed to several thousand early deaths. Only one death has been linked to the impact of radiation. We don’t know what the possible death toll would have been _without_ any evacuation. That’s why a no-evacuation strategy, if a future accident was to occur, seems unlikely. However, many have called for governments to develop early assessments and protocols of radiation risks, the scale of evacuation needed, and infrastructure to make sure that the disruption to those that are displaced is kept to a minimum.{ref}Normile (2021). [Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk](https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat). _Science_.{/ref} ### Nuclear is one of the safest energy sources No energy source comes with zero negative impact. We often think of nuclear energy as being more dangerous than other sources because these low-frequency but highly-visible events come to mind. However, when we [compare the death rates](https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy) from nuclear energy to other sources, we see that it’s one of the safest. The numbers that have died from nuclear accidents are very small in comparison to the [_millions_ that die](https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths) from air pollution from fossil fuels _every year_. As the linked post shows, the death rate from nuclear is roughly comparable with most renewable energy technologies. Since nuclear is also a key source of low-carbon energy, it can play a key role in a sustainable energy mix alongside renewables. ## Explore more of our work on Energy Explore all the metrics – energy production, electricity consumption, and breakdown of fossil fuels, renewable and nuclear energy. Get an overview of energy for any country on a single page. Download our complete dataset of energy metrics on GitHub. It's open-access and free for anyone to use. See how access to electricity and clean cooking fuels vary across the world. Explore long-term changes in energy production and consumption across the world. How much of our energy comes from fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear energy? See the breakdown of the energy mix. Explore the breakdown of the electricity mix and how this is changing. See the long-term changes in coal, oil and gas production and consumption. How quickly are countries scaling up the production of renewable technologies? Explore the data. Explore the long-term changes in nuclear energy production across the world. Explore trends in transport technologies and emissions across the world.	{ "id": 34893, "date": "2020-07-10T09:24:11", "guid": { "rendered": "https://owid.cloud/?page_id=34893" }, "link": "https://owid.cloud/nuclear-energy", "meta": { "owid_publication_context_meta_field": [], "owid_key_performance_indicators_meta_field": { "raw": "Nuclear is a safe and low-carbon source of energy.", "rendered": "<p>Nuclear is a safe and low-carbon source of energy.</p>\n" } }, "slug": "nuclear-energy", "tags": [], "type": "page", "title": { "rendered": "Nuclear Energy" }, "_links": { "self": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages/34893" } ], "about": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/types/page" } ], "author": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/users/17", "embeddable": true } ], "curies": [ { "href": "https://api.w.org/{rel}", "name": "wp", "templated": true } ], "replies": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=34893", "embeddable": true } ], "wp:term": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=34893", "taxonomy": "category", "embeddable": true }, { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=34893", "taxonomy": "post_tag", "embeddable": true } ], "collection": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages" } ], "wp:attachment": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=34893" } ], "version-history": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages/34893/revisions", "count": 14 } ], "wp:featuredmedia": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/media/41036", "embeddable": true } ], "predecessor-version": [ { "id": 57230, "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages/34893/revisions/57230" } ] }, "author": 17, "parent": 0, "status": "publish", "content": { "rendered": "\n<!-- formatting-options subnavId:energy subnavCurrentId:nuclear-energy -->\n\n\n\n<p>As the world attempts to transition its energy systems away from <a href=\"http://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels\">fossil fuels</a> towards low-carbon sources of energy, we have a range of energy options: <a href=\"http://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy\">renewable energy</a> technologies such as hydropower, wind and solar, but also nuclear power. Nuclear energy and renewable technologies typically emit very little CO<sub>2</sub> per unit of energy production, and are <a href=\"http://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy#as-well-as-being-safe-modern-renewables-and-nuclear-energy-are-both-extremely-low-carbon\">also much better</a> than fossil fuels in limiting levels of local air pollution.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But whilst some countries are investing heavily in increasing their nuclear energy supply, others are taking their plants offline. The role that nuclear energy plays in the energy system is therefore very specific to the given country.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>How much of our energy comes from nuclear power? How is its role changing over time? In this article we look at levels and changes in nuclear energy generation across the world, and its safety record in comparison to other sources of energy.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Nuclear energy generation</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Global generation of nuclear energy</h4>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>Nuclear energy \u2013 alongside hydropower \u2013 is one of our oldest low-carbon energy technologies.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nuclear power generation has been around since the 1960s, but saw massive growth globally in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. In the interactive chart shown we see how global nuclear generation has changed over the past half-century.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following fast growth during the 1970s to 1990s, global generation has slowed significantly. In fact, we see a sharp dip in nuclear output following the Fukushima tsunami in Japan in 2011 <em>[we look at the impacts of this disaster later in this article]</em>, as countries took plants offline due to safety concerns.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But we also see that in recent years, production has once again increased.</p>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h4>Nuclear energy generation by country</h4>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h5>Related charts:</h5>\n\n\n <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-nuclear</link-url>\n <title>Per capita consumption of nuclear energy</title>\n <content>\n\n<p>Which countries consume the most nuclear energy <em>per person</em>?</p>\n\n</content>\n <figure></figure>\n </block>\n\n <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-change-nuclear</link-url>\n <title>Annual change in nuclear energy consumption</title>\n <content>\n\n<p>How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in <em>absolute</em> terms?</p>\n\n</content>\n <figure></figure>\n </block>\n\n <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-percentage-change-nuclear</link-url>\n <title>Annual percentage change in nuclear energy consumption</title>\n <content>\n\n<p>How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in <em>percentage</em> terms?</p>\n\n</content>\n <figure></figure>\n </block></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>The global trend in nuclear energy generation masks the large differences in what role it plays at the country level.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some countries get no energy at all from nuclear \u2013 or are aiming to eliminate it completely \u2013 whilst others get the majority of their power from it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This interactive chart shows the amount of nuclear energy generated by country. We see that France, the USA, China, Russia and Canada all produce relatively large amounts of nuclear power.</p>\n\n\n\t<block type=\"help\">\n\t\t<content>\n\n<h4>Two tips on how you can interact with this chart</h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>View the data for any country as a line chart:</strong> click on any country to see its change over time, or by using the ‘CHART’ tab at the bottom.</li><li><strong>Add any other country to the line chart:</strong> click on the Add country button to compare with any other country.</li></ul>\n\n</content>\n\t</block></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Nuclear in the energy and electricity mix</h2>\n\n\n\n<h3>What share of primary energy comes from nuclear?</h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-primary-energy\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>We previously looked nuclear output in terms of energy units \u2013 how much each country produces in terawatt-hours. But to understand how large of a role nuclear plays in the energy system we need to put this in perspective of total energy consumption.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from nuclear sources.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Note that this data is based on primary energy calculated by the ‘substitution method’ which attempts to correct for the inefficiencies in fossil fuel production. It does this by converting non-fossil fuel sources to their ‘input equivalents’: the amount of primary energy that would be required to produce the same amount of energy if it came from fossil fuels. Here <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/energy-substitution-method\">we describe this adjustment</a> in more detail.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2019, just over 4% of global primary energy came from nuclear power.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Note that this is based on nuclear energy’s share in the <em>energy</em> mix. Energy consumption represents the sum of electricity, transport and heating. We look at the <em>electricity</em> mix below.</p>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h3>What share of electricity comes from nuclear?</h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>In the sections above we looked at the role of nuclear in the total <em>energy</em> mix<em>. </em>This includes not only electricity, but also transport and heating. Electricity forms only one component of energy consumption.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since transport and heating tend to be harder to decarbonize \u2013 they are more reliant on oil and gas \u2013 nuclear and renewables tend to have a higher share in the electricity mix versus the total energy mix.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from nuclear sources.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Globally, around 10% of our electricity comes from nuclear. But some countries rely on it heavily: it provides more than 70% of electricity in France, and more than 40% in Sweden.</p>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Safety of nuclear energy</h2>\n\n\n\n<h3>What are the safest sources of energy?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Energy has been critical to the human progress we\u2019ve seen over the last few centuries. As the United Nations rightly <a href=\"https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/\">says</a>: \u201cenergy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.\u201d</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But while energy brings us massive benefits, it\u2019s not without its downsides. Energy production can have negative impacts on human health and the environment in three ways.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first is <strong>air pollution</strong>: millions of people die prematurely every year as a result of <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths\">air pollution</a>. Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass \u2013 wood, dung, and charcoal \u2013 are responsible for most of those deaths.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second is <strong>accidents</strong>. This includes accidents that happen in the mining and extraction of the fuels \u2013 coal, uranium, rare metals, oil, and gas. And it also includes accidents that occur in the transport of raw materials and infrastructure, the construction of the power plant, or their maintenance.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The third is <strong>greenhouse gas emissions</strong>: fossil fuels are the main source of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of climate change. In 2020, 91% of <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-co2-emissions-fossil-land?stackMode=relative\">global CO<sub>2</sub> emissions</a> came from fossil fuels and industry.{ref}\u200b\u200bPierre Friedlingstein, Matthew W. Jones, Michael O’Sullivan, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee, C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Qu\u00e9r\u00e9, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Rob B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Laurent Bopp, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Kim I. Currie, Bertrand Decharme, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Wiley Evans, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Thomas Gasser, Dennis Gilfillan, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, \u00d6zg\u00fcr G\u00fcrses, Ian Harris, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Atul Jain, Steve D. Jones, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, J\u00fcrgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne K\u00f6rtzinger, Peter Landsch\u00fctzer, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lef\u00e8vre, Sebastian Lienert, Junjie Liu, Gregg Marland, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, David R. Munro, Julia E.M.S Nabel Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Tsuneo Ono, Denis Pierrot, Benjamin Poulter, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian R\u00f6denbeck, Thais M Rosan, J\u00f6rg Schwinger, Clemens Schwingshackl, Roland S\u00e9f\u00e9rian, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Francesco Tubiello, Guido van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Chisato Wada Rik Wanninkhof, Andrew J. Watson, David Willis, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, S\u00f6nke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng. Global Carbon Budget 2021, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 2021.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>No energy source is completely safe. They all have short-term impacts on human health, either through air pollution or accidents. And they all have long-term impacts by contributing to climate change.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, their contribution to each differs enormously. Fossil fuels are both the dirtiest and most dangerous in the short term, and emit the most greenhouse gases per unit of energy. This means that there are thankfully no trade-offs here: low-carbon energy sources are also the safest. From the perspective of both human health and climate change, it matters less whether we transition to nuclear power <em>or</em> renewable energy, and more that we stop relying on fossil fuels.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Nuclear and renewables are far, far safer than fossil fuels</h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>Before we consider the long-term impacts of climate change, let\u2019s look at how each source stacks up in terms of short-term health risks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To make these comparisons fair we can\u2019t just look at the <em>total</em> deaths from each source: fossil fuels still dominate our global electricity mix, so we would expect that they would kill more people.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, we compare them based on the estimated number of deaths they cause <em>per unit of electricity</em>. This is measured in terawatt-hours. One terawatt-hour is about the same as the annual electricity consumption of 150,000 citizens in the European Union.{ref}Per capita electricity consumption in the EU-27 in 2021 <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~European+Union+%2827%29&Total+or+Breakdown=Total&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Per+capita+generation\">was around</a> 6,400 kWh.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>1 terawatt-hour is equal to 1,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours. So, we get this figure by dividing 1,000,000,000 by 6,400 \u2248 150,000 people.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This includes deaths from air pollution and accidents in the supply chain.{ref}The following sources were used to calculate these death rates.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fossil fuels and biomass:</strong> these figures are taken directly from Markandya, A., & Wilkinson, P. (2007). <a href=\"https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61253-7\">Electricity generation and health</a>. <em>The Lancet</em>, 370(9591), 979-990.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nuclear: </strong>I have calculated these figures based on the assumption of 433 deaths from Chernobyl and 2314 from Fukushima. These figures are based on the most recent estimates from UNSCEAR and the Government of Japan. In a <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima\"><strong>related article</strong></a>, I detail where these figures come from.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have calculated death <em>rates</em> by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL\">from nuclear</a> from 1965 to 2021, which is 96,876 TWh.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hydropower:</strong> The paper by Sovacool et al. (2016) provides a death <em>rate</em> for hydropower from 1990 to 2013. However, this period excludes some very large hydropower accidents which occurred prior to 1990. I have therefore calculated a death rate for hydropower from 1965 to 2021 based on the list of hydropower accidents provided in Sovacool et al. (2016), which extends back to the 1950s. Since this database ends in 2013, I have also included the Saddle Dam accident in Laos in 2018, which killed 71 people.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The total number of deaths from hydropower accidents from 1965 to 2021 was approximately 176,000. 171,000 of these deaths were from the Banqian Dam Failure in China in 1975.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have calculated death <em>rates</em> by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/hydropower-consumption?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL\">from hydropower</a> from 1965 to 2021, which is 138,175 TWh.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Solar and wind: </strong>these figures are taken directly from: Sovacool, B. K., Andersen, R., Sorensen, S., Sorensen, K., Tienda, V., Vainorius, A., \u2026 & Bj\u00f8rn-Thygesen, F. (2016). <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615009877\">Balancing safety with sustainability: assessing the risk of accidents for modern low-carbon energy systems</a>. <em>Journal of Cleaner Production</em>, 112, 3952-3965. In this analysis the authors compiled a database of as many energy-related accidents as possible based on an extensive search of academic databases and news reports, and derived death rates for each source over the period from 1990 to 2013. Since this database has not been extended since then, it\u2019s not possible to provide post-2013 death rates.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s look at this comparison in the chart. Fossil fuels and biomass kill many more people than nuclear and modern renewables per unit of electricity. Coal is, by far, the dirtiest.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even then, these estimates for fossil fuels are likely to be very conservative. They are based on power plants in Europe, which have good pollution controls, and are based on older models of the health impacts of air pollution. As I discuss in more detail at the end of this article, <em>global</em> death rates from fossil fuels based on the most recent research on air pollution are likely to be even higher.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our perceptions of the safety of nuclear energy are strongly influenced by two accidents: Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. These were tragic events. However, compared to the millions that die from fossil fuels <em>every year </em>the final death tolls were very low. To calculate the death rates used here I assume a death toll of 433 from Chernobyl, and 2,314 from Fukushima.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available <a href=\"https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html\"><strong>online</strong></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27\u201331, 2013.{/ref} If you are interested in this, I look at how many died in each accident in detail in a <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima\"><strong>related article</strong></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other source which is heavily influenced by a few large-scale accidents is hydropower. Its death rate since 1965 is 1.3 deaths per TWh. This rate is almost completely dominated by one event: the Banqiao Dam Failure in China in 1975. It killed approximately 171,000 people. Otherwise, hydropower was very safe, with a death rate of just 0.04 deaths per TWh \u2013 comparable to nuclear, solar, and wind.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, we have solar and wind. The death rates from both of these sources are low, but not zero. A small number of people die in accidents in supply chains \u2013 ranging from helicopter collisions with turbines; fires during the installation of turbines or panels; and drownings on offshore wind sites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart \u2013 between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The key insight is that they are <em>all</em> much, much safer than fossil fuels.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Putting death rates from energy in perspective</h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>Looking at deaths per terawatt-hour can seem abstract. Let\u2019s try to put it in perspective.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s consider how many deaths each source would cause for an average town of 150,000 people in the European Union, which \u2013 as I\u2019ve said before \u2013 consumes one terawatt-hour of electricity per year. Let\u2019s call this town \u2018Euroville\u2019.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If Euroville was completely powered by coal we\u2019d expect <em>at least</em> 25 people to die prematurely every year from it.  Most of these people would die from air pollution. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is how a coal-powered Euroville would compare with towns powered entirely by each energy source:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Coal: </strong>25 people would die prematurely every year;</li><li><strong>Oil:</strong> 18 people would die prematurely every year;</li><li><strong>Gas:</strong> 3 people would die prematurely every year;</li><li><strong>Hydropower:</strong> In an average year 1 person would die;</li><li><strong>Wind:</strong> In an average year nobody would die. A death rate of 0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour means every 25 years a single person would die;</li><li><strong>Nuclear:</strong> In an average year nobody would die \u2013 only every 33 years would someone die.</li><li><strong>Solar:</strong> In an average year nobody would die \u2013 only every 50 years would someone die.</li></ul>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h3>The safest energy sources are also the cleanest</h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>The good news is that there is no trade-off between the safest sources of energy in the short term, and the least damaging for the climate in the long term. They are one and the same, as the chart below shows.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the chart, on the left-hand side, we have the same comparison of death rates from accidents and air pollution that we just looked at. On the right, we have the amount of greenhouse gas that are emitted <em>per unit</em> of electricity production. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are not just the emissions from the burning of fuels, but also from the mining, transportation and maintenance over a power plant\u2019s lifetime.{ref}Schl\u00f6mer S., T. Bruckner, L. Fulton, E. Hertwich, A. McKinnon, D. Perczyk, J. Roy, R. Schaeffer, R. Sims, P. Smith, and R. Wiser, 2014: Annex III: Technology-specific cost and performance parameters. In: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schl\u00f6mer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The IPCC AR5 report was published in 2014, and relies on studies conducted several years prior to its publication. For technologies which have been developing rapidly \u2013 namely solar, wind and other renewables, production technologies and intensities have changed significantly since then, and will continue to change as energy systems decarbonize. Life-cycle figures for nuclear, solar, wind and hydropower have therefore been adopted by the more recent publication by Pehl et al. (2017), published in <em>Nature Energy.</em></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Humpen\u00f6der, F., Popp, A., Hertwich, E. G., & Luderer, G. (2017). <a href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0032-9\">Understanding future emissions from low-carbon power systems by integration of life-cycle assessment and integrated energy modelling</a>. <em>Nature Energy</em>, 2(12), 939-945.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Carbon Brief provides a clear discussion of the significance of these more recent lifecycle analyses in detail <a href=\"https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints\"><strong>here</strong></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since oil is conventionally not used for electricity production, it is not included in the IPCC\u2019s reported figures per kilowatt-hour. Figures for oil have therefore been taken from Turconi et al. (2013). It reports emissions in kilograms of CO2eq per megawatt-hour. Emissions factors for all other technologies are consistent with results from the IPCC. The range it gives for oil is 530\u2013900: I have here taken the midpoint estimate (715 kgCO2eq/MWh, which is also 715 gCO2eq/kWh).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Turconi, R., Boldrin, A., & Astrup, T. (2013). <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032113005534\">Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations</a>. <em>Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews</em>, 28, 555-565.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Coal, again, is the dirtiest fuel. It emits much more greenhouse gases than other sources \u2013 hundreds of times more than nuclear, solar, and wind.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oil and gas are also much worse than nuclear and renewables, but to a lesser extent than coal.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, the global electricity mix is still dominated by fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas account for <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~OWID_WRL&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Select+a+source=Fossil+fuels&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Share+of+total+generation\">around 60%</a>. If we want to stop climate change we have a great opportunity in front of us: we can transition away from them to nuclear and renewables, and also reduce deaths from accidents and air pollution as a side effect.{ref}Burgherr, P., & Hirschberg, S. (2014). <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142151400072X\">Comparative risk assessment of severe accidents in the energy sector</a>. Energy Policy, 74, S45-S56.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>McCombie, C., & Jefferson, M. (2016). Renewable and nuclear electricity: Comparison of environmental impacts. Energy Policy, 96, 758-769.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hirschberg, S., Bauer, C., Burgherr, P., Cazzoli, E., Heck, T., Spada, M., & Treyer, K. (2016). <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301240\">Health effects of technologies for power generation: Contributions from normal operation, severe accidents and terrorist threat</a>. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 145, 373-387.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Luderer, G., Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Gibon, T., Bodirsky, B. L., de Boer, H. S., \u2026 & Mima, S. (2019). <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095183201500277X\">Environmental co-benefits and adverse side-effects of alternative power sector decarbonization strategies</a>. Nature Communications, 10(1), 1-13.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hertwich, E. G., Gibon, T., Bouman, E. A., Arvesen, A., Suh, S., Heath, G. A., \u2026 & Shi, L. (2015). <a href=\"https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6277\">Integrated life-cycle assessment of electricity-supply scenarios confirms global environmental benefit of low-carbon technologies</a>. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(20), 6277-6282.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This transition will not only protect future generations, but it will also come with huge health benefits for the current one.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2619\" height=\"1410\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-37712\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy.png 2619w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-400x215.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-800x431.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-150x81.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-768x413.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-1536x827.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-2048x1103.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2619px) 100vw, 2619px\" /></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h3>How many people has nuclear energy saved?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>When people discuss the safety of nuclear energy they often focus on the number of deaths it has caused. But as we looked at previously, nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest energy sources \u2013 per unit of energy it results in hundreds of fewer deaths than coal, oil or gas, and is comparable to modern renewables such as solar or wind.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>By this reasoning, we should perhaps turn this question on its head and ask: “How many lives has nuclear energy saved?”, or “How many lives could have been saved if countries had not abandoned it?”</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Germany announced plans to phase out nuclear power generation: over the period from 2011 to 2017 it shut down 10 of its 17 nuclear facilities, and plans to close the remaining reactors in 2022.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). <a href=\"https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598\">The Private and External Costs of Germany\u2019s Nuclear Phase-Out</a> (No. w26598). <em>National Bureau of Economic Research</em>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because nuclear is safer than its main alternatives this policy decision cost lives. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Replacing nuclear energy with fossil fuels kills people. This is likely to be the case in the recent example of Germany. Most of Germany\u2019s energy deficit from scrapping nuclear was filled by increased coal production \u2013 which is, as we just saw, the most polluting source with the largest health impacts. Analysis by Stephen Jarvis, Olivier Deschenes, and Akshaya Jha (2020) estimates that Germany\u2019s nuclear phase-out has come at the cost of more than 1,100 additional deaths each year as a result of air pollution.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). <a href=\"https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598\">The Private and External Costs of Germany\u2019s Nuclear Phase-Out</a> (No. w26598). <em>National Bureau of Economic Research</em>.{/ref} Germany\u2019s plan to make its energy systems safer has done exactly the opposite.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a study published in the journal <em>Environmental Science and Technology</em>, Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen (2013) aimed to answer the question \u2018how many lives has nuclear power saved?\u2019.{ref}Kharecha, P. A., & Hansen, J. E. (2013). <a href=\"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es3051197\">Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power</a>. <em>Environmental Science & Technology</em>, 47(9), 4889-4895.{/ref} They analysed how many more people would have died over the period from 1971 to 2009 if nuclear energy had been replaced by fossil fuels. The death toll would have depended on the mix of fossil fuels used to replace nuclear \u2013 more would have died if more coal was used than oil or gas \u2013 but they estimate that nuclear power has globally saved about two million lives.{ref}van der Merwe, A. (2019). <a href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01749-8\">Nuclear energy saves lives</a>. <em>Nature</em>, 570(7759), 36.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>What was the death toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Nuclear energy is an important source of low-carbon energy. But, there is <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/public-opposition-to-nuclear-energy-production\">strong public opposition</a> to it, often because of concerns around safety.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These concerns are often sparked by memories of two nuclear accidents: the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011.{ref}The third incident that often comes to mind was the Three Mile Island accident in the US in 1979. This was rated as a level five event (\u201cAccident with Wider Consequences\u201d) on the seven-point <em>International Nuclear Event Scale</em>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>No one died directly from this incident, and follow-up epidemiological studies have not found a clear link between the incident and long-term health impacts.<br><br>Hatch, M. C., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1990). <a href=\"https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/132/3/397/103678\">Cancer near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant: radiation emissions</a>. <em>American Journal of Epidemiology</em>, 132(3), 397-412.<br><br>Hatch, M. C., Wallenstein, S., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1991). <a href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1405170/\">Cancer rates after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and proximity of residence to the plant</a>. <em>American Journal of Public Healt</em>h, 81(6), 719-724.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These two events were by far the largest nuclear accidents in history; the only disasters to receive a level 7 (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>How many people died in these nuclear disasters, and what can we learn from them?</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>How many died from the nuclear accident in Chernobyl?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In April 1986, the core of one of the four reactors at Chernobyl nuclear plant, in Ukraine, melted down and exploded. It was the worst nuclear disaster in human history.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are several categories of deaths linked to the disaster \u2013 for some we have a good idea of how many died, for others we have a range of plausible deaths.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Direct deaths from the accident</h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>30 people died during or very soon after the incident. </strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two plant workers died almost immediately in the explosion from the reactor. Overall, 134 emergency workers, plant operators, and firemen were exposed to levels of radiation high enough to suffer from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). 28 of these 134 workers died in the weeks that followed, which takes the total to 30.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available <a href=\"https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html\"><strong>online</strong></a>.{/ref} </p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Later deaths of workers and firemen</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>A point of dispute is whether any more of the 134 workers with ARS died as a result of radiation exposure. In 2008, several decades after the incident, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published a large synthesis of the latest scientific evidence.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available <a href=\"https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html\"><strong>online</strong></a>.{/ref} It reported that a <strong>further 19 ARS survivors had died by 2006</strong>. But many of these deaths were not related to any condition caused by radiation exposure. Seven were related to diseases not related to cancers including tuberculosis, liver disease, and stroke; six were from heart attacks; one from a trauma incident; and five died from cancers.{ref}The UNSCEAR (2008) report lists the causes of death in each of these survivors in Table D4 of the appendix.{/ref} It\u2019s difficult to say how many of these deaths could be attributed to the Chernobyl accident \u2013 it\u2019s not implausible it played a role in at least some of them, especially the five cancer deaths.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Thyroid cancer deaths in children through contaminated milk</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of the population was not exposed to levels of radiation that would put them at risk of negative health impacts. However, the slow response to the disaster meant that some individuals were exposed to the short-lived radionuclide Iodine-131 (<sup>131</sup>I) through the contamination of milk. Radioactive fallout settled on pasture grass across the region; this contaminated milk supplies and leafy vegetables that were consumed in the days immediately after the incident.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This exposure to <sup>131</sup>I has not been linked to increased cancer risk in the <em>adult</em> population, but several studies have shown an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in those who were children and adolescents around this time. Figuring out how many cases of thyroid cancer in this young population were caused by the accident is not straightforward. This is because there was a large increase in screening efforts in the aftermath of the disaster. It\u2019s not uncommon for thyroid cancer cases to go undetected \u2013 and have no negative impact on an individual\u2019s life. Increased screening, particularly in child populations, would result in finding many cases of cancer that would normally go undetected.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2018, UNSCEAR published its latest findings on thyroid cancers attributed to the Chernobyl disaster. Over the period from 1991 to 2015, there were 19,233 cases of thyroid cancer in patients who were younger than 18 at the time of the disaster across Ukraine, Belarus, and exposed regions of Russia. UNSCEAR concluded that around one-quarter of these cases <em>could</em> be linked to radiation exposure. That would mean 4,808 thyroid cancer cases.{ref}25% of 19,233 is 4808 cases.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>By 2005, it was reported that <strong>15 of these thyroid cancer cases had been fatal</strong>.{ref}This figure was included in the UNSCEAR\u2019s 2008 report. I found no updated figure for fatalities in its 2018 report.{/ref} However, it was likely that this figure would increase: at least some of those still living with thyroid cancer will eventually die from it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s therefore not possible to give a definitive number, but we can look at survival rates and outcomes to get an estimate. Thankfully the prognosis for thyroid cancer in children is very good. Many patients that have undergone treatment have seen either a partial or complete remission.{ref}Reiners, C. (2011). Clinical experiences with radiation induced thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. Genes, 2(2), 374-383.{/ref} Large-scale studies report a 20-year survival rate of 92% for thyroid cancer.{ref}Hogan, A. R., Zhuge, Y., Perez, E. A., Koniaris, L. G., Lew, J. I., & Sola, J. E. (2009). Pediatric thyroid carcinoma: incidence and outcomes in 1753 patients. Journal of Surgical Research, 156(1), 167-172.{/ref}. Others show an even better prognosis, with a survival rate of 98% after 40 years.{ref}Hay, I. D., Gonzalez-Losada, T., Reinalda, M. S., Honetschlager, J. A., Richards, M. L., & Thompson, G. B. (2010). Long-term outcome in 215 children and adolescents with papillary thyroid cancer treated during 1940 through 2008. <a href=\"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00268-009-0364-0\">World Journal of Surgery</a>, 34(6), 1192-1202.{/ref}  </p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we combine standard survival rates with our number of radiation-induced cancer cases \u2013 4,808 cases \u2013 we might estimate that the <strong>number of deaths could be in the range of 96 to 385</strong>. This comes from the assumption of a survival rate of 92% to 98% (or, to flip it, a mortality rate of 2% to 8%).{ref}2% of 4808 is 96, and 8% is 385.{/ref} This figure comes with significant uncertainty.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Deaths in the general population</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, there has been significant concern about cancer risks to the wider population across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other parts of Europe. This topic remains controversial. Some reports in the early 2000s estimated much higher death tolls ranging from 16,000 to 60,000.{ref}Cardis et al. (2006). Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. International Journal of Cancer. Available <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7087/full/440982a.html?foxtrotcallback=true\"><strong>online</strong></a>.<br><br>Fairlie and Sumner (2006). An independent scientific evaluation of health and environmental effects 20 years after the nuclear disaster providing critical analysis of a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Available <a href=\"http://www.chernobylreport.org/?p=summary\"><strong>online</strong></a>.{/ref} In its 2005 report, the WHO estimated a potential death toll of 4,000.{ref}IAEA, WHO (2005/06). <a href=\"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/\">Chernobyl\u2019s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts</a>.{/ref} These estimates were based on the assumption that a large number of people were exposed to elevated levels of radioactivity, and that radioactivity increases cancer risk, even at very low levels of exposure (the so-called \u2018<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model\">linear no-threshold model</a>\u2019 of radiation exposure).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>More recent studies suggest that these estimates were too high. In 2008, the UNSCEAR concluded that radioactive exposure to the general public was very low, and that it does not expect adverse health impacts in the countries affected by Chernobyl, or the rest of Europe.{ref}As it details in its report:<br>\u201cThe vast majority of the population were exposed to low levels of radiation comparable, at most, to a few times the annual natural background radiation levels and need not live in fear of serious health consequences. This is true for the populations of the three countries most affected by the Chernobyl accident, Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and even more so for the populations of other European countries.\u201d</p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTo date, there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure\u201d{/ref} In 2018 it published a follow-up report, which came to the same conclusion. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the health impacts of radiation were directly and linearly related to the level of exposure, we would expect to find that cancer rates were highest in regions closest to the Chernobyl site, and would decline with distance from the plant. But studies do not find this. Cancer rates in Ukraine, for example, were not higher in locations closer to the site{ref}Leung, K. M., Shabat, G., Lu, P., Fields, A. C., Lukashenko, A., Davids, J. S., & Melnitchouk, N. (2019). <a href=\"https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JGO.19.00099\">Trends in solid tumor incidence in Ukraine 30 years after chernobyl</a>. <em>Journal of Global Oncology</em>, <em>5</em>, 1-10.{/ref} This suggests that there is a lower limit to the level at which radiation exposure has negative health impacts. And that most people were not exposed to doses higher than this.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Combined death toll from Chernobyl</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>To summarize the previous paragraphs: </p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>2 workers died in the blast.</strong></li><li><strong>28 workers and firemen died in the weeks that followed from acute radiation syndrome (ARS).</strong></li><li><strong>19 ARS survivors had died later, by 2006</strong>; most from causes not related to radiation, but it\u2019s not possible to rule all of them out (especially five that were cancer-related).</li><li><strong>15 people died from thyroid cancer due to milk contamination</strong>. These deaths were among children who were exposed to <sup>131</sup>I from milk and food in the days after the disaster. This could increase to between 96 and 384 deaths, however, this figure is highly uncertain.</li><li><strong>There is currently no evidence of adverse health impacts in the general population across affected countries, or wider Europe</strong>.</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Combined, the <em>confirmed</em> death toll from Chernobyl is less than 100. We still do not know the <em>true</em> death toll of the disaster. My best approximation is that the true death toll is in the range of 300 to 500 based on the available evidence.{ref}When we report on the safety of energy sources \u2013 in <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy\"><strong>this article</strong></a> \u2013 I take the upper number of 433 deaths to be conservative.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>How many died from the nuclear accident in Fukushima?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In March 2011, there was an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in \u014ckuma, Fukushima, Japan. This accident was caused by the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami\">2011 T\u014dhoku earthquake and tsunami</a> \u2013 the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan\u2019s history.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite it being such a large event, so far, only one death has been attributed to the disaster. This includes both the direct impact of the accident itself and the radiation exposure that followed. However, it\u2019s estimated that several thousand died indirectly from the stress and disruption of evacuation.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Direct and cancer deaths from the accident</h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>No one died directly from the disaster. </strong>However, 40 to 50 people were injured as a result of physical injury from the blast, or radiation burns.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2018, the Japanese government <a href=\"https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45423575\">reported that</a> <strong>one worker has since died</strong> from lung cancer as a result of radiation exposure from the event.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the last decade, many studies have assessed whether there has been any increased cancer risk for local populations. <strong>There appears to be no increased risk of cancer or other radiation-related health impacts</strong>. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2016, the World Health Organization noted that there was a very low risk of increased cancer deaths in Japan.{ref}World Health Organization (2016). FAQs: Fukushima Five Years On. Available online at: <a href=\"https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.%7B/ref\">https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.{/ref</a>} Several reports from the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation came to the same conclusion: they report that any increase in radiation exposure for local populations was very low and they do not expect any increase in radiation-related health impacts.{ref}To quote UNSCEAR directly: \u201cThe doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.\u201d<br><br><a href=\"http://www.unscear.org/docs/GAreports/A-68-46_e_V1385727.pdf\">Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records</a>, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27\u201331, 2013.{/ref} </p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Deaths from evacuation</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>A more difficult question is how many people died indirectly through the <em>response</em> and evacuation of locals from the area around Fukushima. Within a few weeks of the accident more than 160,000 people had moved away, either from official evacuation efforts or voluntarily from fear of further radioactive releases. Many were forced to stay in overcrowded gyms, schools, and public facilities for several months until more permanent emergency housing became available.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The year after the 2011 disaster, the Japanese government estimated that 573 people had died indirectly as a result of the physical and mental stress of evacuation.{ref}The Yomiuri Shimbun, 573 deaths \u2018related to nuclear crisis\u2019, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 February 2012, <a href=\"https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.%7B/ref\">https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.</a>{/ref} Since then, more rigorous assessments of increased mortality have been done, and this figure <a href=\"https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/main-cat2/sub-cat2-6/20201225_kanrenshi.pdf\">was revised</a> to 2,313 deaths in September 2020.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These indirect deaths were attributed to the overall physical and mental stress of evacuation; being moved out of care settings; and disruption to healthcare facilities. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s important to bear in mind that the region was also trying to deal with the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami: this makes it difficult to completely separate the indirect deaths related to the nuclear disaster disruptions, and those of the tsunami itself.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Combined, the <em>confirmed</em> death toll from Fukushima is therefore 2,314.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>What can we learn from these nuclear disasters?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The context and response to these disasters were very different, and this is reflected in what people died from in the aftermath.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many more people died from Chernobyl than from Fukushima. There are several reasons for this.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first was <strong>reactor design</strong>. The nuclear reactors at Chernobyl were poorly designed to deal with this meltdown scenario. Its fatal RBMK reactor had no containment structure, allowing radioactive material to spill into the atmosphere. Fukushima\u2019s reactors did have steel-and-concrete containment structures, although it\u2019s likely that at least one of these was also breached. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Crucially, the cooling systems of both plants worked very differently; at Chernobyl, the loss of cooling water as steam actually served to accelerate reactivity levels in the reactor core, creating a positive feedback loop toward the fatal explosion. The opposite is true of Fukushima, where the reactivity reduced as temperatures rose, effectively operating as a self-shutdown measure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second factor was <strong>government response</strong>. In the case of Fukushima, the Japanese government responded quickly to the crisis with evacuation efforts extending rapidly from a 3-kilometer (km), to a 10-km, to a 20-km radius whilst the incident at the site continued to unfold. In contrast, the response in the former Soviet Union was one of denial and secrecy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s reported that in the days which followed the Chernobyl disaster, residents in surrounding areas were uninformed of the radioactive material in the air around them. In fact, it took at least three days for the Soviet Union to admit an accident had taken place, and did so after radioactive sensors at a Swedish plant were triggered by dispersing radionuclides. As we saw above, it\u2019s estimated that approximately 4,808 thyroid cancer cases in children and adolescents could be linked to radiation exposure from contaminated milk and foods. This could have been prevented by an earlier response.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, while an early response from the Japanese government may have prevented a significant number of deaths, many <a href=\"https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b189ea\">have questioned</a> whether the scale of the evacuation effort \u2013 where more than 160,000 people were displaced \u2013 was necessary.{ref}Hayakawa, M. (2016). <a href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146645316666707\">Increase in disaster-related deaths: risks and social impacts of evacuation</a>. Annals of the ICRP, 45(2_suppl), 123-128.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Normile (2021). <a href=\"https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat\">Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk</a>. <em>Science</em>.{/ref} As we see from the figures above, evacuation stress and disruption are estimated to have contributed to several thousand early deaths. Only one death has been linked to the impact of radiation. We don\u2019t know what the possible death toll would have been <em>without</em> any evacuation. That\u2019s why a no-evacuation strategy, if a future accident was to occur, seems unlikely. However, many have called for governments to develop early assessments and protocols of radiation risks, the scale of evacuation needed, and infrastructure to make sure that the disruption to those that are displaced is kept to a minimum.{ref}Normile (2021). <a href=\"https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat\">Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk</a>. <em>Science</em>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Nuclear is one of the safest energy sources</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>No energy source comes with zero negative impact. We often think of nuclear energy as being more dangerous than other sources because these low-frequency but highly-visible events come to mind.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, when we <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy\">compare the death rates</a> from nuclear energy to other sources, we see that it\u2019s one of the safest. The numbers that have died from nuclear accidents are very small in comparison to the <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths\"><em>millions</em> that die</a> from air pollution from fossil fuels <em>every year</em>. As the linked post shows, the death rate from nuclear is roughly comparable with most renewable energy technologies.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since nuclear is also a key source of low-carbon energy, it can play a key role in a sustainable energy mix alongside renewables.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Explore more of our work on Energy</h2>\n\n\n\t<div class=\"wp-block-owid-grid \">\n\t\t\n <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy\">\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"COVID-19 data explorer\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n \n <div class=\"description\">\n \n\n<p>Explore all the metrics \u2013 energy production, electricity consumption, and breakdown of fossil fuels, renewable and nuclear energy.</p>\n\n\n </div>\n </div>\n </a>\n </div>\n\n <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/energy#country-profiles\">\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"COVID-19 country profiles\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n \n <div class=\"description\">\n \n\n<p>Get an overview of energy for any country on a single page.</p>\n\n\n </div>\n </div>\n </a>\n </div>\n\n <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n <a href=\"https://github.com/owid/energy-data\">\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"download complete COVID-19 dataset\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n \n <div class=\"description\">\n \n\n<p>Download our complete dataset of energy metrics on GitHub. It’s open-access and free for anyone to use.</p>\n\n\n </div>\n </div>\n </a>\n </div>\n\n <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/energy-access\">\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n \n <div class=\"description\">\n \n\n<p>See how access to electricity and clean cooking fuels vary across the world.</p>\n\n\n </div>\n </div>\n </a>\n </div>\n\n <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption\">\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n \n <div class=\"description\">\n \n\n<p>Explore long-term changes in energy production and consumption across the world.</p>\n\n\n </div>\n </div>\n </a>\n </div>\n\n <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/energy-mix\">\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n \n <div class=\"description\">\n \n\n<p>How much of our energy comes from fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear energy? See the breakdown of the energy mix.</p>\n\n\n </div>\n </div>\n </a>\n </div>\n\n <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/electricity-mix\">\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n \n <div class=\"description\">\n \n\n<p>Explore the breakdown of the electricity mix and how this is changing.</p>\n\n\n </div>\n </div>\n </a>\n </div>\n\n <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/fossil-fuels\">\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n \n <div class=\"description\">\n \n\n<p>See the long-term changes in coal, oil and gas production and consumption.</p>\n\n\n </div>\n </div>\n </a>\n </div>\n\n <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/renewable-energy\">\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n \n <div class=\"description\">\n \n\n<p>How quickly are countries scaling up the production of renewable technologies? Explore the data.</p>\n\n\n </div>\n </div>\n </a>\n </div>\n\n <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/nuclear-energy\">\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n \n <div class=\"description\">\n \n\n<p>Explore the long-term changes in nuclear energy production across the world.</p>\n\n\n </div>\n </div>\n </a>\n </div>\n\n <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n <a href=\"http://ourworldindata.org/transport\">\n <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n \n <div class=\"description\">\n \n\n<p>Explore trends in transport technologies and emissions across the world.</p>\n\n\n </div>\n </div>\n </a>\n </div>\n\n\t</div>", "protected": false }, "excerpt": { "rendered": "Explore global data on nuclear energy production, and the safety of nuclear technologies.", "protected": false }, "date_gmt": "2020-07-10T08:24:11", "modified": "2023-05-28T09:43:04", "template": "", "categories": [ 44, 49, 48 ], "menu_order": 120, "ping_status": "closed", "authors_name": [ "Hannah Ritchie", "Pablo Rosado" ], "modified_gmt": "2023-05-28T08:43:04", "comment_status": "closed", "featured_media": 41036, "featured_media_paths": { "thumbnail": "/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-150x79.png", "medium_large": "/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-768x404.png" } }

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34893

Nuclear Energy

nuclear-energy

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publish

<p>As the world attempts to transition its energy systems away from <a href="http://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels">fossil fuels</a> towards low-carbon sources of energy, we have a range of energy options: <a href="http://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy">renewable energy</a> technologies such as hydropower, wind and solar, but also nuclear power. Nuclear energy and renewable technologies typically emit very little CO<sub>2</sub> per unit of energy production, and are <a href="http://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy#as-well-as-being-safe-modern-renewables-and-nuclear-energy-are-both-extremely-low-carbon">also much better</a> than fossil fuels in limiting levels of local air pollution.</p>   <p>But whilst some countries are investing heavily in increasing their nuclear energy supply, others are taking their plants offline. The role that nuclear energy plays in the energy system is therefore very specific to the given country.</p>   <p>How much of our energy comes from nuclear power? How is its role changing over time? In this article we look at levels and changes in nuclear energy generation across the world, and its safety record in comparison to other sources of energy.</p>   <h2>Nuclear energy generation</h2>   <h4>Global generation of nuclear energy</h4>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <p>Nuclear energy – alongside hydropower – is one of our oldest low-carbon energy technologies.</p>   <p>Nuclear power generation has been around since the 1960s, but saw massive growth globally in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. In the interactive chart shown we see how global nuclear generation has changed over the past half-century.</p>   <p>Following fast growth during the 1970s to 1990s, global generation has slowed significantly. In fact, we see a sharp dip in nuclear output following the Fukushima tsunami in Japan in 2011 <em>[we look at the impacts of this disaster later in this article]</em>, as countries took plants offline due to safety concerns.</p>   <p>But we also see that in recent years, production has once again increased.</p> </div> </div>   <h4>Nuclear energy generation by country</h4>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe>   <h5>Related charts:</h5>    <p>Which countries consume the most nuclear energy <em>per person</em>?</p>     <p>How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in <em>absolute</em> terms?</p>     <p>How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in <em>percentage</em> terms?</p>  </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <p>The global trend in nuclear energy generation masks the large differences in what role it plays at the country level.</p>   <p>Some countries get no energy at all from nuclear – or are aiming to eliminate it completely – whilst others get the majority of their power from it.</p>   <p>This interactive chart shows the amount of nuclear energy generated by country. We see that France, the USA, China, Russia and Canada all produce relatively large amounts of nuclear power.</p>    <h4>Two tips on how you can interact with this chart</h4>   <ul><li><strong>View the data for any country as a line chart:</strong> click on any country to see its change over time, or by using the 'CHART' tab at the bottom.</li><li><strong>Add any other country to the line chart:</strong> click on the Add country button to compare with any other country.</li></ul>  </div> </div>   <h2>Nuclear in the energy and electricity mix</h2>   <h3>What share of primary energy comes from nuclear?</h3>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-primary-energy" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <p>We previously looked nuclear output in terms of energy units – how much each country produces in terawatt-hours. But to understand how large of a role nuclear plays in the energy system we need to put this in perspective of total energy consumption.</p>   <p>This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from nuclear sources.</p>   <p>Note that this data is based on primary energy calculated by the 'substitution method' which attempts to correct for the inefficiencies in fossil fuel production. It does this by converting non-fossil fuel sources to their 'input equivalents': the amount of primary energy that would be required to produce the same amount of energy if it came from fossil fuels. Here <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/energy-substitution-method">we describe this adjustment</a> in more detail.</p>   <p>In 2019, just over 4% of global primary energy came from nuclear power.</p>   <p>Note that this is based on nuclear energy's share in the <em>energy</em> mix. Energy consumption represents the sum of electricity, transport and heating. We look at the <em>electricity</em> mix below.</p> </div> </div>   <h3>What share of electricity comes from nuclear?</h3>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <p>In the sections above we looked at the role of nuclear in the total <em>energy</em> mix<em>. </em>This includes not only electricity, but also transport and heating. Electricity forms only one component of energy consumption.</p>   <p>Since transport and heating tend to be harder to decarbonize – they are more reliant on oil and gas – nuclear and renewables tend to have a higher share in the electricity mix versus the total energy mix.</p>   <p>This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from nuclear sources.</p>   <p>Globally, around 10% of our electricity comes from nuclear. But some countries rely on it heavily: it provides more than 70% of electricity in France, and more than 40% in Sweden.</p> </div> </div>   <h2>Safety of nuclear energy</h2>   <h3>What are the safest sources of energy?</h3>    <p>Energy has been critical to the human progress we’ve seen over the last few centuries. As the United Nations rightly <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/">says</a>: “energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.”</p>   <p>But while energy brings us massive benefits, it’s not without its downsides. Energy production can have negative impacts on human health and the environment in three ways.</p>   <p>The first is <strong>air pollution</strong>: millions of people die prematurely every year as a result of <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths">air pollution</a>. Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass – wood, dung, and charcoal – are responsible for most of those deaths.</p>   <p>The second is <strong>accidents</strong>. This includes accidents that happen in the mining and extraction of the fuels – coal, uranium, rare metals, oil, and gas. And it also includes accidents that occur in the transport of raw materials and infrastructure, the construction of the power plant, or their maintenance.</p>   <p>The third is <strong>greenhouse gas emissions</strong>: fossil fuels are the main source of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of climate change. In 2020, 91% of <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-co2-emissions-fossil-land?stackMode=relative">global CO<sub>2</sub> emissions</a> came from fossil fuels and industry.{ref}Pierre Friedlingstein, Matthew W. Jones, Michael O'Sullivan, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee, C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Quéré, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Rob B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Laurent Bopp, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Kim I. Currie, Bertrand Decharme, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Wiley Evans, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Thomas Gasser, Dennis Gilfillan, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Atul Jain, Steve D. Jones, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne Körtzinger, Peter Landschützer, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lefèvre, Sebastian Lienert, Junjie Liu, Gregg Marland, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, David R. Munro, Julia E.M.S Nabel Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Tsuneo Ono, Denis Pierrot, Benjamin Poulter, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Thais M Rosan, Jörg Schwinger, Clemens Schwingshackl, Roland Séférian, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Francesco Tubiello, Guido van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Chisato Wada Rik Wanninkhof, Andrew J. Watson, David Willis, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng. Global Carbon Budget 2021, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 2021.{/ref}</p>   <p>No energy source is completely safe. They all have short-term impacts on human health, either through air pollution or accidents. And they all have long-term impacts by contributing to climate change.</p>   <p>But, their contribution to each differs enormously. Fossil fuels are both the dirtiest and most dangerous in the short term, and emit the most greenhouse gases per unit of energy. This means that there are thankfully no trade-offs here: low-carbon energy sources are also the safest. From the perspective of both human health and climate change, it matters less whether we transition to nuclear power <em>or</em> renewable energy, and more that we stop relying on fossil fuels.</p>   <h3>Nuclear and renewables are far, far safer than fossil fuels</h3>   <div class="wp-block-columns"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <p>Before we consider the long-term impacts of climate change, let’s look at how each source stacks up in terms of short-term health risks.</p>   <p>To make these comparisons fair we can’t just look at the <em>total</em> deaths from each source: fossil fuels still dominate our global electricity mix, so we would expect that they would kill more people.</p>   <p>Instead, we compare them based on the estimated number of deaths they cause <em>per unit of electricity</em>. This is measured in terawatt-hours. One terawatt-hour is about the same as the annual electricity consumption of 150,000 citizens in the European Union.{ref}Per capita electricity consumption in the EU-27 in 2021 <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~European+Union+%2827%29&Total+or+Breakdown=Total&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Per+capita+generation">was around</a> 6,400 kWh.</p>   <p>1 terawatt-hour is equal to 1,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours. So, we get this figure by dividing 1,000,000,000 by 6,400 ≈ 150,000 people.{/ref}</p>   <p>This includes deaths from air pollution and accidents in the supply chain.{ref}The following sources were used to calculate these death rates.</p>   <p><strong>Fossil fuels and biomass:</strong> these figures are taken directly from Markandya, A., & Wilkinson, P. (2007). <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61253-7">Electricity generation and health</a>. <em>The Lancet</em>, 370(9591), 979-990.</p>   <p><strong>Nuclear: </strong>I have calculated these figures based on the assumption of 433 deaths from Chernobyl and 2314 from Fukushima. These figures are based on the most recent estimates from UNSCEAR and the Government of Japan. In a <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima"><strong>related article</strong></a>, I detail where these figures come from.</p>   <p>I have calculated death <em>rates</em> by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL">from nuclear</a> from 1965 to 2021, which is 96,876 TWh.</p>   <p><strong>Hydropower:</strong> The paper by Sovacool et al. (2016) provides a death <em>rate</em> for hydropower from 1990 to 2013. However, this period excludes some very large hydropower accidents which occurred prior to 1990. I have therefore calculated a death rate for hydropower from 1965 to 2021 based on the list of hydropower accidents provided in Sovacool et al. (2016), which extends back to the 1950s. Since this database ends in 2013, I have also included the Saddle Dam accident in Laos in 2018, which killed 71 people.</p>   <p>The total number of deaths from hydropower accidents from 1965 to 2021 was approximately 176,000. 171,000 of these deaths were from the Banqian Dam Failure in China in 1975.</p>   <p>I have calculated death <em>rates</em> by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/hydropower-consumption?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL">from hydropower</a> from 1965 to 2021, which is 138,175 TWh.</p>   <p><strong>Solar and wind: </strong>these figures are taken directly from: Sovacool, B. K., Andersen, R., Sorensen, S., Sorensen, K., Tienda, V., Vainorius, A., … & Bjørn-Thygesen, F. (2016). <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615009877">Balancing safety with sustainability: assessing the risk of accidents for modern low-carbon energy systems</a>. <em>Journal of Cleaner Production</em>, 112, 3952-3965. In this analysis the authors compiled a database of as many energy-related accidents as possible based on an extensive search of academic databases and news reports, and derived death rates for each source over the period from 1990 to 2013. Since this database has not been extended since then, it’s not possible to provide post-2013 death rates.{/ref}</p>   <p>Let’s look at this comparison in the chart. Fossil fuels and biomass kill many more people than nuclear and modern renewables per unit of electricity. Coal is, by far, the dirtiest.</p>   <p>Even then, these estimates for fossil fuels are likely to be very conservative. They are based on power plants in Europe, which have good pollution controls, and are based on older models of the health impacts of air pollution. As I discuss in more detail at the end of this article, <em>global</em> death rates from fossil fuels based on the most recent research on air pollution are likely to be even higher.</p>   <p>Our perceptions of the safety of nuclear energy are strongly influenced by two accidents: Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. These were tragic events. However, compared to the millions that die from fossil fuels <em>every year </em>the final death tolls were very low. To calculate the death rates used here I assume a death toll of 433 from Chernobyl, and 2,314 from Fukushima.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available <a href="https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html"><strong>online</strong></a>.</p>   <p>Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27–31, 2013.{/ref} If you are interested in this, I look at how many died in each accident in detail in a <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima"><strong>related article</strong></a>.</p>   <p>The other source which is heavily influenced by a few large-scale accidents is hydropower. Its death rate since 1965 is 1.3 deaths per TWh. This rate is almost completely dominated by one event: the Banqiao Dam Failure in China in 1975. It killed approximately 171,000 people. Otherwise, hydropower was very safe, with a death rate of just 0.04 deaths per TWh – comparable to nuclear, solar, and wind.</p>   <p>Finally, we have solar and wind. The death rates from both of these sources are low, but not zero. A small number of people die in accidents in supply chains – ranging from helicopter collisions with turbines; fires during the installation of turbines or panels; and drownings on offshore wind sites.</p>   <p>People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart – between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap.</p>   <p>The key insight is that they are <em>all</em> much, much safer than fossil fuels.</p>   <p>Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> </div> </div>   <p></p>   <h3>Putting death rates from energy in perspective</h3>   <div class="wp-block-columns"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <p>Looking at deaths per terawatt-hour can seem abstract. Let’s try to put it in perspective.</p>   <p>Let’s consider how many deaths each source would cause for an average town of 150,000 people in the European Union, which – as I’ve said before – consumes one terawatt-hour of electricity per year. Let’s call this town ‘Euroville’.</p>   <p>If Euroville was completely powered by coal we’d expect <em>at least</em> 25 people to die prematurely every year from it.  Most of these people would die from air pollution. </p>   <p>This is how a coal-powered Euroville would compare with towns powered entirely by each energy source:</p>   <ul><li><strong>Coal: </strong>25 people would die prematurely every year;</li><li><strong>Oil:</strong> 18 people would die prematurely every year;</li><li><strong>Gas:</strong> 3 people would die prematurely every year;</li><li><strong>Hydropower:</strong> In an average year 1 person would die;</li><li><strong>Wind:</strong> In an average year nobody would die. A death rate of 0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour means every 25 years a single person would die;</li><li><strong>Nuclear:</strong> In an average year nobody would die – only every 33 years would someone die.</li><li><strong>Solar:</strong> In an average year nobody would die – only every 50 years would someone die.</li></ul> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"></div> </div>   <h3>The safest energy sources are also the cleanest</h3>   <div class="wp-block-columns"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <p>The good news is that there is no trade-off between the safest sources of energy in the short term, and the least damaging for the climate in the long term. They are one and the same, as the chart below shows.</p>   <p>In the chart, on the left-hand side, we have the same comparison of death rates from accidents and air pollution that we just looked at. On the right, we have the amount of greenhouse gas that are emitted <em>per unit</em> of electricity production. </p>   <p>These are not just the emissions from the burning of fuels, but also from the mining, transportation and maintenance over a power plant’s lifetime.{ref}Schlömer S., T. Bruckner, L. Fulton, E. Hertwich, A. McKinnon, D. Perczyk, J. Roy, R. Schaeffer, R. Sims, P. Smith, and R. Wiser, 2014: Annex III: Technology-specific cost and performance parameters. In: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.</p>   <p>The IPCC AR5 report was published in 2014, and relies on studies conducted several years prior to its publication. For technologies which have been developing rapidly – namely solar, wind and other renewables, production technologies and intensities have changed significantly since then, and will continue to change as energy systems decarbonize. Life-cycle figures for nuclear, solar, wind and hydropower have therefore been adopted by the more recent publication by Pehl et al. (2017), published in <em>Nature Energy.</em></p>   <p>Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Humpenöder, F., Popp, A., Hertwich, E. G., & Luderer, G. (2017). <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0032-9">Understanding future emissions from low-carbon power systems by integration of life-cycle assessment and integrated energy modelling</a>. <em>Nature Energy</em>, 2(12), 939-945.</p>   <p>The Carbon Brief provides a clear discussion of the significance of these more recent lifecycle analyses in detail <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints"><strong>here</strong></a>.</p>   <p>Since oil is conventionally not used for electricity production, it is not included in the IPCC’s reported figures per kilowatt-hour. Figures for oil have therefore been taken from Turconi et al. (2013). It reports emissions in kilograms of CO2eq per megawatt-hour. Emissions factors for all other technologies are consistent with results from the IPCC. The range it gives for oil is 530–900: I have here taken the midpoint estimate (715 kgCO2eq/MWh, which is also 715 gCO2eq/kWh).</p>   <p>Turconi, R., Boldrin, A., & Astrup, T. (2013). <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032113005534">Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations</a>. <em>Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews</em>, 28, 555-565.{/ref}</p>   <p>Coal, again, is the dirtiest fuel. It emits much more greenhouse gases than other sources – hundreds of times more than nuclear, solar, and wind.</p>   <p>Oil and gas are also much worse than nuclear and renewables, but to a lesser extent than coal.</p>   <p>Unfortunately, the global electricity mix is still dominated by fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas account for <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~OWID_WRL&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Select+a+source=Fossil+fuels&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Share+of+total+generation">around 60%</a>. If we want to stop climate change we have a great opportunity in front of us: we can transition away from them to nuclear and renewables, and also reduce deaths from accidents and air pollution as a side effect.{ref}Burgherr, P., & Hirschberg, S. (2014). <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142151400072X">Comparative risk assessment of severe accidents in the energy sector</a>. Energy Policy, 74, S45-S56.</p>   <p>McCombie, C., & Jefferson, M. (2016). Renewable and nuclear electricity: Comparison of environmental impacts. Energy Policy, 96, 758-769.</p>   <p>Hirschberg, S., Bauer, C., Burgherr, P., Cazzoli, E., Heck, T., Spada, M., & Treyer, K. (2016). <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301240">Health effects of technologies for power generation: Contributions from normal operation, severe accidents and terrorist threat</a>. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 145, 373-387.</p>   <p>Luderer, G., Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Gibon, T., Bodirsky, B. L., de Boer, H. S., … & Mima, S. (2019). <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095183201500277X">Environmental co-benefits and adverse side-effects of alternative power sector decarbonization strategies</a>. Nature Communications, 10(1), 1-13.</p>   <p>Hertwich, E. G., Gibon, T., Bouman, E. A., Arvesen, A., Suh, S., Heath, G. A., … & Shi, L. (2015). <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6277">Integrated life-cycle assessment of electricity-supply scenarios confirms global environmental benefit of low-carbon technologies</a>. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(20), 6277-6282.{/ref}</p>   <p>This transition will not only protect future generations, but it will also come with huge health benefits for the current one.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-–-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy.png" alt="" class="wp-image-37712"/></figure> </div> </div>   <h3>How many people has nuclear energy saved?</h3>   <p>When people discuss the safety of nuclear energy they often focus on the number of deaths it has caused. But as we looked at previously, nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest energy sources – per unit of energy it results in hundreds of fewer deaths than coal, oil or gas, and is comparable to modern renewables such as solar or wind.</p>   <p>By this reasoning, we should perhaps turn this question on its head and ask: "How many lives has nuclear energy saved?", or "How many lives could have been saved if countries had not abandoned it?"</p>   <p>In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Germany announced plans to phase out nuclear power generation: over the period from 2011 to 2017 it shut down 10 of its 17 nuclear facilities, and plans to close the remaining reactors in 2022.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598">The Private and External Costs of Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out</a> (No. w26598). <em>National Bureau of Economic Research</em>.{/ref}</p>   <p>Because nuclear is safer than its main alternatives this policy decision cost lives. </p>   <p>Replacing nuclear energy with fossil fuels kills people. This is likely to be the case in the recent example of Germany. Most of Germany’s energy deficit from scrapping nuclear was filled by increased coal production – which is, as we just saw, the most polluting source with the largest health impacts. Analysis by Stephen Jarvis, Olivier Deschenes, and Akshaya Jha (2020) estimates that Germany’s nuclear phase-out has come at the cost of more than 1,100 additional deaths each year as a result of air pollution.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598">The Private and External Costs of Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out</a> (No. w26598). <em>National Bureau of Economic Research</em>.{/ref} Germany’s plan to make its energy systems safer has done exactly the opposite.</p>   <p>In a study published in the journal <em>Environmental Science and Technology</em>, Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen (2013) aimed to answer the question ‘how many lives has nuclear power saved?’.{ref}Kharecha, P. A., & Hansen, J. E. (2013). <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es3051197">Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power</a>. <em>Environmental Science & Technology</em>, 47(9), 4889-4895.{/ref} They analysed how many more people would have died over the period from 1971 to 2009 if nuclear energy had been replaced by fossil fuels. The death toll would have depended on the mix of fossil fuels used to replace nuclear – more would have died if more coal was used than oil or gas – but they estimate that nuclear power has globally saved about two million lives.{ref}van der Merwe, A. (2019). <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01749-8">Nuclear energy saves lives</a>. <em>Nature</em>, 570(7759), 36.{/ref}</p>   <h3>What was the death toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima?</h3>    <p>Nuclear energy is an important source of low-carbon energy. But, there is <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/public-opposition-to-nuclear-energy-production">strong public opposition</a> to it, often because of concerns around safety.</p>   <p>These concerns are often sparked by memories of two nuclear accidents: the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011.{ref}The third incident that often comes to mind was the Three Mile Island accident in the US in 1979. This was rated as a level five event (“Accident with Wider Consequences”) on the seven-point <em>International Nuclear Event Scale</em>.</p>   <p>No one died directly from this incident, and follow-up epidemiological studies have not found a clear link between the incident and long-term health impacts.<br><br>Hatch, M. C., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1990). <a href="https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/132/3/397/103678">Cancer near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant: radiation emissions</a>. <em>American Journal of Epidemiology</em>, 132(3), 397-412.<br><br>Hatch, M. C., Wallenstein, S., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1991). <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1405170/">Cancer rates after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and proximity of residence to the plant</a>. <em>American Journal of Public Healt</em>h, 81(6), 719-724.{/ref}</p>   <p>These two events were by far the largest nuclear accidents in history; the only disasters to receive a level 7 (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale.</p>   <p>How many people died in these nuclear disasters, and what can we learn from them?</p>   <h3>How many died from the nuclear accident in Chernobyl?</h3>   <p>In April 1986, the core of one of the four reactors at Chernobyl nuclear plant, in Ukraine, melted down and exploded. It was the worst nuclear disaster in human history.</p>   <p>There are several categories of deaths linked to the disaster – for some we have a good idea of how many died, for others we have a range of plausible deaths.</p>   <h4>Direct deaths from the accident</h4>   <p><strong>30 people died during or very soon after the incident. </strong></p>   <p>Two plant workers died almost immediately in the explosion from the reactor. Overall, 134 emergency workers, plant operators, and firemen were exposed to levels of radiation high enough to suffer from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). 28 of these 134 workers died in the weeks that followed, which takes the total to 30.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available <a href="https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html"><strong>online</strong></a>.{/ref} </p>   <h4>Later deaths of workers and firemen</h4>   <p>A point of dispute is whether any more of the 134 workers with ARS died as a result of radiation exposure. In 2008, several decades after the incident, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published a large synthesis of the latest scientific evidence.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available <a href="https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html"><strong>online</strong></a>.{/ref} It reported that a <strong>further 19 ARS survivors had died by 2006</strong>. But many of these deaths were not related to any condition caused by radiation exposure. Seven were related to diseases not related to cancers including tuberculosis, liver disease, and stroke; six were from heart attacks; one from a trauma incident; and five died from cancers.{ref}The UNSCEAR (2008) report lists the causes of death in each of these survivors in Table D4 of the appendix.{/ref} It’s difficult to say how many of these deaths could be attributed to the Chernobyl accident – it’s not implausible it played a role in at least some of them, especially the five cancer deaths.</p>   <h4>Thyroid cancer deaths in children through contaminated milk</h4>   <p>Most of the population was not exposed to levels of radiation that would put them at risk of negative health impacts. However, the slow response to the disaster meant that some individuals were exposed to the short-lived radionuclide Iodine-131 (<sup>131</sup>I) through the contamination of milk. Radioactive fallout settled on pasture grass across the region; this contaminated milk supplies and leafy vegetables that were consumed in the days immediately after the incident.</p>   <p>This exposure to <sup>131</sup>I has not been linked to increased cancer risk in the <em>adult</em> population, but several studies have shown an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in those who were children and adolescents around this time. Figuring out how many cases of thyroid cancer in this young population were caused by the accident is not straightforward. This is because there was a large increase in screening efforts in the aftermath of the disaster. It’s not uncommon for thyroid cancer cases to go undetected – and have no negative impact on an individual’s life. Increased screening, particularly in child populations, would result in finding many cases of cancer that would normally go undetected.</p>   <p>In 2018, UNSCEAR published its latest findings on thyroid cancers attributed to the Chernobyl disaster. Over the period from 1991 to 2015, there were 19,233 cases of thyroid cancer in patients who were younger than 18 at the time of the disaster across Ukraine, Belarus, and exposed regions of Russia. UNSCEAR concluded that around one-quarter of these cases <em>could</em> be linked to radiation exposure. That would mean 4,808 thyroid cancer cases.{ref}25% of 19,233 is 4808 cases.{/ref}</p>   <p>By 2005, it was reported that <strong>15 of these thyroid cancer cases had been fatal</strong>.{ref}This figure was included in the UNSCEAR’s 2008 report. I found no updated figure for fatalities in its 2018 report.{/ref} However, it was likely that this figure would increase: at least some of those still living with thyroid cancer will eventually die from it.</p>   <p>It’s therefore not possible to give a definitive number, but we can look at survival rates and outcomes to get an estimate. Thankfully the prognosis for thyroid cancer in children is very good. Many patients that have undergone treatment have seen either a partial or complete remission.{ref}Reiners, C. (2011). Clinical experiences with radiation induced thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. Genes, 2(2), 374-383.{/ref} Large-scale studies report a 20-year survival rate of 92% for thyroid cancer.{ref}Hogan, A. R., Zhuge, Y., Perez, E. A., Koniaris, L. G., Lew, J. I., & Sola, J. E. (2009). Pediatric thyroid carcinoma: incidence and outcomes in 1753 patients. Journal of Surgical Research, 156(1), 167-172.{/ref}. Others show an even better prognosis, with a survival rate of 98% after 40 years.{ref}Hay, I. D., Gonzalez-Losada, T., Reinalda, M. S., Honetschlager, J. A., Richards, M. L., & Thompson, G. B. (2010). Long-term outcome in 215 children and adolescents with papillary thyroid cancer treated during 1940 through 2008. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00268-009-0364-0">World Journal of Surgery</a>, 34(6), 1192-1202.{/ref}  </p>   <p>If we combine standard survival rates with our number of radiation-induced cancer cases – 4,808 cases – we might estimate that the <strong>number of deaths could be in the range of 96 to 385</strong>. This comes from the assumption of a survival rate of 92% to 98% (or, to flip it, a mortality rate of 2% to 8%).{ref}2% of 4808 is 96, and 8% is 385.{/ref} This figure comes with significant uncertainty.</p>   <h4>Deaths in the general population</h4>   <p>Finally, there has been significant concern about cancer risks to the wider population across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other parts of Europe. This topic remains controversial. Some reports in the early 2000s estimated much higher death tolls ranging from 16,000 to 60,000.{ref}Cardis et al. (2006). Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. International Journal of Cancer. Available <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7087/full/440982a.html?foxtrotcallback=true"><strong>online</strong></a>.<br><br>Fairlie and Sumner (2006). An independent scientific evaluation of health and environmental effects 20 years after the nuclear disaster providing critical analysis of a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Available <a href="http://www.chernobylreport.org/?p=summary"><strong>online</strong></a>.{/ref} In its 2005 report, the WHO estimated a potential death toll of 4,000.{ref}IAEA, WHO (2005/06). <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/">Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts</a>.{/ref} These estimates were based on the assumption that a large number of people were exposed to elevated levels of radioactivity, and that radioactivity increases cancer risk, even at very low levels of exposure (the so-called ‘<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model">linear no-threshold model</a>’ of radiation exposure).</p>   <p>More recent studies suggest that these estimates were too high. In 2008, the UNSCEAR concluded that radioactive exposure to the general public was very low, and that it does not expect adverse health impacts in the countries affected by Chernobyl, or the rest of Europe.{ref}As it details in its report:<br>“The vast majority of the population were exposed to low levels of radiation comparable, at most, to a few times the annual natural background radiation levels and need not live in fear of serious health consequences. This is true for the populations of the three countries most affected by the Chernobyl accident, Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and even more so for the populations of other European countries.”</p>   <p>“To date, there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure”{/ref} In 2018 it published a follow-up report, which came to the same conclusion. </p>   <p>If the health impacts of radiation were directly and linearly related to the level of exposure, we would expect to find that cancer rates were highest in regions closest to the Chernobyl site, and would decline with distance from the plant. But studies do not find this. Cancer rates in Ukraine, for example, were not higher in locations closer to the site{ref}Leung, K. M., Shabat, G., Lu, P., Fields, A. C., Lukashenko, A., Davids, J. S., & Melnitchouk, N. (2019). <a href="https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JGO.19.00099">Trends in solid tumor incidence in Ukraine 30 years after chernobyl</a>. <em>Journal of Global Oncology</em>, <em>5</em>, 1-10.{/ref} This suggests that there is a lower limit to the level at which radiation exposure has negative health impacts. And that most people were not exposed to doses higher than this.</p>   <h4>Combined death toll from Chernobyl</h4>   <p>To summarize the previous paragraphs: </p>   <ul><li><strong>2 workers died in the blast.</strong></li><li><strong>28 workers and firemen died in the weeks that followed from acute radiation syndrome (ARS).</strong></li><li><strong>19 ARS survivors had died later, by 2006</strong>; most from causes not related to radiation, but it’s not possible to rule all of them out (especially five that were cancer-related).</li><li><strong>15 people died from thyroid cancer due to milk contamination</strong>. These deaths were among children who were exposed to <sup>131</sup>I from milk and food in the days after the disaster. This could increase to between 96 and 384 deaths, however, this figure is highly uncertain.</li><li><strong>There is currently no evidence of adverse health impacts in the general population across affected countries, or wider Europe</strong>.</li></ul>   <p>Combined, the <em>confirmed</em> death toll from Chernobyl is less than 100. We still do not know the <em>true</em> death toll of the disaster. My best approximation is that the true death toll is in the range of 300 to 500 based on the available evidence.{ref}When we report on the safety of energy sources – in <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy"><strong>this article</strong></a> – I take the upper number of 433 deaths to be conservative.{/ref}</p>   <h3>How many died from the nuclear accident in Fukushima?</h3>   <p>In March 2011, there was an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. This accident was caused by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami">2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami</a> – the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan’s history.</p>   <p>Despite it being such a large event, so far, only one death has been attributed to the disaster. This includes both the direct impact of the accident itself and the radiation exposure that followed. However, it’s estimated that several thousand died indirectly from the stress and disruption of evacuation.</p>   <h4>Direct and cancer deaths from the accident</h4>   <p><strong>No one died directly from the disaster. </strong>However, 40 to 50 people were injured as a result of physical injury from the blast, or radiation burns.</p>   <p>In 2018, the Japanese government <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45423575">reported that</a> <strong>one worker has since died</strong> from lung cancer as a result of radiation exposure from the event.</p>   <p>Over the last decade, many studies have assessed whether there has been any increased cancer risk for local populations. <strong>There appears to be no increased risk of cancer or other radiation-related health impacts</strong>. </p>   <p>In 2016, the World Health Organization noted that there was a very low risk of increased cancer deaths in Japan.{ref}World Health Organization (2016). FAQs: Fukushima Five Years On. Available online at: <a href="https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.%7B/ref">https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.{/ref</a>} Several reports from the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation came to the same conclusion: they report that any increase in radiation exposure for local populations was very low and they do not expect any increase in radiation-related health impacts.{ref}To quote UNSCEAR directly: “The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.”<br><br><a href="http://www.unscear.org/docs/GAreports/A-68-46_e_V1385727.pdf">Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records</a>, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27–31, 2013.{/ref} </p>   <h4>Deaths from evacuation</h4>   <p>A more difficult question is how many people died indirectly through the <em>response</em> and evacuation of locals from the area around Fukushima. Within a few weeks of the accident more than 160,000 people had moved away, either from official evacuation efforts or voluntarily from fear of further radioactive releases. Many were forced to stay in overcrowded gyms, schools, and public facilities for several months until more permanent emergency housing became available.</p>   <p>The year after the 2011 disaster, the Japanese government estimated that 573 people had died indirectly as a result of the physical and mental stress of evacuation.{ref}The Yomiuri Shimbun, 573 deaths ‘related to nuclear crisis’, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 February 2012, <a href="https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.%7B/ref">https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.</a>{/ref} Since then, more rigorous assessments of increased mortality have been done, and this figure <a href="https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/main-cat2/sub-cat2-6/20201225_kanrenshi.pdf">was revised</a> to 2,313 deaths in September 2020.</p>   <p>These indirect deaths were attributed to the overall physical and mental stress of evacuation; being moved out of care settings; and disruption to healthcare facilities. </p>   <p>It’s important to bear in mind that the region was also trying to deal with the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami: this makes it difficult to completely separate the indirect deaths related to the nuclear disaster disruptions, and those of the tsunami itself.</p>   <p>Combined, the <em>confirmed</em> death toll from Fukushima is therefore 2,314.</p>   <h3>What can we learn from these nuclear disasters?</h3>   <p>The context and response to these disasters were very different, and this is reflected in what people died from in the aftermath.</p>   <p>Many more people died from Chernobyl than from Fukushima. There are several reasons for this.</p>   <p>The first was <strong>reactor design</strong>. The nuclear reactors at Chernobyl were poorly designed to deal with this meltdown scenario. Its fatal RBMK reactor had no containment structure, allowing radioactive material to spill into the atmosphere. Fukushima’s reactors did have steel-and-concrete containment structures, although it’s likely that at least one of these was also breached. </p>   <p>Crucially, the cooling systems of both plants worked very differently; at Chernobyl, the loss of cooling water as steam actually served to accelerate reactivity levels in the reactor core, creating a positive feedback loop toward the fatal explosion. The opposite is true of Fukushima, where the reactivity reduced as temperatures rose, effectively operating as a self-shutdown measure.</p>   <p>The second factor was <strong>government response</strong>. In the case of Fukushima, the Japanese government responded quickly to the crisis with evacuation efforts extending rapidly from a 3-kilometer (km), to a 10-km, to a 20-km radius whilst the incident at the site continued to unfold. In contrast, the response in the former Soviet Union was one of denial and secrecy.</p>   <p>It’s reported that in the days which followed the Chernobyl disaster, residents in surrounding areas were uninformed of the radioactive material in the air around them. In fact, it took at least three days for the Soviet Union to admit an accident had taken place, and did so after radioactive sensors at a Swedish plant were triggered by dispersing radionuclides. As we saw above, it’s estimated that approximately 4,808 thyroid cancer cases in children and adolescents could be linked to radiation exposure from contaminated milk and foods. This could have been prevented by an earlier response.</p>   <p>Finally, while an early response from the Japanese government may have prevented a significant number of deaths, many <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b189ea">have questioned</a> whether the scale of the evacuation effort – where more than 160,000 people were displaced – was necessary.{ref}Hayakawa, M. (2016). <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146645316666707">Increase in disaster-related deaths: risks and social impacts of evacuation</a>. Annals of the ICRP, 45(2_suppl), 123-128.</p>   <p>Normile (2021). <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat">Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk</a>. <em>Science</em>.{/ref} As we see from the figures above, evacuation stress and disruption are estimated to have contributed to several thousand early deaths. Only one death has been linked to the impact of radiation. We don’t know what the possible death toll would have been <em>without</em> any evacuation. That’s why a no-evacuation strategy, if a future accident was to occur, seems unlikely. However, many have called for governments to develop early assessments and protocols of radiation risks, the scale of evacuation needed, and infrastructure to make sure that the disruption to those that are displaced is kept to a minimum.{ref}Normile (2021). <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat">Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk</a>. <em>Science</em>.{/ref}</p>   <h3>Nuclear is one of the safest energy sources</h3>   <p>No energy source comes with zero negative impact. We often think of nuclear energy as being more dangerous than other sources because these low-frequency but highly-visible events come to mind.</p>   <p>However, when we <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy">compare the death rates</a> from nuclear energy to other sources, we see that it’s one of the safest. The numbers that have died from nuclear accidents are very small in comparison to the <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths"><em>millions</em> that die</a> from air pollution from fossil fuels <em>every year</em>. As the linked post shows, the death rate from nuclear is roughly comparable with most renewable energy technologies.</p>   <p>Since nuclear is also a key source of low-carbon energy, it can play a key role in a sustainable energy mix alongside renewables.</p>   <h2>Explore more of our work on Energy</h2>      <p>Explore all the metrics – energy production, electricity consumption, and breakdown of fossil fuels, renewable and nuclear energy.</p>     <p>Get an overview of energy for any country on a single page.</p>     <p>Download our complete dataset of energy metrics on GitHub. It's open-access and free for anyone to use.</p>     <p>See how access to electricity and clean cooking fuels vary across the world.</p>     <p>Explore long-term changes in energy production and consumption across the world.</p>     <p>How much of our energy comes from fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear energy? See the breakdown of the energy mix.</p>     <p>Explore the breakdown of the electricity mix and how this is changing.</p>     <p>See the long-term changes in coal, oil and gas production and consumption.</p>     <p>How quickly are countries scaling up the production of renewable technologies? Explore the data.</p>     <p>Explore the long-term changes in nuclear energy production across the world.</p>     <p>Explore trends in transport technologies and emissions across the world.</p>

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                        "text": " technologies such as hydropower, wind and solar, but also nuclear power. Nuclear energy and renewable technologies typically emit very little CO",
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                        "text": "But whilst some countries are investing heavily in increasing their nuclear energy supply, others are taking their plants offline. The role that nuclear energy plays in the energy system is therefore very specific to the given country.",
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                        "text": "How much of our energy comes from nuclear power? How is its role changing over time? In this article we look at levels and changes in nuclear energy generation across the world, and its safety record in comparison to other sources of energy.",
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                                "text": "Nuclear power generation has been around since the 1960s, but saw massive growth globally in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. In the interactive chart shown we see how global nuclear generation has changed over the past half-century.",
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                                            {
                                                "text": "View the data for any country as a line chart:",
                                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                            }
                                        ],
                                        "spanType": "span-bold"
                                    },
                                    {
                                        "text": " click on any country to see its change over time, or by using the 'CHART' tab at the bottom.",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "parseErrors": []
                            },
                            {
                                "type": "text",
                                "value": [
                                    {
                                        "children": [
                                            {
                                                "text": "Add any other country to the line chart:",
                                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                            }
                                        ],
                                        "spanType": "span-bold"
                                    },
                                    {
                                        "text": " click on the Add country button to compare with any other country.",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "parseErrors": []
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
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                "parseErrors": []
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Nuclear in the energy and electricity mix",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "What share of primary energy comes from nuclear?",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 3,
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            {
                "left": [
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                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-primary-energy",
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                "type": "sticky-right",
                "right": [
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "We previously looked nuclear output in terms of energy units \u2013 how much each country produces in terawatt-hours. But to understand how large of a role nuclear plays in the energy system we need to put this in perspective of total energy consumption.",
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
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                                "text": "This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from nuclear sources.",
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                            }
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "Note that this data is based on primary energy calculated by the 'substitution method' which attempts to correct for the inefficiencies in fossil fuel production. It does this by converting non-fossil fuel sources to their 'input equivalents': the  amount of primary energy that would be required to produce the same amount of energy if it came from fossil fuels. Here ",
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                            },
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                                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/energy-substitution-method",
                                "children": [
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                                        "text": "we describe this adjustment",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": " in more detail.",
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                                "text": "In 2019, just over 4% of global primary energy came from nuclear power.",
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
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                                "text": "Note that this is based on nuclear energy's share in the ",
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                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "energy",
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                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-italic"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": " mix. Energy consumption represents the sum of electricity, transport and heating. We look at the ",
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                            },
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "electricity",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                                "text": " mix below.",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "What share of electricity comes from nuclear?",
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                                "text": "In the sections above we looked at the role of nuclear in the total ",
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                                "children": [
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                                        "text": "energy",
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                                "text": " mix",
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                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": ". ",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-italic"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": "This includes not only electricity, but also transport and heating. Electricity forms only one component of energy consumption.",
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                        "type": "text",
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                                "text": "Since transport and heating tend to be harder to decarbonize \u2013 they are more reliant on oil and gas \u2013 nuclear and renewables tend to have a higher share in the electricity mix versus the total energy mix.",
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                        ],
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
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                                "text": "This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from nuclear sources.",
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
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                                "text": "Globally, around 10% of our electricity comes from nuclear. But some countries rely on it heavily: it provides more than 70% of electricity in France, and more than 40% in Sweden.",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Safety of nuclear energy",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "What are the safest sources of energy?",
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                        "text": "Energy has been critical to the human progress we\u2019ve seen over the last few centuries. As the United Nations rightly ",
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                        "url": "https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/",
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                                "text": "says",
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                        ],
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                        "text": ": \u201cenergy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.\u201d",
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                        "text": "But while energy brings us massive benefits, it\u2019s not without its downsides. Energy production can have negative impacts on human health and the environment in three ways.",
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                        "text": "The first is ",
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                                "text": "air pollution",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                        "spanType": "span-bold"
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                        "text": ": millions of people die prematurely every year as a result of ",
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                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths",
                        "children": [
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                                "text": "air pollution",
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                        "spanType": "span-link"
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                        "text": ". Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass \u2013 wood, dung, and charcoal \u2013 are responsible for most of those deaths.",
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                        "text": "The second is ",
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                                "text": "accidents",
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                        "text": ". This includes accidents that happen in the mining and extraction of the fuels \u2013 coal, uranium, rare metals, oil, and gas. And it also includes accidents that occur in the transport of raw materials and infrastructure, the construction of the power plant, or their maintenance.",
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                        "text": "The third is ",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "greenhouse gas emissions",
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                    {
                        "text": ": fossil fuels are the main source of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of climate change. In 2020, 91% of ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-co2-emissions-fossil-land?stackMode=relative",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "global CO",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "2",
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                                "text": " emissions",
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                        "spanType": "span-link"
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                    {
                        "text": " came from fossil fuels and industry.{ref}\u200b\u200bPierre Friedlingstein, Matthew W. Jones, Michael O'Sullivan, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee, C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Qu\u00e9r\u00e9, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Rob B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Laurent Bopp, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Kim I. Currie, Bertrand Decharme, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Wiley Evans, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Thomas Gasser, Dennis Gilfillan, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, \u00d6zg\u00fcr G\u00fcrses, Ian Harris, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Atul Jain, Steve D. Jones, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, J\u00fcrgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne K\u00f6rtzinger, Peter Landsch\u00fctzer, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lef\u00e8vre, Sebastian Lienert, Junjie Liu, Gregg Marland, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, David R. Munro, Julia E.M.S Nabel Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Tsuneo Ono, Denis Pierrot, Benjamin Poulter, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian R\u00f6denbeck, Thais M Rosan, J\u00f6rg Schwinger, Clemens Schwingshackl, Roland S\u00e9f\u00e9rian, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Francesco Tubiello, Guido van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Chisato Wada Rik Wanninkhof, Andrew J. Watson, David Willis, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, S\u00f6nke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng. Global Carbon Budget 2021, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 2021.{/ref}",
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                        "text": "No energy source is completely safe. They all have short-term impacts on human health, either through air pollution or accidents. And they all have long-term impacts by contributing to climate change.",
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                        "text": "But, their contribution to each differs enormously. Fossil fuels are both the dirtiest and most dangerous in the short term, and emit the most greenhouse gases per unit of energy. This means that there are thankfully no trade-offs here: low-carbon energy sources are also the safest. From the perspective of both human health and climate change, it matters less whether we transition to nuclear power ",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "or",
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                        "text": " renewable energy, and more that we stop relying on fossil fuels.",
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                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Nuclear and renewables are far, far safer than fossil fuels",
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                "level": 3,
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                "left": [
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "Before we consider the long-term impacts of climate change, let\u2019s look at how each source stacks up in terms of short-term health risks.",
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                            }
                        ],
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "To make these comparisons fair we can\u2019t just look at the ",
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                            },
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "total",
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                                "spanType": "span-italic"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": " deaths from each source: fossil fuels still dominate our global electricity mix, so we would expect that they would kill more people.",
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                        ],
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                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "Instead, we compare them based on the estimated number of deaths they cause ",
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                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "per unit of electricity",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                                "spanType": "span-italic"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ". This is measured in terawatt-hours. One terawatt-hour is about the same as the annual electricity consumption of 150,000 citizens in the European Union.{ref}Per capita electricity consumption in the EU-27 in 2021 ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~European+Union+%2827%29&Total+or+Breakdown=Total&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Per+capita+generation",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "was around",
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                                "spanType": "span-link"
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                            {
                                "text": " 6,400 kWh.",
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                            {
                                "text": "1 terawatt-hour is equal to 1,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours. So, we get this figure by dividing 1,000,000,000 by 6,400 \u2248 150,000 people.{/ref}",
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                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "This includes deaths from air pollution and accidents in the supply chain.{ref}The following sources were used to calculate these death rates.",
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                        "value": [
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Fossil fuels and biomass:",
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                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-bold"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": " these figures are taken directly from Markandya, A., & Wilkinson, P. (2007). ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61253-7",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Electricity generation and health",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ". ",
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                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "The Lancet",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-italic"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ", 370(9591), 979-990.",
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Nuclear: ",
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                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-bold"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": "I have calculated these figures based on the assumption of 433 deaths from Chernobyl and 2314 from Fukushima. These figures are based on the most recent estimates from UNSCEAR and the Government of Japan. In a ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "children": [
                                            {
                                                "text": "related article",
                                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                            }
                                        ],
                                        "spanType": "span-bold"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ", I detail where these figures come from.",
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                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "I have calculated death ",
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                            },
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "rates",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-italic"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": " by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "from nuclear",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": " from 1965 to 2021, which is 96,876 TWh.",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Hydropower:",
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                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-bold"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": " The paper by Sovacool et al. (2016) provides a death ",
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                            },
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "rate",
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                                "spanType": "span-italic"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": " for hydropower from 1990 to 2013. However, this period excludes some very large hydropower accidents which occurred prior to 1990. I have therefore calculated a death rate for hydropower from 1965 to 2021 based on the list of hydropower accidents provided in Sovacool et al. (2016), which extends back to the 1950s. Since this database ends in 2013, I have also included the Saddle Dam accident in Laos in 2018, which killed 71 people.",
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                                "text": "The total number of deaths from hydropower accidents from 1965 to 2021 was approximately 176,000. 171,000 of these deaths were from the Banqian Dam Failure in China in 1975.",
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                                "text": "I have calculated death ",
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                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "rates",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                            },
                            {
                                "text": " by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/hydropower-consumption?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "from hydropower",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": " from 1965 to 2021, which is 138,175 TWh.",
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                            }
                        ],
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Solar and wind: ",
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                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-bold"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": "these figures are taken directly from: Sovacool, B. K., Andersen, R., Sorensen, S., Sorensen, K., Tienda, V., Vainorius, A., \u2026 & Bj\u00f8rn-Thygesen, F. (2016). ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615009877",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Balancing safety with sustainability: assessing the risk of accidents for modern low-carbon energy systems",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ". ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Journal of Cleaner Production",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-italic"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ", 112, 3952-3965. In this analysis the authors compiled a database of as many energy-related accidents as possible based on an extensive search of academic databases and news reports, and derived death rates for each source over the period from 1990 to 2013. Since this database has not been extended since then, it\u2019s not possible to provide post-2013 death rates.{/ref}",
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                            {
                                "text": "Let\u2019s look at this comparison in the chart. Fossil fuels and biomass kill many more people than nuclear and modern renewables per unit of electricity. Coal is, by far, the dirtiest.",
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                                "text": "Even then, these estimates for fossil fuels are likely to be very conservative. They are based on power plants in Europe, which have good pollution controls, and are based on older models of the health impacts of air pollution. As I discuss in more detail at the end of this article, ",
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                                "children": [
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                                        "text": "global",
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                                "text": " death rates from fossil fuels based on the most recent research on air pollution are likely to be even higher.",
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                                "text": "Our perceptions of the safety of nuclear energy are strongly influenced by two accidents: Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. These were tragic events. However, compared to the millions that die from fossil fuels ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "every year ",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                            },
                            {
                                "text": "the final death tolls were very low. To calculate the death rates used here I assume a death toll of 433 from Chernobyl, and 2,314 from Fukushima.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html",
                                "children": [
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                                        "children": [
                                            {
                                                "text": "online",
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                                "text": ".",
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                            {
                                "text": "Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27\u201331, 2013.{/ref} If you are interested in this, I look at how many died in each accident in detail in a ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "children": [
                                            {
                                                "text": "related article",
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                                "text": ".",
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                                "text": "The other source which is heavily influenced by a few large-scale accidents is hydropower. Its death rate since 1965 is 1.3 deaths per TWh. This rate is almost completely dominated by one event: the Banqiao Dam Failure in China in 1975. It killed approximately 171,000 people. Otherwise, hydropower was very safe, with a death rate of just 0.04 deaths per TWh \u2013 comparable to nuclear, solar, and wind.",
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                                "text": "Finally, we have solar and wind. The death rates from both of these sources are low, but not zero. A small number of people die in accidents in supply chains \u2013 ranging from helicopter collisions with turbines; fires during the installation of turbines or panels; and drownings on offshore wind sites.",
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                                "text": "People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart \u2013 between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap.",
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                                "text": "The key insight is that they are ",
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                                        "text": "all",
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                                "text": " much, much safer than fossil fuels.",
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                                "text": "Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe.",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Putting death rates from energy in perspective",
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                        "text": "Looking at deaths per terawatt-hour can seem abstract. Let\u2019s try to put it in perspective.",
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                        "text": "Let\u2019s consider how many deaths each source would cause for an average town of 150,000 people in the European Union, which \u2013 as I\u2019ve said before \u2013 consumes one terawatt-hour of electricity per year. Let\u2019s call this town \u2018Euroville\u2019.",
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                        "text": "If Euroville was completely powered by coal we\u2019d expect ",
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                                "text": "at least",
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                        "text": " 25 people to die prematurely every year from it.\u00a0 Most of these people would die from air pollution.\u00a0",
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                        "text": "This is how a coal-powered Euroville would compare with towns powered entirely by each energy source:",
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                                        "text": "Coal: ",
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                                "text": "25 people would die prematurely every year;",
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                                        "text": "Oil:",
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                                "text": " 18 people would die prematurely every year;",
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                                        "text": "Gas:",
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                                "text": " 3 people would die prematurely every year;",
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                                        "text": "Hydropower:",
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                                "text": " In an average year 1 person would die;",
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                                        "text": "Wind:",
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                            {
                                "text": " In an average year nobody would die. A death rate of 0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour means every 25 years a single person would die;",
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                                        "text": "Nuclear:",
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                            {
                                "text": " In an average year nobody would die \u2013 only every 33 years would someone die.",
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                                        "text": "Solar:",
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                                "text": " In an average year nobody would die \u2013 only every 50 years would someone die.",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "The safest energy sources are also the cleanest",
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                                "text": "The good news is that there is no trade-off between the safest sources of energy in the short term, and the least damaging for the climate in the long term. They are one and the same, as the chart below shows.",
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                                "text": "In the chart, on the left-hand side, we have the same comparison of death rates from accidents and air pollution that we just looked at. On the right, we have the amount of greenhouse gas that are emitted ",
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                            },
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "per unit",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                            {
                                "text": " of electricity production.\u00a0",
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                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "These are not just the emissions from the burning of fuels, but also from the mining, transportation and maintenance over a power plant\u2019s lifetime.{ref}Schl\u00f6mer S., T. Bruckner, L. Fulton, E. Hertwich, A. McKinnon, D. Perczyk, J. Roy, R. Schaeffer, R. Sims, P. Smith, and R. Wiser, 2014: Annex III: Technology-specific cost and performance parameters. In: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schl\u00f6mer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.",
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                                "text": "The IPCC AR5 report was published in 2014, and relies on studies conducted several years prior to its publication. For technologies which have been developing rapidly \u2013 namely solar, wind and other renewables, production technologies and intensities have changed significantly since then, and will continue to change as energy systems decarbonize. Life-cycle figures for nuclear, solar, wind and hydropower have therefore been adopted by the more recent publication by Pehl et al. (2017), published in ",
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                            },
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Nature Energy.",
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                                "text": "Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Humpen\u00f6der, F., Popp, A., Hertwich, E. G., & Luderer, G. (2017). ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0032-9",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Understanding future emissions from low-carbon power systems by integration of life-cycle assessment and integrated energy modelling",
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                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
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                                "text": ". ",
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                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Nature Energy",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                            },
                            {
                                "text": ", 2(12), 939-945.",
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                                "text": "The Carbon Brief provides a clear discussion of the significance of these more recent lifecycle analyses in detail ",
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                            {
                                "url": "https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints",
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                                    {
                                        "children": [
                                            {
                                                "text": "here",
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                                "text": ".",
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                            {
                                "text": "Since oil is conventionally not used for electricity production, it is not included in the IPCC\u2019s reported figures per kilowatt-hour. Figures for oil have therefore been taken from Turconi et al. (2013). It reports emissions in kilograms of CO2eq per megawatt-hour. Emissions factors for all other technologies are consistent with results from the IPCC. The range it gives for oil is 530\u2013900: I have here taken the midpoint estimate (715 kgCO2eq/MWh, which is also 715 gCO2eq/kWh).",
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                        "value": [
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                                "text": "Turconi, R., Boldrin, A., & Astrup, T. (2013). ",
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                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032113005534",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ". ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-italic"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ", 28, 555-565.{/ref}",
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                            }
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "Coal, again, is the dirtiest fuel. It emits much more greenhouse gases than other sources \u2013 hundreds of times more than nuclear, solar, and wind.",
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                                "text": "Oil and gas are also much worse than nuclear and renewables, but to a lesser extent than coal.",
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                            {
                                "text": "Unfortunately, the global electricity mix is still dominated by fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas account for ",
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                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~OWID_WRL&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Select+a+source=Fossil+fuels&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Share+of+total+generation",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "around 60%",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ". If we want to stop climate change we have a great opportunity in front of us: we can transition away from them to nuclear and renewables, and also reduce deaths from accidents and air pollution as a side effect.{ref}Burgherr, P., & Hirschberg, S. (2014). ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142151400072X",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Comparative risk assessment of severe accidents in the energy sector",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ". Energy Policy, 74, S45-S56.",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
                    },
                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "McCombie, C., & Jefferson, M. (2016). Renewable and nuclear electricity: Comparison of environmental impacts. Energy Policy, 96, 758-769.",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
                    },
                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "Hirschberg, S., Bauer, C., Burgherr, P., Cazzoli, E., Heck, T., Spada, M., & Treyer, K. (2016). ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301240",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Health effects of technologies for power generation: Contributions from normal operation, severe accidents and terrorist threat",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ". Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 145, 373-387.",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
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                    },
                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "Luderer, G., Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Gibon, T., Bodirsky, B. L., de Boer, H. S., \u2026 & Mima, S. (2019). ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095183201500277X",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Environmental co-benefits and adverse side-effects of alternative power sector decarbonization strategies",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ". Nature Communications, 10(1), 1-13.",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
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                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "Hertwich, E. G., Gibon, T., Bouman, E. A., Arvesen, A., Suh, S., Heath, G. A., \u2026 & Shi, L. (2015). ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6277",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Integrated life-cycle assessment of electricity-supply scenarios confirms global environmental benefit of low-carbon technologies",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-link"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(20), 6277-6282.{/ref}",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
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                                "text": "This transition will not only protect future generations, but it will also come with huge health benefits for the current one.",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "How many people has nuclear energy saved?",
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                        "text": "When people discuss the safety of nuclear energy they often focus on the number of deaths it has caused. But as we looked at previously, nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest energy sources \u2013 per unit of energy it results in hundreds of fewer deaths than coal, oil or gas, and is comparable to modern renewables such as solar or wind.",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "By this reasoning, we should perhaps turn this question on its head and ask: \"How many lives has nuclear energy saved?\", or \"How many lives could have been saved if countries had not abandoned it?\"",
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                    }
                ],
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Germany announced plans to phase out nuclear power generation: over the period from 2011 to 2017 it shut down 10 of its 17 nuclear facilities, and plans to close the remaining reactors in 2022.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "The Private and External Costs of Germany\u2019s Nuclear Phase-Out",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " (No. w26598). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "National Bureau of Economic Research",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".{/ref}",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Because nuclear is safer than its main alternatives this policy decision cost lives.\u00a0",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Replacing nuclear energy with fossil fuels kills people. This is likely to be the case in the recent example of Germany. Most of Germany\u2019s energy deficit from scrapping nuclear was filled by increased coal production \u2013 which is, as we just saw, the most polluting source with the largest health impacts. Analysis by Stephen Jarvis, Olivier Deschenes, and Akshaya Jha (2020) estimates that Germany\u2019s nuclear phase-out has come at the cost of more than 1,100 additional deaths each year as a result of air pollution.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "The Private and External Costs of Germany\u2019s Nuclear Phase-Out",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " (No. w26598). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "National Bureau of Economic Research",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".{/ref} Germany\u2019s plan to make its energy systems safer has done exactly the opposite.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "In a study published in the journal ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Environmental Science and Technology",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ", Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen (2013) aimed to answer the question \u2018how many lives has nuclear power saved?\u2019.{ref}Kharecha, P. A., & Hansen, J. E. (2013). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es3051197",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Environmental Science & Technology",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ", 47(9), 4889-4895.{/ref} They analysed how many more people would have died over the period from 1971 to 2009 if nuclear energy had been replaced by fossil fuels. The death toll would have depended on the mix of fossil fuels used to replace nuclear \u2013 more would have died if more coal was used than oil or gas \u2013 but they estimate that nuclear power has globally saved about two million lives.{ref}van der Merwe, A. (2019). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01749-8",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Nuclear energy saves lives",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Nature",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ", 570(7759), 36.{/ref}",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "What was the death toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima?",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 3,
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Nuclear energy is an important source of low-carbon energy. But, there is ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/public-opposition-to-nuclear-energy-production",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "strong public opposition",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " to it, often because of concerns around safety.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "These concerns are often sparked by memories of two nuclear accidents: the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011.{ref}The third incident that often comes to mind was the Three Mile Island accident in the US in 1979. This was rated as a level five event (\u201cAccident with Wider Consequences\u201d) on the seven-point ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "International Nuclear Event Scale",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "No one died directly from this incident, and follow-up epidemiological studies have not found a clear link between the incident and long-term health impacts.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "spanType": "span-newline"
                    },
                    {
                        "spanType": "span-newline"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "Hatch, M. C., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1990). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/132/3/397/103678",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Cancer near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant: radiation emissions",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "American Journal of Epidemiology",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ", 132(3), 397-412.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "spanType": "span-newline"
                    },
                    {
                        "spanType": "span-newline"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "Hatch, M. C., Wallenstein, S., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1991). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1405170/",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Cancer rates after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and proximity of residence to the plant",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "American Journal of Public Healt",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "h, 81(6), 719-724.{/ref}",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "These two events were by far the largest nuclear accidents in history; the only disasters to receive a level 7 (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "How many people died in these nuclear disasters, and what can we learn from them?",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "How many died from the nuclear accident in Chernobyl?",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 3,
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
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                        "text": "In April 1986, the core of one of the four reactors at Chernobyl nuclear plant, in Ukraine, melted down and exploded. It was the worst nuclear disaster in human history.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                ],
                "parseErrors": []
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "There are several categories of deaths linked to the disaster \u2013 for some we have a good idea of how many died, for others we have a range of plausible deaths.",
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                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Direct deaths from the accident",
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                "level": 4,
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                "value": [
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                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "30 people died during or very soon after the incident.\u00a0",
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                        "text": "Two plant workers died almost immediately in the explosion from the reactor. Overall, 134 emergency workers, plant operators, and firemen were exposed to levels of radiation high enough to suffer from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). 28 of these 134 workers died in the weeks that followed, which takes the total to 30.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "online",
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                        "text": ".{/ref}\u00a0",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Later deaths of workers and firemen",
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                        "text": "A point of dispute is whether any more of the 134 workers with ARS died as a result of radiation exposure. In 2008, several decades after the incident, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published a large synthesis of the latest scientific evidence.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "online",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                                "spanType": "span-bold"
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                    {
                        "text": ".{/ref} It reported that a ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "further 19 ARS survivors had died by 2006",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "text": ". But many of these deaths were not related to any condition caused by radiation exposure. Seven were related to diseases not related to cancers including tuberculosis, liver disease, and stroke; six were from heart attacks; one from a trauma incident; and five died from cancers.{ref}The UNSCEAR (2008) report lists the causes of death in each of these survivors in Table D4 of the appendix.{/ref} It\u2019s difficult to say how many of these deaths could be attributed to the Chernobyl accident \u2013 it\u2019s not implausible it played a role in at least some of them, especially the five cancer deaths.",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Thyroid cancer deaths in children through contaminated milk",
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                ],
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                "level": 4,
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                        "text": "Most of the population was not exposed to levels of radiation that would put them at risk of negative health impacts. However, the slow response to the disaster meant that some individuals were exposed to the short-lived radionuclide Iodine-131 (",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "131",
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                        "spanType": "span-superscript"
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                    {
                        "text": "I) through the contamination of milk. Radioactive fallout settled on pasture grass across the region; this contaminated milk supplies and leafy vegetables that were consumed in the days immediately after the incident.",
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                ],
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "This exposure to ",
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                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "131",
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                    {
                        "text": "I has not been linked to increased cancer risk in the ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "adult",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
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                    },
                    {
                        "text": " population, but several studies have shown an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in those who were children and adolescents around this time. Figuring out how many cases of thyroid cancer in this young population were caused by the accident is not straightforward. This is because there was a large increase in screening efforts in the aftermath of the disaster. It\u2019s not uncommon for thyroid cancer cases to go undetected \u2013 and have no negative impact on an individual\u2019s life. Increased screening, particularly in child populations, would result in finding many cases of cancer that would normally go undetected.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                ],
                "parseErrors": []
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "In 2018, UNSCEAR published its latest findings on thyroid cancers attributed to the Chernobyl disaster. Over the period from 1991 to 2015, there were 19,233 cases of thyroid cancer in patients who were younger than 18 at the time of the disaster across Ukraine, Belarus, and exposed regions of Russia. UNSCEAR concluded that around one-quarter of these cases ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "could",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " be linked to radiation exposure. That would mean 4,808 thyroid cancer cases.{ref}25% of 19,233 is 4808 cases.{/ref}",
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                ],
                "parseErrors": []
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "By 2005, it was reported that ",
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                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "15 of these thyroid cancer cases had been fatal",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-bold"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".{ref}This figure was included in the UNSCEAR\u2019s 2008 report. I found no updated figure for fatalities in its 2018 report.{/ref} However, it was likely that this figure would increase: at least some of those still living with thyroid cancer will eventually die from it.",
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                ],
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "It\u2019s therefore not possible to give a definitive number, but we can look at survival rates and outcomes to get an estimate. Thankfully the prognosis for thyroid cancer in children is very good. Many patients that have undergone treatment have seen either a partial or complete remission.{ref}Reiners, C. (2011). Clinical experiences with radiation induced thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. Genes, 2(2), 374-383.{/ref} Large-scale studies report a 20-year survival rate of 92% for thyroid cancer.{ref}Hogan, A. R., Zhuge, Y., Perez, E. A., Koniaris, L. G., Lew, J. I., & Sola, J. E. (2009). Pediatric thyroid carcinoma: incidence and outcomes in 1753 patients. Journal of Surgical Research, 156(1), 167-172.{/ref}. Others show an even better prognosis, with a survival rate of 98% after 40 years.{ref}Hay, I. D., Gonzalez-Losada, T., Reinalda, M. S., Honetschlager, J. A., Richards, M. L., & Thompson, G. B. (2010). Long-term outcome in 215 children and adolescents with papillary thyroid cancer treated during 1940 through 2008. ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00268-009-0364-0",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "World Journal of Surgery",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ", 34(6), 1192-1202.{/ref}\u00a0\u00a0",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "If we combine standard survival rates with our number of radiation-induced cancer cases \u2013 4,808 cases \u2013 we might estimate that the ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "number of deaths could be in the range of 96 to 385",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-bold"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". This comes from the assumption of a survival rate of 92% to 98% (or, to flip it, a mortality rate of 2% to 8%).{ref}2% of 4808 is 96, and 8% is 385.{/ref} This figure comes with significant uncertainty.",
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                "parseErrors": []
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Deaths in the general population",
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                        "text": "Finally, there has been significant concern about cancer risks to the wider population across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other parts of Europe. This topic remains controversial. Some reports in the early 2000s estimated much higher death tolls ranging from 16,000 to 60,000.{ref}Cardis et al. (2006). Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. International Journal of Cancer. Available ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7087/full/440982a.html?foxtrotcallback=true",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "children": [
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                                        "text": "online",
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                        "text": ".",
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                        "spanType": "span-newline"
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                        "spanType": "span-newline"
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                    {
                        "text": "Fairlie and Sumner (2006). An independent scientific evaluation of health and environmental effects 20 years after the nuclear disaster providing critical analysis of a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Available ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "http://www.chernobylreport.org/?p=summary",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "online",
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                    {
                        "text": ".{/ref} In its 2005 report, the WHO estimated a potential death toll of 4,000.{ref}IAEA, WHO (2005/06). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Chernobyl\u2019s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".{/ref} These estimates were based on the assumption that a large number of people were exposed to elevated levels of radioactivity, and that radioactivity increases cancer risk, even at very low levels of exposure (the so-called \u2018",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "linear no-threshold model",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "\u2019 of radiation exposure).",
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                        "text": "More recent studies suggest that these estimates were too high. In 2008, the UNSCEAR concluded that radioactive exposure to the general public was very low, and that it does not expect adverse health impacts in the countries affected by Chernobyl, or the rest of Europe.{ref}As it details in its report:",
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                        "spanType": "span-newline"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "\u201cThe vast majority of the population were exposed to low levels of radiation comparable, at most, to a few times the annual natural background radiation levels and need not live in fear of serious health consequences. This is true for the populations of the three countries most affected by the Chernobyl accident, Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and even more so for the populations of other European countries.\u201d",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
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                        "text": "\u201cTo date, there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure\u201d{/ref} In 2018 it published a follow-up report, which came to the same conclusion.\u00a0",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "If the health impacts of radiation were directly and linearly related to the level of exposure, we would expect to find that cancer rates were highest in regions closest to the Chernobyl site, and would decline with distance from the plant. But studies do not find this. Cancer rates in Ukraine, for example, were not higher in locations closer to the site{ref}Leung, K. M., Shabat, G., Lu, P., Fields, A. C., Lukashenko, A., Davids, J. S., & Melnitchouk, N. (2019). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JGO.19.00099",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Trends in solid tumor incidence in Ukraine 30 years after chernobyl",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Journal of Global Oncology",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ", ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "5",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
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                    },
                    {
                        "text": ", 1-10.{/ref} This suggests that there is a lower limit to the level at which radiation exposure has negative health impacts. And that most people were not exposed to doses higher than this.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Combined death toll from Chernobyl",
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                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 4,
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
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                        "text": "To summarize the previous paragraphs:\u00a0",
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                "type": "list",
                "items": [
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                        "type": "text",
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                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "2 workers died in the blast.",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-bold"
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "28 workers and firemen died in the weeks that followed from acute radiation syndrome (ARS).",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-bold"
                            }
                        ],
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
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                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "19 ARS survivors had died later, by 2006",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-bold"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": "; most from causes not related to radiation, but it\u2019s not possible to rule all of them out (especially five that were cancer-related).",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "parseErrors": []
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "15 people died from thyroid cancer due to milk contamination",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-bold"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": ". These deaths were among children who were exposed to ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "131",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-superscript"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": "I from milk and food in the days after the disaster. This could increase to between 96 and 384 deaths, however, this figure is highly uncertain.",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
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                        "type": "text",
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                            {
                                "children": [
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                                        "text": "There is currently no evidence of adverse health impacts in the general population across affected countries, or wider Europe",
                                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                                "spanType": "span-bold"
                            },
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                                "text": ".",
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                "type": "text",
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                        "text": "Combined, the ",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "confirmed",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "text": " death toll from Chernobyl is less than 100. We still do not know the ",
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                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "true",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "text": " death toll of the disaster. My best approximation is that the true death toll is in the range of 300 to 500 based on the available evidence.{ref}When we report on the safety of energy sources \u2013 in ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy",
                        "children": [
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                                "children": [
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                                        "text": "this article",
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                        ],
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                        "text": " \u2013 I take the upper number of 433 deaths to be conservative.{/ref}",
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                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "How many died from the nuclear accident in Fukushima?",
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                "level": 3,
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                "type": "text",
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                        "text": "In March 2011, there was an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in \u014ckuma, Fukushima, Japan. This accident was caused by the ",
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                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "2011 T\u014dhoku earthquake and tsunami",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " \u2013 the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan\u2019s history.",
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                        "text": "Despite it being such a large event, so far, only one death has been attributed to the disaster. This includes both the direct impact of the accident itself and the radiation exposure that followed. However, it\u2019s estimated that several thousand died indirectly from the stress and disruption of evacuation.",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Direct and cancer deaths from the accident",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "No one died directly from the disaster. ",
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                    {
                        "text": "However, 40 to 50 people were injured as a result of physical injury from the blast, or radiation burns.",
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                        "text": "In 2018, the Japanese government ",
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                        "url": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45423575",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "reported that",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "one worker has since died",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "text": " from lung cancer as a result of radiation exposure from the event.",
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                        "text": "Over the last decade, many studies have assessed whether there has been any increased cancer risk for local populations. ",
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                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "There appears to be no increased risk of cancer or other radiation-related health impacts",
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                        "text": ".\u00a0",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "In 2016, the World Health Organization noted that there was a very low risk of increased cancer deaths in Japan.{ref}World Health Organization (2016). FAQs: Fukushima Five Years On. Available online at: ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.%7B/ref",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.{/ref",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
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                    {
                        "text": "} Several reports from the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation came to the same conclusion: they report that any increase in radiation exposure for local populations was very low and they do not expect any increase in radiation-related health impacts.{ref}To quote UNSCEAR directly: \u201cThe doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.\u201d",
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                        "url": "http://www.unscear.org/docs/GAreports/A-68-46_e_V1385727.pdf",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ", Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27\u201331, 2013.{/ref}\u00a0",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Deaths from evacuation",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "A more difficult question is how many people died indirectly through the ",
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                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "response",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "text": " and evacuation of locals from the area around Fukushima. Within a few weeks of the accident more than 160,000 people had moved away, either from official evacuation efforts or voluntarily from fear of further radioactive releases. Many were forced to stay in overcrowded gyms, schools, and public facilities for several months until more permanent emergency housing became available.",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The year after the 2011 disaster, the Japanese government estimated that 573 people had died indirectly as a result of the physical and mental stress of evacuation.{ref}The Yomiuri Shimbun, 573 deaths \u2018related to nuclear crisis\u2019, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 February 2012, ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.%7B/ref",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
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                    {
                        "text": "{/ref} Since then, more rigorous assessments of increased mortality have been done, and this figure ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/main-cat2/sub-cat2-6/20201225_kanrenshi.pdf",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "was revised",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "text": " to 2,313 deaths in September 2020.",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "These indirect deaths were attributed to the overall physical and mental stress of evacuation; being moved out of care settings; and disruption to healthcare facilities.\u00a0",
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                        "text": "It\u2019s important to bear in mind that the region was also trying to deal with the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami: this makes it difficult to completely separate the indirect deaths related to the nuclear disaster disruptions, and those of the tsunami itself.",
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                        "text": "Combined, the ",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "confirmed",
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                    {
                        "text": " death toll from Fukushima is therefore 2,314.",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "What can we learn from these nuclear disasters?",
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The context and response to these disasters were very different, and this is reflected in what people died from in the aftermath.",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Many more people died from Chernobyl than from Fukushima. There are several reasons for this.",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
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                        "text": "The first was ",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "reactor design",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". The nuclear reactors at Chernobyl were poorly designed to deal with this meltdown scenario. Its fatal RBMK reactor had no containment structure, allowing radioactive material to spill into the atmosphere. Fukushima\u2019s reactors did have steel-and-concrete containment structures, although it\u2019s likely that at least one of these was also breached.\u00a0",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "Crucially, the cooling systems of both plants worked very differently; at Chernobyl, the loss of cooling water as steam actually served to accelerate reactivity levels in the reactor core, creating a positive feedback loop toward the fatal explosion. The opposite is true of Fukushima, where the reactivity reduced as temperatures rose, effectively operating as a self-shutdown measure.",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
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                        "text": "The second factor was ",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "government response",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "text": ". In the case of Fukushima, the Japanese government responded quickly to the crisis with evacuation efforts extending rapidly from a 3-kilometer (km), to a 10-km, to a 20-km radius whilst the incident at the site continued to unfold. In contrast, the response in the former Soviet Union was one of denial and secrecy.",
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                        "text": "It\u2019s reported that in the days which followed the Chernobyl disaster, residents in surrounding areas were uninformed of the radioactive material in the air around them. In fact, it took at least three days for the Soviet Union to admit an accident had taken place, and did so after radioactive sensors at a Swedish plant were triggered by dispersing radionuclides. As we saw above, it\u2019s estimated that approximately 4,808 thyroid cancer cases in children and adolescents could be linked to radiation exposure from contaminated milk and foods. This could have been prevented by an earlier response.",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "Finally, while an early response from the Japanese government may have prevented a significant number of deaths, many ",
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                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b189ea",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "have questioned",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
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                    {
                        "text": " whether the scale of the evacuation effort \u2013 where more than 160,000 people were displaced \u2013 was necessary.{ref}Hayakawa, M. (2016). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146645316666707",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Increase in disaster-related deaths: risks and social impacts of evacuation",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". Annals of the ICRP, 45(2_suppl), 123-128.",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "Normile (2021). ",
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                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". ",
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                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Science",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
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                    {
                        "text": ".{/ref} As we see from the figures above, evacuation stress and disruption are estimated to have contributed to several thousand early deaths. Only one death has been linked to the impact of radiation. We don\u2019t know what the possible death toll would have been ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "without",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "text": " any evacuation. That\u2019s why a no-evacuation strategy, if a future accident was to occur, seems unlikely.\u00a0However, many have called for governments to develop early assessments and protocols of radiation risks, the scale of evacuation needed, and infrastructure to make sure that the disruption to those that are displaced is kept to a minimum.{ref}Normile (2021). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
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                    {
                        "text": ". ",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "Science",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                        "text": ".{/ref}",
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                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Nuclear is one of the safest energy sources",
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                    }
                ],
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                "level": 3,
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "No energy source comes with zero negative impact. We often think of nuclear energy as being more dangerous than other sources because these low-frequency but highly-visible events come to mind.",
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                ],
                "parseErrors": []
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "However, when we ",
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                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "compare the death rates",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " from nuclear energy to other sources, we see that it\u2019s one of the safest. The numbers that have died from nuclear accidents are very small in comparison to the ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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2020-07-10 08:24:11

2024-02-16 14:22:40

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[
    "Hannah Ritchie",
    "Pablo Rosado"
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Explore global data on nuclear energy production, and the safety of nuclear technologies.

2020-07-10 09:24:11

2023-05-28 08:43:04

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As the world attempts to transition its energy systems away from [fossil fuels](http://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels) towards low-carbon sources of energy, we have a range of energy options: [renewable energy](http://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy) technologies such as hydropower, wind and solar, but also nuclear power. Nuclear energy and renewable technologies typically emit very little CO2 per unit of energy production, and are [also much better](http://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy#as-well-as-being-safe-modern-renewables-and-nuclear-energy-are-both-extremely-low-carbon) than fossil fuels in limiting levels of local air pollution. But whilst some countries are investing heavily in increasing their nuclear energy supply, others are taking their plants offline. The role that nuclear energy plays in the energy system is therefore very specific to the given country. How much of our energy comes from nuclear power? How is its role changing over time? In this article we look at levels and changes in nuclear energy generation across the world, and its safety record in comparison to other sources of energy. ## Nuclear energy generation #### Global generation of nuclear energy <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL"/> Nuclear energy – alongside hydropower – is one of our oldest low-carbon energy technologies. Nuclear power generation has been around since the 1960s, but saw massive growth globally in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. In the interactive chart shown we see how global nuclear generation has changed over the past half-century. Following fast growth during the 1970s to 1990s, global generation has slowed significantly. In fact, we see a sharp dip in nuclear output following the Fukushima tsunami in Japan in 2011 _[we look at the impacts of this disaster later in this article]_, as countries took plants offline due to safety concerns. But we also see that in recent years, production has once again increased. #### Nuclear energy generation by country <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation"/> ##### Related charts: ### Per capita consumption of nuclear energy Which countries consume the most nuclear energy per person? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-nuclear ### Annual change in nuclear energy consumption How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in absolute terms? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-change-nuclear ### Annual percentage change in nuclear energy consumption How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in percentage terms? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-percentage-change-nuclear The global trend in nuclear energy generation masks the large differences in what role it plays at the country level. Some countries get no energy at all from nuclear – or are aiming to eliminate it completely – whilst others get the majority of their power from it. This interactive chart shows the amount of nuclear energy generated by country. We see that France, the USA, China, Russia and Canada all produce relatively large amounts of nuclear power. #### Two tips on how you can interact with this chart * **View the data for any country as a line chart:** click on any country to see its change over time, or by using the 'CHART' tab at the bottom. * **Add any other country to the line chart:** click on the Add country button to compare with any other country. ## Nuclear in the energy and electricity mix ### What share of primary energy comes from nuclear? <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-primary-energy"/> We previously looked nuclear output in terms of energy units – how much each country produces in terawatt-hours. But to understand how large of a role nuclear plays in the energy system we need to put this in perspective of total energy consumption. This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from nuclear sources. Note that this data is based on primary energy calculated by the 'substitution method' which attempts to correct for the inefficiencies in fossil fuel production. It does this by converting non-fossil fuel sources to their 'input equivalents': the amount of primary energy that would be required to produce the same amount of energy if it came from fossil fuels. Here [we describe this adjustment](https://ourworldindata.org/energy-substitution-method) in more detail. In 2019, just over 4% of global primary energy came from nuclear power. Note that this is based on nuclear energy's share in the _energy_ mix. Energy consumption represents the sum of electricity, transport and heating. We look at the _electricity_ mix below. ### What share of electricity comes from nuclear? <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear"/> In the sections above we looked at the role of nuclear in the total _energy_ mix_. _This includes not only electricity, but also transport and heating. Electricity forms only one component of energy consumption. Since transport and heating tend to be harder to decarbonize – they are more reliant on oil and gas – nuclear and renewables tend to have a higher share in the electricity mix versus the total energy mix. This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from nuclear sources. Globally, around 10% of our electricity comes from nuclear. But some countries rely on it heavily: it provides more than 70% of electricity in France, and more than 40% in Sweden. ## Safety of nuclear energy ### What are the safest sources of energy? Energy has been critical to the human progress we’ve seen over the last few centuries. As the United Nations rightly [says](https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/): “energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.” But while energy brings us massive benefits, it’s not without its downsides. Energy production can have negative impacts on human health and the environment in three ways. The first is **air pollution**: millions of people die prematurely every year as a result of [air pollution](https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths). Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass – wood, dung, and charcoal – are responsible for most of those deaths. The second is **accidents**. This includes accidents that happen in the mining and extraction of the fuels – coal, uranium, rare metals, oil, and gas. And it also includes accidents that occur in the transport of raw materials and infrastructure, the construction of the power plant, or their maintenance. The third is **greenhouse gas emissions**: fossil fuels are the main source of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of climate change. In 2020, 91% of [global CO2 emissions](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-co2-emissions-fossil-land?stackMode=relative) came from fossil fuels and industry.{ref}Pierre Friedlingstein, Matthew W. Jones, Michael O'Sullivan, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee, C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Quéré, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Rob B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Laurent Bopp, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Kim I. Currie, Bertrand Decharme, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Wiley Evans, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Thomas Gasser, Dennis Gilfillan, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Atul Jain, Steve D. Jones, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne Körtzinger, Peter Landschützer, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lefèvre, Sebastian Lienert, Junjie Liu, Gregg Marland, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, David R. Munro, Julia E.M.S Nabel Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Tsuneo Ono, Denis Pierrot, Benjamin Poulter, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Thais M Rosan, Jörg Schwinger, Clemens Schwingshackl, Roland Séférian, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Francesco Tubiello, Guido van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Chisato Wada Rik Wanninkhof, Andrew J. Watson, David Willis, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng. Global Carbon Budget 2021, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 2021.{/ref} No energy source is completely safe. They all have short-term impacts on human health, either through air pollution or accidents. And they all have long-term impacts by contributing to climate change. But, their contribution to each differs enormously. Fossil fuels are both the dirtiest and most dangerous in the short term, and emit the most greenhouse gases per unit of energy. This means that there are thankfully no trade-offs here: low-carbon energy sources are also the safest. From the perspective of both human health and climate change, it matters less whether we transition to nuclear power _or_ renewable energy, and more that we stop relying on fossil fuels. ### Nuclear and renewables are far, far safer than fossil fuels Before we consider the long-term impacts of climate change, let’s look at how each source stacks up in terms of short-term health risks. To make these comparisons fair we can’t just look at the _total_ deaths from each source: fossil fuels still dominate our global electricity mix, so we would expect that they would kill more people. Instead, we compare them based on the estimated number of deaths they cause _per unit of electricity_. This is measured in terawatt-hours. One terawatt-hour is about the same as the annual electricity consumption of 150,000 citizens in the European Union.{ref}Per capita electricity consumption in the EU-27 in 2021 [was around](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~European+Union+%2827%29&Total+or+Breakdown=Total&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Per+capita+generation) 6,400 kWh. 1 terawatt-hour is equal to 1,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours. So, we get this figure by dividing 1,000,000,000 by 6,400 ≈ 150,000 people.{/ref} This includes deaths from air pollution and accidents in the supply chain.{ref}The following sources were used to calculate these death rates. **Fossil fuels and biomass:** these figures are taken directly from Markandya, A., & Wilkinson, P. (2007). [Electricity generation and health](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61253-7). _The Lancet_, 370(9591), 979-990. **Nuclear: **I have calculated these figures based on the assumption of 433 deaths from Chernobyl and 2314 from Fukushima. These figures are based on the most recent estimates from UNSCEAR and the Government of Japan. In a [**related article**](https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima), I detail where these figures come from. I have calculated death _rates_ by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production [from nuclear](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL) from 1965 to 2021, which is 96,876 TWh. **Hydropower:** The paper by Sovacool et al. (2016) provides a death _rate_ for hydropower from 1990 to 2013. However, this period excludes some very large hydropower accidents which occurred prior to 1990. I have therefore calculated a death rate for hydropower from 1965 to 2021 based on the list of hydropower accidents provided in Sovacool et al. (2016), which extends back to the 1950s. Since this database ends in 2013, I have also included the Saddle Dam accident in Laos in 2018, which killed 71 people. The total number of deaths from hydropower accidents from 1965 to 2021 was approximately 176,000. 171,000 of these deaths were from the Banqian Dam Failure in China in 1975. I have calculated death _rates_ by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production [from hydropower](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/hydropower-consumption?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL) from 1965 to 2021, which is 138,175 TWh. **Solar and wind: **these figures are taken directly from: Sovacool, B. K., Andersen, R., Sorensen, S., Sorensen, K., Tienda, V., Vainorius, A., … & Bjørn-Thygesen, F. (2016). [Balancing safety with sustainability: assessing the risk of accidents for modern low-carbon energy systems](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615009877). _Journal of Cleaner Production_, 112, 3952-3965. In this analysis the authors compiled a database of as many energy-related accidents as possible based on an extensive search of academic databases and news reports, and derived death rates for each source over the period from 1990 to 2013. Since this database has not been extended since then, it’s not possible to provide post-2013 death rates.{/ref} Let’s look at this comparison in the chart. Fossil fuels and biomass kill many more people than nuclear and modern renewables per unit of electricity. Coal is, by far, the dirtiest. Even then, these estimates for fossil fuels are likely to be very conservative. They are based on power plants in Europe, which have good pollution controls, and are based on older models of the health impacts of air pollution. As I discuss in more detail at the end of this article, _global_ death rates from fossil fuels based on the most recent research on air pollution are likely to be even higher. Our perceptions of the safety of nuclear energy are strongly influenced by two accidents: Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. These were tragic events. However, compared to the millions that die from fossil fuels _every year _the final death tolls were very low. To calculate the death rates used here I assume a death toll of 433 from Chernobyl, and 2,314 from Fukushima.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available [**online**](https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html). Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27–31, 2013.{/ref} If you are interested in this, I look at how many died in each accident in detail in a [**related article**](https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima). The other source which is heavily influenced by a few large-scale accidents is hydropower. Its death rate since 1965 is 1.3 deaths per TWh. This rate is almost completely dominated by one event: the Banqiao Dam Failure in China in 1975. It killed approximately 171,000 people. Otherwise, hydropower was very safe, with a death rate of just 0.04 deaths per TWh – comparable to nuclear, solar, and wind. Finally, we have solar and wind. The death rates from both of these sources are low, but not zero. A small number of people die in accidents in supply chains – ranging from helicopter collisions with turbines; fires during the installation of turbines or panels; and drownings on offshore wind sites. People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart – between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap. The key insight is that they are _all_ much, much safer than fossil fuels. Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh"/> ### Putting death rates from energy in perspective Looking at deaths per terawatt-hour can seem abstract. Let’s try to put it in perspective. Let’s consider how many deaths each source would cause for an average town of 150,000 people in the European Union, which – as I’ve said before – consumes one terawatt-hour of electricity per year. Let’s call this town ‘Euroville’. If Euroville was completely powered by coal we’d expect _at least_ 25 people to die prematurely every year from it. Most of these people would die from air pollution. This is how a coal-powered Euroville would compare with towns powered entirely by each energy source: * **Coal: **25 people would die prematurely every year; * **Oil:** 18 people would die prematurely every year; * **Gas:** 3 people would die prematurely every year; * **Hydropower:** In an average year 1 person would die; * **Wind:** In an average year nobody would die. A death rate of 0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour means every 25 years a single person would die; * **Nuclear:** In an average year nobody would die – only every 33 years would someone die. * **Solar:** In an average year nobody would die – only every 50 years would someone die. ### The safest energy sources are also the cleanest The good news is that there is no trade-off between the safest sources of energy in the short term, and the least damaging for the climate in the long term. They are one and the same, as the chart below shows. In the chart, on the left-hand side, we have the same comparison of death rates from accidents and air pollution that we just looked at. On the right, we have the amount of greenhouse gas that are emitted _per unit_ of electricity production. These are not just the emissions from the burning of fuels, but also from the mining, transportation and maintenance over a power plant’s lifetime.{ref}Schlömer S., T. Bruckner, L. Fulton, E. Hertwich, A. McKinnon, D. Perczyk, J. Roy, R. Schaeffer, R. Sims, P. Smith, and R. Wiser, 2014: Annex III: Technology-specific cost and performance parameters. In: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. The IPCC AR5 report was published in 2014, and relies on studies conducted several years prior to its publication. For technologies which have been developing rapidly – namely solar, wind and other renewables, production technologies and intensities have changed significantly since then, and will continue to change as energy systems decarbonize. Life-cycle figures for nuclear, solar, wind and hydropower have therefore been adopted by the more recent publication by Pehl et al. (2017), published in _Nature Energy._ Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Humpenöder, F., Popp, A., Hertwich, E. G., & Luderer, G. (2017). [Understanding future emissions from low-carbon power systems by integration of life-cycle assessment and integrated energy modelling](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0032-9). _Nature Energy_, 2(12), 939-945. The Carbon Brief provides a clear discussion of the significance of these more recent lifecycle analyses in detail [**here**](https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints). Since oil is conventionally not used for electricity production, it is not included in the IPCC’s reported figures per kilowatt-hour. Figures for oil have therefore been taken from Turconi et al. (2013). It reports emissions in kilograms of CO2eq per megawatt-hour. Emissions factors for all other technologies are consistent with results from the IPCC. The range it gives for oil is 530–900: I have here taken the midpoint estimate (715 kgCO2eq/MWh, which is also 715 gCO2eq/kWh). Turconi, R., Boldrin, A., & Astrup, T. (2013). [Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032113005534). _Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews_, 28, 555-565.{/ref} Coal, again, is the dirtiest fuel. It emits much more greenhouse gases than other sources – hundreds of times more than nuclear, solar, and wind. Oil and gas are also much worse than nuclear and renewables, but to a lesser extent than coal. Unfortunately, the global electricity mix is still dominated by fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas account for [around 60%](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&facet=none&country=~OWID_WRL&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Select+a+source=Fossil+fuels&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Metric=Share+of+total+generation). If we want to stop climate change we have a great opportunity in front of us: we can transition away from them to nuclear and renewables, and also reduce deaths from accidents and air pollution as a side effect.{ref}Burgherr, P., & Hirschberg, S. (2014). [Comparative risk assessment of severe accidents in the energy sector](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142151400072X). Energy Policy, 74, S45-S56. McCombie, C., & Jefferson, M. (2016). Renewable and nuclear electricity: Comparison of environmental impacts. Energy Policy, 96, 758-769. Hirschberg, S., Bauer, C., Burgherr, P., Cazzoli, E., Heck, T., Spada, M., & Treyer, K. (2016). [Health effects of technologies for power generation: Contributions from normal operation, severe accidents and terrorist threat](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301240). Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 145, 373-387. Luderer, G., Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Gibon, T., Bodirsky, B. L., de Boer, H. S., … & Mima, S. (2019). [Environmental co-benefits and adverse side-effects of alternative power sector decarbonization strategies](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095183201500277X). Nature Communications, 10(1), 1-13. Hertwich, E. G., Gibon, T., Bouman, E. A., Arvesen, A., Suh, S., Heath, G. A., … & Shi, L. (2015). [Integrated life-cycle assessment of electricity-supply scenarios confirms global environmental benefit of low-carbon technologies](https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6277). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(20), 6277-6282.{/ref} This transition will not only protect future generations, but it will also come with huge health benefits for the current one. <Image filename="5-Bar-chart-–-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy.png" alt=""/> ### How many people has nuclear energy saved? When people discuss the safety of nuclear energy they often focus on the number of deaths it has caused. But as we looked at previously, nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest energy sources – per unit of energy it results in hundreds of fewer deaths than coal, oil or gas, and is comparable to modern renewables such as solar or wind. By this reasoning, we should perhaps turn this question on its head and ask: "How many lives has nuclear energy saved?", or "How many lives could have been saved if countries had not abandoned it?" In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Germany announced plans to phase out nuclear power generation: over the period from 2011 to 2017 it shut down 10 of its 17 nuclear facilities, and plans to close the remaining reactors in 2022.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). [The Private and External Costs of Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out](https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598) (No. w26598). _National Bureau of Economic Research_.{/ref} Because nuclear is safer than its main alternatives this policy decision cost lives. Replacing nuclear energy with fossil fuels kills people. This is likely to be the case in the recent example of Germany. Most of Germany’s energy deficit from scrapping nuclear was filled by increased coal production – which is, as we just saw, the most polluting source with the largest health impacts. Analysis by Stephen Jarvis, Olivier Deschenes, and Akshaya Jha (2020) estimates that Germany’s nuclear phase-out has come at the cost of more than 1,100 additional deaths each year as a result of air pollution.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., & Jha, A. (2019). [The Private and External Costs of Germany’s Nuclear Phase-Out](https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598) (No. w26598). _National Bureau of Economic Research_.{/ref} Germany’s plan to make its energy systems safer has done exactly the opposite. In a study published in the journal _Environmental Science and Technology_, Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen (2013) aimed to answer the question ‘how many lives has nuclear power saved?’.{ref}Kharecha, P. A., & Hansen, J. E. (2013). [Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es3051197). _Environmental Science & Technology_, 47(9), 4889-4895.{/ref} They analysed how many more people would have died over the period from 1971 to 2009 if nuclear energy had been replaced by fossil fuels. The death toll would have depended on the mix of fossil fuels used to replace nuclear – more would have died if more coal was used than oil or gas – but they estimate that nuclear power has globally saved about two million lives.{ref}van der Merwe, A. (2019). [Nuclear energy saves lives](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01749-8). _Nature_, 570(7759), 36.{/ref} ### What was the death toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima? Nuclear energy is an important source of low-carbon energy. But, there is [strong public opposition](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/public-opposition-to-nuclear-energy-production) to it, often because of concerns around safety. These concerns are often sparked by memories of two nuclear accidents: the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011.{ref}The third incident that often comes to mind was the Three Mile Island accident in the US in 1979. This was rated as a level five event (“Accident with Wider Consequences”) on the seven-point _International Nuclear Event Scale_. No one died directly from this incident, and follow-up epidemiological studies have not found a clear link between the incident and long-term health impacts. Hatch, M. C., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1990). [Cancer near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant: radiation emissions](https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/132/3/397/103678). _American Journal of Epidemiology_, 132(3), 397-412. Hatch, M. C., Wallenstein, S., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., & Susser, M. (1991). [Cancer rates after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and proximity of residence to the plant](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1405170/). _American Journal of Public Healt_h, 81(6), 719-724.{/ref} These two events were by far the largest nuclear accidents in history; the only disasters to receive a level 7 (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale. How many people died in these nuclear disasters, and what can we learn from them? ### How many died from the nuclear accident in Chernobyl? In April 1986, the core of one of the four reactors at Chernobyl nuclear plant, in Ukraine, melted down and exploded. It was the worst nuclear disaster in human history. There are several categories of deaths linked to the disaster – for some we have a good idea of how many died, for others we have a range of plausible deaths. #### Direct deaths from the accident **30 people died during or very soon after the incident. ** Two plant workers died almost immediately in the explosion from the reactor. Overall, 134 emergency workers, plant operators, and firemen were exposed to levels of radiation high enough to suffer from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). 28 of these 134 workers died in the weeks that followed, which takes the total to 30.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available [**online**](https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html).{/ref} #### Later deaths of workers and firemen A point of dispute is whether any more of the 134 workers with ARS died as a result of radiation exposure. In 2008, several decades after the incident, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published a large synthesis of the latest scientific evidence.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available [**online**](https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html).{/ref} It reported that a **further 19 ARS survivors had died by 2006**. But many of these deaths were not related to any condition caused by radiation exposure. Seven were related to diseases not related to cancers including tuberculosis, liver disease, and stroke; six were from heart attacks; one from a trauma incident; and five died from cancers.{ref}The UNSCEAR (2008) report lists the causes of death in each of these survivors in Table D4 of the appendix.{/ref} It’s difficult to say how many of these deaths could be attributed to the Chernobyl accident – it’s not implausible it played a role in at least some of them, especially the five cancer deaths. #### Thyroid cancer deaths in children through contaminated milk Most of the population was not exposed to levels of radiation that would put them at risk of negative health impacts. However, the slow response to the disaster meant that some individuals were exposed to the short-lived radionuclide Iodine-131 (131I) through the contamination of milk. Radioactive fallout settled on pasture grass across the region; this contaminated milk supplies and leafy vegetables that were consumed in the days immediately after the incident. This exposure to 131I has not been linked to increased cancer risk in the _adult_ population, but several studies have shown an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in those who were children and adolescents around this time. Figuring out how many cases of thyroid cancer in this young population were caused by the accident is not straightforward. This is because there was a large increase in screening efforts in the aftermath of the disaster. It’s not uncommon for thyroid cancer cases to go undetected – and have no negative impact on an individual’s life. Increased screening, particularly in child populations, would result in finding many cases of cancer that would normally go undetected. In 2018, UNSCEAR published its latest findings on thyroid cancers attributed to the Chernobyl disaster. Over the period from 1991 to 2015, there were 19,233 cases of thyroid cancer in patients who were younger than 18 at the time of the disaster across Ukraine, Belarus, and exposed regions of Russia. UNSCEAR concluded that around one-quarter of these cases _could_ be linked to radiation exposure. That would mean 4,808 thyroid cancer cases.{ref}25% of 19,233 is 4808 cases.{/ref} By 2005, it was reported that **15 of these thyroid cancer cases had been fatal**.{ref}This figure was included in the UNSCEAR’s 2008 report. I found no updated figure for fatalities in its 2018 report.{/ref} However, it was likely that this figure would increase: at least some of those still living with thyroid cancer will eventually die from it. It’s therefore not possible to give a definitive number, but we can look at survival rates and outcomes to get an estimate. Thankfully the prognosis for thyroid cancer in children is very good. Many patients that have undergone treatment have seen either a partial or complete remission.{ref}Reiners, C. (2011). Clinical experiences with radiation induced thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. Genes, 2(2), 374-383.{/ref} Large-scale studies report a 20-year survival rate of 92% for thyroid cancer.{ref}Hogan, A. R., Zhuge, Y., Perez, E. A., Koniaris, L. G., Lew, J. I., & Sola, J. E. (2009). Pediatric thyroid carcinoma: incidence and outcomes in 1753 patients. Journal of Surgical Research, 156(1), 167-172.{/ref}. Others show an even better prognosis, with a survival rate of 98% after 40 years.{ref}Hay, I. D., Gonzalez-Losada, T., Reinalda, M. S., Honetschlager, J. A., Richards, M. L., & Thompson, G. B. (2010). Long-term outcome in 215 children and adolescents with papillary thyroid cancer treated during 1940 through 2008. [World Journal of Surgery](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00268-009-0364-0), 34(6), 1192-1202.{/ref} If we combine standard survival rates with our number of radiation-induced cancer cases – 4,808 cases – we might estimate that the **number of deaths could be in the range of 96 to 385**. This comes from the assumption of a survival rate of 92% to 98% (or, to flip it, a mortality rate of 2% to 8%).{ref}2% of 4808 is 96, and 8% is 385.{/ref} This figure comes with significant uncertainty. #### Deaths in the general population Finally, there has been significant concern about cancer risks to the wider population across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other parts of Europe. This topic remains controversial. Some reports in the early 2000s estimated much higher death tolls ranging from 16,000 to 60,000.{ref}Cardis et al. (2006). Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. International Journal of Cancer. Available [**online**](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7087/full/440982a.html?foxtrotcallback=true). Fairlie and Sumner (2006). An independent scientific evaluation of health and environmental effects 20 years after the nuclear disaster providing critical analysis of a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Available [**online**](http://www.chernobylreport.org/?p=summary).{/ref} In its 2005 report, the WHO estimated a potential death toll of 4,000.{ref}IAEA, WHO (2005/06). [Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/).{/ref} These estimates were based on the assumption that a large number of people were exposed to elevated levels of radioactivity, and that radioactivity increases cancer risk, even at very low levels of exposure (the so-called ‘[linear no-threshold model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model)’ of radiation exposure). More recent studies suggest that these estimates were too high. In 2008, the UNSCEAR concluded that radioactive exposure to the general public was very low, and that it does not expect adverse health impacts in the countries affected by Chernobyl, or the rest of Europe.{ref}As it details in its report: “The vast majority of the population were exposed to low levels of radiation comparable, at most, to a few times the annual natural background radiation levels and need not live in fear of serious health consequences. This is true for the populations of the three countries most affected by the Chernobyl accident, Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and even more so for the populations of other European countries.” “To date, there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure”{/ref} In 2018 it published a follow-up report, which came to the same conclusion. If the health impacts of radiation were directly and linearly related to the level of exposure, we would expect to find that cancer rates were highest in regions closest to the Chernobyl site, and would decline with distance from the plant. But studies do not find this. Cancer rates in Ukraine, for example, were not higher in locations closer to the site{ref}Leung, K. M., Shabat, G., Lu, P., Fields, A. C., Lukashenko, A., Davids, J. S., & Melnitchouk, N. (2019). [Trends in solid tumor incidence in Ukraine 30 years after chernobyl](https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JGO.19.00099). _Journal of Global Oncology_, _5_, 1-10.{/ref} This suggests that there is a lower limit to the level at which radiation exposure has negative health impacts. And that most people were not exposed to doses higher than this. #### Combined death toll from Chernobyl To summarize the previous paragraphs: * **2 workers died in the blast.** * **28 workers and firemen died in the weeks that followed from acute radiation syndrome (ARS).** * **19 ARS survivors had died later, by 2006**; most from causes not related to radiation, but it’s not possible to rule all of them out (especially five that were cancer-related). * **15 people died from thyroid cancer due to milk contamination**. These deaths were among children who were exposed to 131I from milk and food in the days after the disaster. This could increase to between 96 and 384 deaths, however, this figure is highly uncertain. * **There is currently no evidence of adverse health impacts in the general population across affected countries, or wider Europe**. Combined, the _confirmed_ death toll from Chernobyl is less than 100. We still do not know the _true_ death toll of the disaster. My best approximation is that the true death toll is in the range of 300 to 500 based on the available evidence.{ref}When we report on the safety of energy sources – in [**this article**](https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy) – I take the upper number of 433 deaths to be conservative.{/ref} ### How many died from the nuclear accident in Fukushima? In March 2011, there was an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. This accident was caused by the [2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami) – the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan’s history. Despite it being such a large event, so far, only one death has been attributed to the disaster. This includes both the direct impact of the accident itself and the radiation exposure that followed. However, it’s estimated that several thousand died indirectly from the stress and disruption of evacuation. #### Direct and cancer deaths from the accident **No one died directly from the disaster. **However, 40 to 50 people were injured as a result of physical injury from the blast, or radiation burns. In 2018, the Japanese government [reported that](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45423575)**one worker has since died** from lung cancer as a result of radiation exposure from the event. Over the last decade, many studies have assessed whether there has been any increased cancer risk for local populations. **There appears to be no increased risk of cancer or other radiation-related health impacts**. In 2016, the World Health Organization noted that there was a very low risk of increased cancer deaths in Japan.{ref}World Health Organization (2016). FAQs: Fukushima Five Years On. Available online at: [https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.{/ref](https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.%7B/ref)} Several reports from the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation came to the same conclusion: they report that any increase in radiation exposure for local populations was very low and they do not expect any increase in radiation-related health impacts.{ref}To quote UNSCEAR directly: “The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.” [Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records](http://www.unscear.org/docs/GAreports/A-68-46_e_V1385727.pdf), Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27–31, 2013.{/ref} #### Deaths from evacuation A more difficult question is how many people died indirectly through the _response_ and evacuation of locals from the area around Fukushima. Within a few weeks of the accident more than 160,000 people had moved away, either from official evacuation efforts or voluntarily from fear of further radioactive releases. Many were forced to stay in overcrowded gyms, schools, and public facilities for several months until more permanent emergency housing became available. The year after the 2011 disaster, the Japanese government estimated that 573 people had died indirectly as a result of the physical and mental stress of evacuation.{ref}The Yomiuri Shimbun, 573 deaths ‘related to nuclear crisis’, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 February 2012, [https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.](https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.%7B/ref){/ref} Since then, more rigorous assessments of increased mortality have been done, and this figure [was revised](https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/main-cat2/sub-cat2-6/20201225_kanrenshi.pdf) to 2,313 deaths in September 2020. These indirect deaths were attributed to the overall physical and mental stress of evacuation; being moved out of care settings; and disruption to healthcare facilities. It’s important to bear in mind that the region was also trying to deal with the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami: this makes it difficult to completely separate the indirect deaths related to the nuclear disaster disruptions, and those of the tsunami itself. Combined, the _confirmed_ death toll from Fukushima is therefore 2,314. ### What can we learn from these nuclear disasters? The context and response to these disasters were very different, and this is reflected in what people died from in the aftermath. Many more people died from Chernobyl than from Fukushima. There are several reasons for this. The first was **reactor design**. The nuclear reactors at Chernobyl were poorly designed to deal with this meltdown scenario. Its fatal RBMK reactor had no containment structure, allowing radioactive material to spill into the atmosphere. Fukushima’s reactors did have steel-and-concrete containment structures, although it’s likely that at least one of these was also breached. Crucially, the cooling systems of both plants worked very differently; at Chernobyl, the loss of cooling water as steam actually served to accelerate reactivity levels in the reactor core, creating a positive feedback loop toward the fatal explosion. The opposite is true of Fukushima, where the reactivity reduced as temperatures rose, effectively operating as a self-shutdown measure. The second factor was **government response**. In the case of Fukushima, the Japanese government responded quickly to the crisis with evacuation efforts extending rapidly from a 3-kilometer (km), to a 10-km, to a 20-km radius whilst the incident at the site continued to unfold. In contrast, the response in the former Soviet Union was one of denial and secrecy. It’s reported that in the days which followed the Chernobyl disaster, residents in surrounding areas were uninformed of the radioactive material in the air around them. In fact, it took at least three days for the Soviet Union to admit an accident had taken place, and did so after radioactive sensors at a Swedish plant were triggered by dispersing radionuclides. As we saw above, it’s estimated that approximately 4,808 thyroid cancer cases in children and adolescents could be linked to radiation exposure from contaminated milk and foods. This could have been prevented by an earlier response. Finally, while an early response from the Japanese government may have prevented a significant number of deaths, many [have questioned](https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b189ea) whether the scale of the evacuation effort – where more than 160,000 people were displaced – was necessary.{ref}Hayakawa, M. (2016). [Increase in disaster-related deaths: risks and social impacts of evacuation](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146645316666707). Annals of the ICRP, 45(2_suppl), 123-128. Normile (2021). [Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk](https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat). _Science_.{/ref} As we see from the figures above, evacuation stress and disruption are estimated to have contributed to several thousand early deaths. Only one death has been linked to the impact of radiation. We don’t know what the possible death toll would have been _without_ any evacuation. That’s why a no-evacuation strategy, if a future accident was to occur, seems unlikely. However, many have called for governments to develop early assessments and protocols of radiation risks, the scale of evacuation needed, and infrastructure to make sure that the disruption to those that are displaced is kept to a minimum.{ref}Normile (2021). [Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk](https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat). _Science_.{/ref} ### Nuclear is one of the safest energy sources No energy source comes with zero negative impact. We often think of nuclear energy as being more dangerous than other sources because these low-frequency but highly-visible events come to mind. However, when we [compare the death rates](https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy) from nuclear energy to other sources, we see that it’s one of the safest. The numbers that have died from nuclear accidents are very small in comparison to the [_millions_ that die](https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths) from air pollution from fossil fuels _every year_. As the linked post shows, the death rate from nuclear is roughly comparable with most renewable energy technologies. Since nuclear is also a key source of low-carbon energy, it can play a key role in a sustainable energy mix alongside renewables. ## Explore more of our work on Energy Explore all the metrics – energy production, electricity consumption, and breakdown of fossil fuels, renewable and nuclear energy. Get an overview of energy for any country on a single page. Download our complete dataset of energy metrics on GitHub. It's open-access and free for anyone to use. See how access to electricity and clean cooking fuels vary across the world. Explore long-term changes in energy production and consumption across the world. How much of our energy comes from fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear energy? See the breakdown of the energy mix. Explore the breakdown of the electricity mix and how this is changing. See the long-term changes in coal, oil and gas production and consumption. How quickly are countries scaling up the production of renewable technologies? Explore the data. Explore the long-term changes in nuclear energy production across the world. Explore trends in transport technologies and emissions across the world.

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        "rendered": "\n<!-- formatting-options subnavId:energy subnavCurrentId:nuclear-energy -->\n\n\n\n<p>As the world attempts to transition its energy systems away from <a href=\"http://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels\">fossil fuels</a> towards low-carbon sources of energy, we have a range of energy options: <a href=\"http://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy\">renewable energy</a> technologies such as hydropower, wind and solar, but also nuclear power. Nuclear energy and renewable technologies typically emit very little CO<sub>2</sub> per unit of energy production, and are <a href=\"http://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy#as-well-as-being-safe-modern-renewables-and-nuclear-energy-are-both-extremely-low-carbon\">also much better</a> than fossil fuels in limiting levels of local air pollution.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But whilst some countries are investing heavily in increasing their nuclear energy supply, others are taking their plants offline. The role that nuclear energy plays in the energy system is therefore very specific to the given country.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>How much of our energy comes from nuclear power? How is its role changing over time? In this article we look at levels and changes in nuclear energy generation across the world, and its safety record in comparison to other sources of energy.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Nuclear energy generation</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Global generation of nuclear energy</h4>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&amp;country=~OWID_WRL\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>Nuclear energy \u2013 alongside hydropower \u2013 is one of our oldest low-carbon energy technologies.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nuclear power generation has been around since the 1960s, but saw massive growth globally in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. In the interactive chart shown we see how global nuclear generation has changed over the past half-century.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following fast growth during the 1970s to 1990s, global generation has slowed significantly. In fact, we see a sharp dip in nuclear output following the Fukushima tsunami in Japan in 2011 <em>[we look at the impacts of this disaster later in this article]</em>, as countries took plants offline due to safety concerns.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But we also see that in recent years, production has once again increased.</p>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h4>Nuclear energy generation by country</h4>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h5>Related charts:</h5>\n\n\n    <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n        <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-nuclear</link-url>\n        <title>Per capita consumption of nuclear energy</title>\n        <content>\n\n<p>Which countries consume the most nuclear energy <em>per person</em>?</p>\n\n</content>\n        <figure></figure>\n    </block>\n\n    <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n        <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-change-nuclear</link-url>\n        <title>Annual change in nuclear energy consumption</title>\n        <content>\n\n<p>How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in <em>absolute</em> terms?</p>\n\n</content>\n        <figure></figure>\n    </block>\n\n    <block type=\"prominent-link\" style=\"is-style-thin\">\n        <link-url>https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-percentage-change-nuclear</link-url>\n        <title>Annual percentage change in nuclear energy consumption</title>\n        <content>\n\n<p>How is nuclear energy consumption changing from year-to-year in <em>percentage</em> terms?</p>\n\n</content>\n        <figure></figure>\n    </block></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>The global trend in nuclear energy generation masks the large differences in what role it plays at the country level.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some countries get no energy at all from nuclear \u2013 or are aiming to eliminate it completely \u2013 whilst others get the majority of their power from it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This interactive chart shows the amount of nuclear energy generated by country. We see that France, the USA, China, Russia and Canada all produce relatively large amounts of nuclear power.</p>\n\n\n\t<block type=\"help\">\n\t\t<content>\n\n<h4>Two tips on how you can interact with this chart</h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>View the data for any country as a line chart:</strong> click on any country to see its change over time, or by using the &#8216;CHART&#8217; tab at the bottom.</li><li><strong>Add any other country to the line chart:</strong> click on the Add country button to compare with any other country.</li></ul>\n\n</content>\n\t</block></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Nuclear in the energy and electricity mix</h2>\n\n\n\n<h3>What share of primary energy comes from nuclear?</h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-primary-energy\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>We previously looked nuclear output in terms of energy units \u2013 how much each country produces in terawatt-hours. But to understand how large of a role nuclear plays in the energy system we need to put this in perspective of total energy consumption.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from nuclear sources.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Note that this data is based on primary energy calculated by the &#8216;substitution method&#8217; which attempts to correct for the inefficiencies in fossil fuel production. It does this by converting non-fossil fuel sources to their &#8216;input equivalents&#8217;: the  amount of primary energy that would be required to produce the same amount of energy if it came from fossil fuels. Here <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/energy-substitution-method\">we describe this adjustment</a> in more detail.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2019, just over 4% of global primary energy came from nuclear power.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Note that this is based on nuclear energy&#8217;s share in the <em>energy</em> mix. Energy consumption represents the sum of electricity, transport and heating. We look at the <em>electricity</em> mix below.</p>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h3>What share of electricity comes from nuclear?</h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-left\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>In the sections above we looked at the role of nuclear in the total <em>energy</em> mix<em>. </em>This includes not only electricity, but also transport and heating. Electricity forms only one component of energy consumption.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since transport and heating tend to be harder to decarbonize \u2013 they are more reliant on oil and gas \u2013 nuclear and renewables tend to have a higher share in the electricity mix versus the total energy mix.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This interactive chart shows the share of electricity that comes from nuclear sources.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Globally, around 10% of our electricity comes from nuclear. But some countries rely on it heavily: it provides more than 70% of electricity in France, and more than 40% in Sweden.</p>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Safety of nuclear energy</h2>\n\n\n\n<h3>What are the safest sources of energy?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Energy has been critical to the human progress we\u2019ve seen over the last few centuries. As the United Nations rightly <a href=\"https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/\">says</a>: \u201cenergy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.\u201d</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But while energy brings us massive benefits, it\u2019s not without its downsides. Energy production can have negative impacts on human health and the environment in three ways.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first is <strong>air pollution</strong>: millions of people die prematurely every year as a result of <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths\">air pollution</a>. Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass \u2013 wood, dung, and charcoal \u2013 are responsible for most of those deaths.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second is <strong>accidents</strong>. This includes accidents that happen in the mining and extraction of the fuels \u2013 coal, uranium, rare metals, oil, and gas. And it also includes accidents that occur in the transport of raw materials and infrastructure, the construction of the power plant, or their maintenance.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The third is <strong>greenhouse gas emissions</strong>: fossil fuels are the main source of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of climate change. In 2020, 91% of <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-co2-emissions-fossil-land?stackMode=relative\">global CO<sub>2</sub> emissions</a> came from fossil fuels and industry.{ref}\u200b\u200bPierre Friedlingstein, Matthew W. Jones, Michael O&#8217;Sullivan, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee, C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Qu\u00e9r\u00e9, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Rob B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Laurent Bopp, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Kim I. Currie, Bertrand Decharme, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Wiley Evans, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Thomas Gasser, Dennis Gilfillan, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, \u00d6zg\u00fcr G\u00fcrses, Ian Harris, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Atul Jain, Steve D. Jones, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, J\u00fcrgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne K\u00f6rtzinger, Peter Landsch\u00fctzer, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lef\u00e8vre, Sebastian Lienert, Junjie Liu, Gregg Marland, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, David R. Munro, Julia E.M.S Nabel Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Tsuneo Ono, Denis Pierrot, Benjamin Poulter, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian R\u00f6denbeck, Thais M Rosan, J\u00f6rg Schwinger, Clemens Schwingshackl, Roland S\u00e9f\u00e9rian, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Francesco Tubiello, Guido van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Chisato Wada Rik Wanninkhof, Andrew J. Watson, David Willis, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, S\u00f6nke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng. Global Carbon Budget 2021, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 2021.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>No energy source is completely safe. They all have short-term impacts on human health, either through air pollution or accidents. And they all have long-term impacts by contributing to climate change.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, their contribution to each differs enormously. Fossil fuels are both the dirtiest and most dangerous in the short term, and emit the most greenhouse gases per unit of energy. This means that there are thankfully no trade-offs here: low-carbon energy sources are also the safest. From the perspective of both human health and climate change, it matters less whether we transition to nuclear power <em>or</em> renewable energy, and more that we stop relying on fossil fuels.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Nuclear and renewables are far, far safer than fossil fuels</h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>Before we consider the long-term impacts of climate change, let\u2019s look at how each source stacks up in terms of short-term health risks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To make these comparisons fair we can\u2019t just look at the <em>total</em> deaths from each source: fossil fuels still dominate our global electricity mix, so we would expect that they would kill more people.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, we compare them based on the estimated number of deaths they cause <em>per unit of electricity</em>. This is measured in terawatt-hours. One terawatt-hour is about the same as the annual electricity consumption of 150,000 citizens in the European Union.{ref}Per capita electricity consumption in the EU-27 in 2021 <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&amp;facet=none&amp;country=~European+Union+%2827%29&amp;Total+or+Breakdown=Total&amp;Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&amp;Metric=Per+capita+generation\">was around</a> 6,400 kWh.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>1 terawatt-hour is equal to 1,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours. So, we get this figure by dividing 1,000,000,000 by 6,400 \u2248 150,000 people.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This includes deaths from air pollution and accidents in the supply chain.{ref}The following sources were used to calculate these death rates.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fossil fuels and biomass:</strong> these figures are taken directly from Markandya, A., &amp; Wilkinson, P. (2007). <a href=\"https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61253-7\">Electricity generation and health</a>. <em>The Lancet</em>, 370(9591), 979-990.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nuclear: </strong>I have calculated these figures based on the assumption of 433 deaths from Chernobyl and 2314 from Fukushima. These figures are based on the most recent estimates from UNSCEAR and the Government of Japan. In a <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima\"><strong>related article</strong></a>, I detail where these figures come from.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have calculated death <em>rates</em> by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nuclear-energy-generation?tab=chart&amp;country=~OWID_WRL\">from nuclear</a> from 1965 to 2021, which is 96,876 TWh.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hydropower:</strong> The paper by Sovacool et al. (2016) provides a death <em>rate</em> for hydropower from 1990 to 2013. However, this period excludes some very large hydropower accidents which occurred prior to 1990. I have therefore calculated a death rate for hydropower from 1965 to 2021 based on the list of hydropower accidents provided in Sovacool et al. (2016), which extends back to the 1950s. Since this database ends in 2013, I have also included the Saddle Dam accident in Laos in 2018, which killed 71 people.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The total number of deaths from hydropower accidents from 1965 to 2021 was approximately 176,000. 171,000 of these deaths were from the Banqian Dam Failure in China in 1975.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have calculated death <em>rates</em> by dividing this figure by cumulative global electricity production <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/hydropower-consumption?tab=chart&amp;country=~OWID_WRL\">from hydropower</a> from 1965 to 2021, which is 138,175 TWh.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Solar and wind: </strong>these figures are taken directly from: Sovacool, B. K., Andersen, R., Sorensen, S., Sorensen, K., Tienda, V., Vainorius, A., \u2026 &amp; Bj\u00f8rn-Thygesen, F. (2016). <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615009877\">Balancing safety with sustainability: assessing the risk of accidents for modern low-carbon energy systems</a>. <em>Journal of Cleaner Production</em>, 112, 3952-3965. In this analysis the authors compiled a database of as many energy-related accidents as possible based on an extensive search of academic databases and news reports, and derived death rates for each source over the period from 1990 to 2013. Since this database has not been extended since then, it\u2019s not possible to provide post-2013 death rates.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s look at this comparison in the chart. Fossil fuels and biomass kill many more people than nuclear and modern renewables per unit of electricity. Coal is, by far, the dirtiest.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even then, these estimates for fossil fuels are likely to be very conservative. They are based on power plants in Europe, which have good pollution controls, and are based on older models of the health impacts of air pollution. As I discuss in more detail at the end of this article, <em>global</em> death rates from fossil fuels based on the most recent research on air pollution are likely to be even higher.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our perceptions of the safety of nuclear energy are strongly influenced by two accidents: Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. These were tragic events. However, compared to the millions that die from fossil fuels <em>every year </em>the final death tolls were very low. To calculate the death rates used here I assume a death toll of 433 from Chernobyl, and 2,314 from Fukushima.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available <a href=\"https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html\"><strong>online</strong></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27\u201331, 2013.{/ref} If you are interested in this, I look at how many died in each accident in detail in a <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima\"><strong>related article</strong></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other source which is heavily influenced by a few large-scale accidents is hydropower. Its death rate since 1965 is 1.3 deaths per TWh. This rate is almost completely dominated by one event: the Banqiao Dam Failure in China in 1975. It killed approximately 171,000 people. Otherwise, hydropower was very safe, with a death rate of just 0.04 deaths per TWh \u2013 comparable to nuclear, solar, and wind.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, we have solar and wind. The death rates from both of these sources are low, but not zero. A small number of people die in accidents in supply chains \u2013 ranging from helicopter collisions with turbines; fires during the installation of turbines or panels; and drownings on offshore wind sites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart \u2013 between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The key insight is that they are <em>all</em> much, much safer than fossil fuels.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Putting death rates from energy in perspective</h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>Looking at deaths per terawatt-hour can seem abstract. Let\u2019s try to put it in perspective.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s consider how many deaths each source would cause for an average town of 150,000 people in the European Union, which \u2013 as I\u2019ve said before \u2013 consumes one terawatt-hour of electricity per year. Let\u2019s call this town \u2018Euroville\u2019.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If Euroville was completely powered by coal we\u2019d expect <em>at least</em> 25 people to die prematurely every year from it.&nbsp; Most of these people would die from air pollution.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is how a coal-powered Euroville would compare with towns powered entirely by each energy source:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Coal: </strong>25 people would die prematurely every year;</li><li><strong>Oil:</strong> 18 people would die prematurely every year;</li><li><strong>Gas:</strong> 3 people would die prematurely every year;</li><li><strong>Hydropower:</strong> In an average year 1 person would die;</li><li><strong>Wind:</strong> In an average year nobody would die. A death rate of 0.04 deaths per terawatt-hour means every 25 years a single person would die;</li><li><strong>Nuclear:</strong> In an average year nobody would die \u2013 only every 33 years would someone die.</li><li><strong>Solar:</strong> In an average year nobody would die \u2013 only every 50 years would someone die.</li></ul>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h3>The safest energy sources are also the cleanest</h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>The good news is that there is no trade-off between the safest sources of energy in the short term, and the least damaging for the climate in the long term. They are one and the same, as the chart below shows.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the chart, on the left-hand side, we have the same comparison of death rates from accidents and air pollution that we just looked at. On the right, we have the amount of greenhouse gas that are emitted <em>per unit</em> of electricity production.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are not just the emissions from the burning of fuels, but also from the mining, transportation and maintenance over a power plant\u2019s lifetime.{ref}Schl\u00f6mer S., T. Bruckner, L. Fulton, E. Hertwich, A. McKinnon, D. Perczyk, J. Roy, R. Schaeffer, R. Sims, P. Smith, and R. Wiser, 2014: Annex III: Technology-specific cost and performance parameters. In: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schl\u00f6mer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The IPCC AR5 report was published in 2014, and relies on studies conducted several years prior to its publication. For technologies which have been developing rapidly \u2013 namely solar, wind and other renewables, production technologies and intensities have changed significantly since then, and will continue to change as energy systems decarbonize. Life-cycle figures for nuclear, solar, wind and hydropower have therefore been adopted by the more recent publication by Pehl et al. (2017), published in <em>Nature Energy.</em></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Humpen\u00f6der, F., Popp, A., Hertwich, E. G., &amp; Luderer, G. (2017). <a href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0032-9\">Understanding future emissions from low-carbon power systems by integration of life-cycle assessment and integrated energy modelling</a>. <em>Nature Energy</em>, 2(12), 939-945.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Carbon Brief provides a clear discussion of the significance of these more recent lifecycle analyses in detail <a href=\"https://www.carbonbrief.org/solar-wind-nuclear-amazingly-low-carbon-footprints\"><strong>here</strong></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since oil is conventionally not used for electricity production, it is not included in the IPCC\u2019s reported figures per kilowatt-hour. Figures for oil have therefore been taken from Turconi et al. (2013). It reports emissions in kilograms of CO2eq per megawatt-hour. Emissions factors for all other technologies are consistent with results from the IPCC. The range it gives for oil is 530\u2013900: I have here taken the midpoint estimate (715 kgCO2eq/MWh, which is also 715 gCO2eq/kWh).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Turconi, R., Boldrin, A., &amp; Astrup, T. (2013). <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032113005534\">Life cycle assessment (LCA) of electricity generation technologies: Overview, comparability and limitations</a>. <em>Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews</em>, 28, 555-565.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Coal, again, is the dirtiest fuel. It emits much more greenhouse gases than other sources \u2013 hundreds of times more than nuclear, solar, and wind.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oil and gas are also much worse than nuclear and renewables, but to a lesser extent than coal.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, the global electricity mix is still dominated by fossil fuels: coal, oil, and gas account for <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?tab=chart&amp;facet=none&amp;country=~OWID_WRL&amp;Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&amp;Select+a+source=Fossil+fuels&amp;Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&amp;Metric=Share+of+total+generation\">around 60%</a>. If we want to stop climate change we have a great opportunity in front of us: we can transition away from them to nuclear and renewables, and also reduce deaths from accidents and air pollution as a side effect.{ref}Burgherr, P., &amp; Hirschberg, S. (2014). <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030142151400072X\">Comparative risk assessment of severe accidents in the energy sector</a>. Energy Policy, 74, S45-S56.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>McCombie, C., &amp; Jefferson, M. (2016). Renewable and nuclear electricity: Comparison of environmental impacts. Energy Policy, 96, 758-769.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hirschberg, S., Bauer, C., Burgherr, P., Cazzoli, E., Heck, T., Spada, M., &amp; Treyer, K. (2016). <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301240\">Health effects of technologies for power generation: Contributions from normal operation, severe accidents and terrorist threat</a>. Reliability Engineering &amp; System Safety, 145, 373-387.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Luderer, G., Pehl, M., Arvesen, A., Gibon, T., Bodirsky, B. L., de Boer, H. S., \u2026 &amp; Mima, S. (2019). <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095183201500277X\">Environmental co-benefits and adverse side-effects of alternative power sector decarbonization strategies</a>. Nature Communications, 10(1), 1-13.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hertwich, E. G., Gibon, T., Bouman, E. A., Arvesen, A., Suh, S., Heath, G. A., \u2026 &amp; Shi, L. (2015). <a href=\"https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6277\">Integrated life-cycle assessment of electricity-supply scenarios confirms global environmental benefit of low-carbon technologies</a>. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(20), 6277-6282.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This transition will not only protect future generations, but it will also come with huge health benefits for the current one.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2619\" height=\"1410\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-37712\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy.png 2619w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-400x215.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-800x431.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-150x81.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-768x413.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-1536x827.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/11/5-Bar-chart-\u2013-What-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-2048x1103.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2619px) 100vw, 2619px\" /></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h3>How many people has nuclear energy saved?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>When people discuss the safety of nuclear energy they often focus on the number of deaths it has caused. But as we looked at previously, nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest energy sources \u2013 per unit of energy it results in hundreds of fewer deaths than coal, oil or gas, and is comparable to modern renewables such as solar or wind.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>By this reasoning, we should perhaps turn this question on its head and ask: &#8220;How many lives has nuclear energy saved?&#8221;, or &#8220;How many lives could have been saved if countries had not abandoned it?&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Germany announced plans to phase out nuclear power generation: over the period from 2011 to 2017 it shut down 10 of its 17 nuclear facilities, and plans to close the remaining reactors in 2022.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., &amp; Jha, A. (2019). <a href=\"https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598\">The Private and External Costs of Germany\u2019s Nuclear Phase-Out</a> (No. w26598). <em>National Bureau of Economic Research</em>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because nuclear is safer than its main alternatives this policy decision cost lives.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Replacing nuclear energy with fossil fuels kills people. This is likely to be the case in the recent example of Germany. Most of Germany\u2019s energy deficit from scrapping nuclear was filled by increased coal production \u2013 which is, as we just saw, the most polluting source with the largest health impacts. Analysis by Stephen Jarvis, Olivier Deschenes, and Akshaya Jha (2020) estimates that Germany\u2019s nuclear phase-out has come at the cost of more than 1,100 additional deaths each year as a result of air pollution.{ref}Jarvis, S., Deschenes, O., &amp; Jha, A. (2019). <a href=\"https://www.nber.org/papers/w26598\">The Private and External Costs of Germany\u2019s Nuclear Phase-Out</a> (No. w26598). <em>National Bureau of Economic Research</em>.{/ref} Germany\u2019s plan to make its energy systems safer has done exactly the opposite.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a study published in the journal <em>Environmental Science and Technology</em>, Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen (2013) aimed to answer the question \u2018how many lives has nuclear power saved?\u2019.{ref}Kharecha, P. A., &amp; Hansen, J. E. (2013). <a href=\"https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es3051197\">Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power</a>. <em>Environmental Science &amp; Technology</em>, 47(9), 4889-4895.{/ref} They analysed how many more people would have died over the period from 1971 to 2009 if nuclear energy had been replaced by fossil fuels. The death toll would have depended on the mix of fossil fuels used to replace nuclear \u2013 more would have died if more coal was used than oil or gas \u2013 but they estimate that nuclear power has globally saved about two million lives.{ref}van der Merwe, A. (2019). <a href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01749-8\">Nuclear energy saves lives</a>. <em>Nature</em>, 570(7759), 36.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>What was the death toll from Chernobyl and Fukushima?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Nuclear energy is an important source of low-carbon energy. But, there is <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/public-opposition-to-nuclear-energy-production\">strong public opposition</a> to it, often because of concerns around safety.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These concerns are often sparked by memories of two nuclear accidents: the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986, and Fukushima in Japan in 2011.{ref}The third incident that often comes to mind was the Three Mile Island accident in the US in 1979. This was rated as a level five event (\u201cAccident with Wider Consequences\u201d) on the seven-point <em>International Nuclear Event Scale</em>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>No one died directly from this incident, and follow-up epidemiological studies have not found a clear link between the incident and long-term health impacts.<br><br>Hatch, M. C., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., &amp; Susser, M. (1990). <a href=\"https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/132/3/397/103678\">Cancer near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant: radiation emissions</a>. <em>American Journal of Epidemiology</em>, 132(3), 397-412.<br><br>Hatch, M. C., Wallenstein, S., Beyea, J., Nieves, J. W., &amp; Susser, M. (1991). <a href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1405170/\">Cancer rates after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and proximity of residence to the plant</a>. <em>American Journal of Public Healt</em>h, 81(6), 719-724.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These two events were by far the largest nuclear accidents in history; the only disasters to receive a level 7 (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>How many people died in these nuclear disasters, and what can we learn from them?</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>How many died from the nuclear accident in Chernobyl?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In April 1986, the core of one of the four reactors at Chernobyl nuclear plant, in Ukraine, melted down and exploded. It was the worst nuclear disaster in human history.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are several categories of deaths linked to the disaster \u2013 for some we have a good idea of how many died, for others we have a range of plausible deaths.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Direct deaths from the accident</h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>30 people died during or very soon after the incident.&nbsp;</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two plant workers died almost immediately in the explosion from the reactor. Overall, 134 emergency workers, plant operators, and firemen were exposed to levels of radiation high enough to suffer from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). 28 of these 134 workers died in the weeks that followed, which takes the total to 30.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available <a href=\"https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html\"><strong>online</strong></a>.{/ref}&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Later deaths of workers and firemen</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>A point of dispute is whether any more of the 134 workers with ARS died as a result of radiation exposure. In 2008, several decades after the incident, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) published a large synthesis of the latest scientific evidence.{ref}UNSCEAR (2008). Sources and effects of Ionizing Radiation. UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes. Available <a href=\"https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008_1.html\"><strong>online</strong></a>.{/ref} It reported that a <strong>further 19 ARS survivors had died by 2006</strong>. But many of these deaths were not related to any condition caused by radiation exposure. Seven were related to diseases not related to cancers including tuberculosis, liver disease, and stroke; six were from heart attacks; one from a trauma incident; and five died from cancers.{ref}The UNSCEAR (2008) report lists the causes of death in each of these survivors in Table D4 of the appendix.{/ref} It\u2019s difficult to say how many of these deaths could be attributed to the Chernobyl accident \u2013 it\u2019s not implausible it played a role in at least some of them, especially the five cancer deaths.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Thyroid cancer deaths in children through contaminated milk</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of the population was not exposed to levels of radiation that would put them at risk of negative health impacts. However, the slow response to the disaster meant that some individuals were exposed to the short-lived radionuclide Iodine-131 (<sup>131</sup>I) through the contamination of milk. Radioactive fallout settled on pasture grass across the region; this contaminated milk supplies and leafy vegetables that were consumed in the days immediately after the incident.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This exposure to <sup>131</sup>I has not been linked to increased cancer risk in the <em>adult</em> population, but several studies have shown an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in those who were children and adolescents around this time. Figuring out how many cases of thyroid cancer in this young population were caused by the accident is not straightforward. This is because there was a large increase in screening efforts in the aftermath of the disaster. It\u2019s not uncommon for thyroid cancer cases to go undetected \u2013 and have no negative impact on an individual\u2019s life. Increased screening, particularly in child populations, would result in finding many cases of cancer that would normally go undetected.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2018, UNSCEAR published its latest findings on thyroid cancers attributed to the Chernobyl disaster. Over the period from 1991 to 2015, there were 19,233 cases of thyroid cancer in patients who were younger than 18 at the time of the disaster across Ukraine, Belarus, and exposed regions of Russia. UNSCEAR concluded that around one-quarter of these cases <em>could</em> be linked to radiation exposure. That would mean 4,808 thyroid cancer cases.{ref}25% of 19,233 is 4808 cases.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>By 2005, it was reported that <strong>15 of these thyroid cancer cases had been fatal</strong>.{ref}This figure was included in the UNSCEAR\u2019s 2008 report. I found no updated figure for fatalities in its 2018 report.{/ref} However, it was likely that this figure would increase: at least some of those still living with thyroid cancer will eventually die from it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s therefore not possible to give a definitive number, but we can look at survival rates and outcomes to get an estimate. Thankfully the prognosis for thyroid cancer in children is very good. Many patients that have undergone treatment have seen either a partial or complete remission.{ref}Reiners, C. (2011). Clinical experiences with radiation induced thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. Genes, 2(2), 374-383.{/ref} Large-scale studies report a 20-year survival rate of 92% for thyroid cancer.{ref}Hogan, A. R., Zhuge, Y., Perez, E. A., Koniaris, L. G., Lew, J. I., &amp; Sola, J. E. (2009). Pediatric thyroid carcinoma: incidence and outcomes in 1753 patients. Journal of Surgical Research, 156(1), 167-172.{/ref}. Others show an even better prognosis, with a survival rate of 98% after 40 years.{ref}Hay, I. D., Gonzalez-Losada, T., Reinalda, M. S., Honetschlager, J. A., Richards, M. L., &amp; Thompson, G. B. (2010). Long-term outcome in 215 children and adolescents with papillary thyroid cancer treated during 1940 through 2008. <a href=\"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00268-009-0364-0\">World Journal of Surgery</a>, 34(6), 1192-1202.{/ref}&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we combine standard survival rates with our number of radiation-induced cancer cases \u2013 4,808 cases \u2013 we might estimate that the <strong>number of deaths could be in the range of 96 to 385</strong>. This comes from the assumption of a survival rate of 92% to 98% (or, to flip it, a mortality rate of 2% to 8%).{ref}2% of 4808 is 96, and 8% is 385.{/ref} This figure comes with significant uncertainty.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Deaths in the general population</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, there has been significant concern about cancer risks to the wider population across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other parts of Europe. This topic remains controversial. Some reports in the early 2000s estimated much higher death tolls ranging from 16,000 to 60,000.{ref}Cardis et al. (2006). Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. International Journal of Cancer. Available <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7087/full/440982a.html?foxtrotcallback=true\"><strong>online</strong></a>.<br><br>Fairlie and Sumner (2006). An independent scientific evaluation of health and environmental effects 20 years after the nuclear disaster providing critical analysis of a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Available <a href=\"http://www.chernobylreport.org/?p=summary\"><strong>online</strong></a>.{/ref} In its 2005 report, the WHO estimated a potential death toll of 4,000.{ref}IAEA, WHO (2005/06). <a href=\"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/\">Chernobyl\u2019s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts</a>.{/ref} These estimates were based on the assumption that a large number of people were exposed to elevated levels of radioactivity, and that radioactivity increases cancer risk, even at very low levels of exposure (the so-called \u2018<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model\">linear no-threshold model</a>\u2019 of radiation exposure).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>More recent studies suggest that these estimates were too high. In 2008, the UNSCEAR concluded that radioactive exposure to the general public was very low, and that it does not expect adverse health impacts in the countries affected by Chernobyl, or the rest of Europe.{ref}As it details in its report:<br>\u201cThe vast majority of the population were exposed to low levels of radiation comparable, at most, to a few times the annual natural background radiation levels and need not live in fear of serious health consequences. This is true for the populations of the three countries most affected by the Chernobyl accident, Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and even more so for the populations of other European countries.\u201d</p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTo date, there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure\u201d{/ref} In 2018 it published a follow-up report, which came to the same conclusion.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the health impacts of radiation were directly and linearly related to the level of exposure, we would expect to find that cancer rates were highest in regions closest to the Chernobyl site, and would decline with distance from the plant. But studies do not find this. Cancer rates in Ukraine, for example, were not higher in locations closer to the site{ref}Leung, K. M., Shabat, G., Lu, P., Fields, A. C., Lukashenko, A., Davids, J. S., &amp; Melnitchouk, N. (2019). <a href=\"https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JGO.19.00099\">Trends in solid tumor incidence in Ukraine 30 years after chernobyl</a>. <em>Journal of Global Oncology</em>, <em>5</em>, 1-10.{/ref} This suggests that there is a lower limit to the level at which radiation exposure has negative health impacts. And that most people were not exposed to doses higher than this.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Combined death toll from Chernobyl</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>To summarize the previous paragraphs:&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>2 workers died in the blast.</strong></li><li><strong>28 workers and firemen died in the weeks that followed from acute radiation syndrome (ARS).</strong></li><li><strong>19 ARS survivors had died later, by 2006</strong>; most from causes not related to radiation, but it\u2019s not possible to rule all of them out (especially five that were cancer-related).</li><li><strong>15 people died from thyroid cancer due to milk contamination</strong>. These deaths were among children who were exposed to <sup>131</sup>I from milk and food in the days after the disaster. This could increase to between 96 and 384 deaths, however, this figure is highly uncertain.</li><li><strong>There is currently no evidence of adverse health impacts in the general population across affected countries, or wider Europe</strong>.</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Combined, the <em>confirmed</em> death toll from Chernobyl is less than 100. We still do not know the <em>true</em> death toll of the disaster. My best approximation is that the true death toll is in the range of 300 to 500 based on the available evidence.{ref}When we report on the safety of energy sources \u2013 in <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy\"><strong>this article</strong></a> \u2013 I take the upper number of 433 deaths to be conservative.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>How many died from the nuclear accident in Fukushima?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In March 2011, there was an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in \u014ckuma, Fukushima, Japan. This accident was caused by the <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami\">2011 T\u014dhoku earthquake and tsunami</a> \u2013 the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan\u2019s history.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite it being such a large event, so far, only one death has been attributed to the disaster. This includes both the direct impact of the accident itself and the radiation exposure that followed. However, it\u2019s estimated that several thousand died indirectly from the stress and disruption of evacuation.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Direct and cancer deaths from the accident</h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>No one died directly from the disaster. </strong>However, 40 to 50 people were injured as a result of physical injury from the blast, or radiation burns.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2018, the Japanese government <a href=\"https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45423575\">reported that</a> <strong>one worker has since died</strong> from lung cancer as a result of radiation exposure from the event.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the last decade, many studies have assessed whether there has been any increased cancer risk for local populations. <strong>There appears to be no increased risk of cancer or other radiation-related health impacts</strong>.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2016, the World Health Organization noted that there was a very low risk of increased cancer deaths in Japan.{ref}World Health Organization (2016). FAQs: Fukushima Five Years On. Available online at: <a href=\"https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.%7B/ref\">https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/a_e/fukushima/faqs-fukushima/en/.{/ref</a>} Several reports from the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation came to the same conclusion: they report that any increase in radiation exposure for local populations was very low and they do not expect any increase in radiation-related health impacts.{ref}To quote UNSCEAR directly: \u201cThe doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants.\u201d<br><br><a href=\"http://www.unscear.org/docs/GAreports/A-68-46_e_V1385727.pdf\">Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. General Assembly Official Records</a>, Sixty-eighth session, Supplement No. 46. New York: United Nations, Sixtieth session, May 27\u201331, 2013.{/ref}&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Deaths from evacuation</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>A more difficult question is how many people died indirectly through the <em>response</em> and evacuation of locals from the area around Fukushima. Within a few weeks of the accident more than 160,000 people had moved away, either from official evacuation efforts or voluntarily from fear of further radioactive releases. Many were forced to stay in overcrowded gyms, schools, and public facilities for several months until more permanent emergency housing became available.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The year after the 2011 disaster, the Japanese government estimated that 573 people had died indirectly as a result of the physical and mental stress of evacuation.{ref}The Yomiuri Shimbun, 573 deaths \u2018related to nuclear crisis\u2019, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 5 February 2012, <a href=\"https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.%7B/ref\">https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20120204190315/http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120204003191.htm.</a>{/ref} Since then, more rigorous assessments of increased mortality have been done, and this figure <a href=\"https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/topics/main-cat2/sub-cat2-6/20201225_kanrenshi.pdf\">was revised</a> to 2,313 deaths in September 2020.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These indirect deaths were attributed to the overall physical and mental stress of evacuation; being moved out of care settings; and disruption to healthcare facilities.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s important to bear in mind that the region was also trying to deal with the aftermath of an earthquake and tsunami: this makes it difficult to completely separate the indirect deaths related to the nuclear disaster disruptions, and those of the tsunami itself.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Combined, the <em>confirmed</em> death toll from Fukushima is therefore 2,314.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>What can we learn from these nuclear disasters?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The context and response to these disasters were very different, and this is reflected in what people died from in the aftermath.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many more people died from Chernobyl than from Fukushima. There are several reasons for this.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first was <strong>reactor design</strong>. The nuclear reactors at Chernobyl were poorly designed to deal with this meltdown scenario. Its fatal RBMK reactor had no containment structure, allowing radioactive material to spill into the atmosphere. Fukushima\u2019s reactors did have steel-and-concrete containment structures, although it\u2019s likely that at least one of these was also breached.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Crucially, the cooling systems of both plants worked very differently; at Chernobyl, the loss of cooling water as steam actually served to accelerate reactivity levels in the reactor core, creating a positive feedback loop toward the fatal explosion. The opposite is true of Fukushima, where the reactivity reduced as temperatures rose, effectively operating as a self-shutdown measure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second factor was <strong>government response</strong>. In the case of Fukushima, the Japanese government responded quickly to the crisis with evacuation efforts extending rapidly from a 3-kilometer (km), to a 10-km, to a 20-km radius whilst the incident at the site continued to unfold. In contrast, the response in the former Soviet Union was one of denial and secrecy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s reported that in the days which followed the Chernobyl disaster, residents in surrounding areas were uninformed of the radioactive material in the air around them. In fact, it took at least three days for the Soviet Union to admit an accident had taken place, and did so after radioactive sensors at a Swedish plant were triggered by dispersing radionuclides. As we saw above, it\u2019s estimated that approximately 4,808 thyroid cancer cases in children and adolescents could be linked to radiation exposure from contaminated milk and foods. This could have been prevented by an earlier response.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, while an early response from the Japanese government may have prevented a significant number of deaths, many <a href=\"https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b189ea\">have questioned</a> whether the scale of the evacuation effort \u2013 where more than 160,000 people were displaced \u2013 was necessary.{ref}Hayakawa, M. (2016). <a href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146645316666707\">Increase in disaster-related deaths: risks and social impacts of evacuation</a>. Annals of the ICRP, 45(2_suppl), 123-128.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Normile (2021). <a href=\"https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat\">Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk</a>. <em>Science</em>.{/ref} As we see from the figures above, evacuation stress and disruption are estimated to have contributed to several thousand early deaths. Only one death has been linked to the impact of radiation. We don\u2019t know what the possible death toll would have been <em>without</em> any evacuation. That\u2019s why a no-evacuation strategy, if a future accident was to occur, seems unlikely.&nbsp;However, many have called for governments to develop early assessments and protocols of radiation risks, the scale of evacuation needed, and infrastructure to make sure that the disruption to those that are displaced is kept to a minimum.{ref}Normile (2021). <a href=\"https://www.science.org/content/article/physician-has-studied-fukushima-disaster-decade-and-found-surprising-health-threat\">Nuclear medicine: After 10 years advising survivors of the Fukushima disaster about radiation, Masaharu Tsubokura thinks the evacuations posed a far bigger health risk</a>. <em>Science</em>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Nuclear is one of the safest energy sources</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>No energy source comes with zero negative impact. We often think of nuclear energy as being more dangerous than other sources because these low-frequency but highly-visible events come to mind.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, when we <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy\">compare the death rates</a> from nuclear energy to other sources, we see that it\u2019s one of the safest. The numbers that have died from nuclear accidents are very small in comparison to the <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths\"><em>millions</em> that die</a> from air pollution from fossil fuels <em>every year</em>. As the linked post shows, the death rate from nuclear is roughly comparable with most renewable energy technologies.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since nuclear is also a key source of low-carbon energy, it can play a key role in a sustainable energy mix alongside renewables.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Explore more of our work on Energy</h2>\n\n\n\t<div class=\"wp-block-owid-grid \">\n\t\t\n      <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card  with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n        <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy\">\n            <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"COVID-19 data explorer\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/data_explorer-featured.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n            <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n              \n              <div class=\"description\">\n                \n\n<p>Explore all the metrics \u2013 energy production, electricity consumption, and breakdown of fossil fuels, renewable and nuclear energy.</p>\n\n\n              </div>\n            </div>\n        </a>\n      </div>\n\n      <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card  with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n        <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/energy#country-profiles\">\n            <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"COVID-19 country profiles\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/country_profiles-featured.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n            <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n              \n              <div class=\"description\">\n                \n\n<p>Get an overview of energy for any country on a single page.</p>\n\n\n              </div>\n            </div>\n        </a>\n      </div>\n\n      <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card  with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n        <a href=\"https://github.com/owid/energy-data\">\n            <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"download complete COVID-19 dataset\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/01/download_dataset-featured.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n            <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n              \n              <div class=\"description\">\n                \n\n<p>Download our complete dataset of energy metrics on GitHub.  It&#8217;s open-access and free for anyone to use.</p>\n\n\n              </div>\n            </div>\n        </a>\n      </div>\n\n      <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card  with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n        <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/energy-access\">\n            <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-access.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n            <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n              \n              <div class=\"description\">\n                \n\n<p>See how access to electricity and clean cooking fuels vary across the world.</p>\n\n\n              </div>\n            </div>\n        </a>\n      </div>\n\n      <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card  with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n        <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption\">\n            <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-production.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n            <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n              \n              <div class=\"description\">\n                \n\n<p>Explore long-term changes in energy production and consumption across the world.</p>\n\n\n              </div>\n            </div>\n        </a>\n      </div>\n\n      <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card  with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n        <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/energy-mix\">\n            <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Energy-mix.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n            <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n              \n              <div class=\"description\">\n                \n\n<p>How much of our energy comes from fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear energy? See the breakdown of the energy mix.</p>\n\n\n              </div>\n            </div>\n        </a>\n      </div>\n\n      <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card  with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n        <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/electricity-mix\">\n            <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Electricity-Mix.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n            <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n              \n              <div class=\"description\">\n                \n\n<p>Explore the breakdown of the electricity mix and how this is changing.</p>\n\n\n              </div>\n            </div>\n        </a>\n      </div>\n\n      <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card  with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n        <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/fossil-fuels\">\n            <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Fossil-Fuels.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n            <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n              \n              <div class=\"description\">\n                \n\n<p>See the long-term changes in coal, oil and gas production and consumption.</p>\n\n\n              </div>\n            </div>\n        </a>\n      </div>\n\n      <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card  with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n        <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/renewable-energy\">\n            <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Renewable-Energy.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n            <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n              \n              <div class=\"description\">\n                \n\n<p>How quickly are countries scaling up the production of renewable technologies? Explore the data.</p>\n\n\n              </div>\n            </div>\n        </a>\n      </div>\n\n      <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card  with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n        <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/nuclear-energy\">\n            <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n            <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n              \n              <div class=\"description\">\n                \n\n<p>Explore the long-term changes in nuclear energy production across the world.</p>\n\n\n              </div>\n            </div>\n        </a>\n      </div>\n\n      <div class=\"wp-block-owid-card  with-image\" data-no-lightbox>\n        <a href=\"http://ourworldindata.org/transport\">\n            <figure><img width=\"768\" height=\"404\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail-768x404.png\" class=\"attachment-medium_large size-medium_large\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail-768x404.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail-400x210.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail-800x421.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail-150x79.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/09/transport-thumbnail.png 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" /></figure>\n            <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n              \n              <div class=\"description\">\n                \n\n<p>Explore trends in transport technologies and emissions across the world.</p>\n\n\n              </div>\n            </div>\n        </a>\n      </div>\n\n\t</div>",
        "protected": false
    },
    "excerpt": {
        "rendered": "Explore global data on nuclear energy production, and the safety of nuclear technologies.",
        "protected": false
    },
    "date_gmt": "2020-07-10T08:24:11",
    "modified": "2023-05-28T09:43:04",
    "template": "",
    "categories": [
        44,
        49,
        48
    ],
    "menu_order": 120,
    "ping_status": "closed",
    "authors_name": [
        "Hannah Ritchie",
        "Pablo Rosado"
    ],
    "modified_gmt": "2023-05-28T08:43:04",
    "comment_status": "closed",
    "featured_media": 41036,
    "featured_media_paths": {
        "thumbnail": "/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-150x79.png",
        "medium_large": "/app/uploads/2021/02/Nuclear-Energy-768x404.png"
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