Coal continues to kill, nuclear does not

(written by Lawrence Krubner, however indented passages are often quotes)

Once again, it is worth remembering, coal kills lots of people and nuclear does not. Yet, people fear nuclear more than they fear coal. This is due to what might be termed the illusion of control. It shows up in many parts of life: people fear getting on an airplane more than they fear driving a car, even though driving a car is vastly more dangerous than flying in an airplane. In the USA, 3500 people die every month in car accidents whereas the airlines went 2 years without a single death. But people have the illusion of control when they drive a car, so they prefer that. Once something is recognized as Very Dangerous, people change laws, regulations, behavior and society so as to contain that Very Dangerous thing. And so we have so many protections again nuclear that we have almost no deaths from nuclear. Can anyone imagine us taking similar steps against coal?

Energy Source              Death Rate (deaths per TWh)

Coal – world average               161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China                       278
Coal – USA                         15
Oil                                36  (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas                         4  (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass                    12
Peat                               12
Solar (rooftop)                     0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind                                0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro                               0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqiao)    1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear                             0.04 (5.9% of world energy)