Nuclear power has saved 370 times more lives than it has ended in the last four decades, says a NASA paper. Despite the horrors of Japan's ongoing nuclear disaster, we'll need to rely on nuclear power for the sake of the environment and human health.
"A new paper by two researchers at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies calculates the damage if we hadn’t had nuclear power for the last several decades, and what damage might be caused if we don’t embrace the technology going forward," reports Ben Schiller.
"Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen estimate that 4,900 people died as a result of nuclear power between 1971 and 2009, mostly from workplace accidents and radiation fallout, but, they said, 370 times more people (1.84 million) would have died, had we generated the same power from fossil fuels."
"Aside from immediate health impacts, Kharecha and Hansen’s point is to show that we really can’t do without nuclear if we want to keep climate change within manageable boundaries," says Schiller. "They believe that renewables won’t supply the scale or dependability to replace nuclear, if we want to stay under a 1 degree C global temperature rise (above preindustrial levels)."
FULL STORY: Forget Fukushima, Nuclear Power Has Saved 1.8 Million Lives
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UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
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