Atomic collision

After the European energy crunch driven by the war in Ukraine, government and public opinions on nuclear energy seem to gradually shift more positively. Oftentimes, accidents such as Chernobyl and Fukushima are brought forward to argue nuclear energy generation is unsafe. But the data disagrees. Nuclear energy has a death rate, measured as deaths per terawatt-hour of electricity production, of 0.03. That compares to 24.6 for coal, 18.4 for oil and 2.8 for natural gas. Air pollution from energy production, not operational accidents, has the biggest negative impact on human health. Obviously nuclear energy ranks well on greenhouse gas emissions, but on cost seems to have been undercut by onshore wind and solar.

Source: Our World in Data, March 2024.