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NNadir

(38,854 posts)
2. Nuclear power is the ONLY sustainable form of energy left to us. This year, 7 million people will die from...
Thu Jun 25, 2026, 02:07 PM
7 hrs ago

...fossil fuel waste, aka "air pollution." I am not talking about the destruction of the planetary atmosphere, about which antinukes couldn't care less. (They are perfectly satisfied with the Sankey diagrams reproduced in the OP.)

Reference: : Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (Lancet Volume 396, Issue 10258, 17–23 October 2020, Pages 1223-1249).

Here's what I post as an excerpt of that paper - many other similar papers are available to show how many people are killed by antinuke's selective attention - that I produce when I hear the caterwauling about so called "nuclear waste,"

Here is what it says about air pollution deaths in the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Survey, if one is too busy to open it oneself because one is too busy carrying on about Fukushima:

The top five risks for attributable deaths for females were high SBP (5·25 million [95% UI 4·49–6·00] deaths, or 20·3% [17·5–22·9] of all female deaths in 2019), dietary risks (3·48 million [2·78–4·37] deaths, or 13·5% [10·8–16·7] of all female deaths in 2019), high FPG (3·09 million [2·40–3·98] deaths, or 11·9% [9·4–15·3] of all female deaths in 2019), air pollution (2·92 million [2·53–3·33] deaths or 11·3% [10·0–12·6] of all female deaths in 2019), and high BMI (2·54 million [1·68–3·56] deaths or 9·8% [6·5–13·7] of all female deaths in 2019). For males, the top five risks differed slightly. In 2019, the leading Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths globally in males was tobacco (smoked, second-hand, and chewing), which accounted for 6·56 million (95% UI 6·02–7·10) deaths (21·4% [20·5–22·3] of all male deaths in 2019), followed by high SBP, which accounted for 5·60 million (4·90–6·29) deaths (18·2% [16·2–20·1] of all male deaths in 2019). The third largest Level 2 risk factor for attributable deaths among males in 2019 was dietary risks (4·47 million [3·65–5·45] deaths, or 14·6% [12·0–17·6] of all male deaths in 2019) followed by air pollution (ambient particulate matter and ambient ozone pollution, accounting for 3·75 million [3·31–4·24] deaths (12·2% [11·0–13·4] of all male deaths in 2019), and then high FPG (3·14 million [2·70–4·34] deaths, or 11·1% [8·9–14·1] of all male deaths in 2019).


That works out to about 19,000 people every day, about 800 people per hour.

Atter I always challenge people who know nothing at all about used nuclear fuel to show in the 70 year history of commercial nuclear energy to show that the storage of used nuclear fuel has killed as many people as will die as will die in the next 8 hours from fossil fuels, that would be a little over 6000 people.

Only reports from the primary scientific literature can be used to support the claim that the storage of used nuclear fuel on this planet has killed, over its 70 year history, 6400 people in answer to this challenge.

I am an expert on the composition, the chemistry, and the physics of all the components of used nuclear fuel, which I regard as a critical resource for saving the world.

Let me say that again: I consider used nuclear fuel to be a critical resource for saving what is left to save and possible even restoring that which can be restored. It can be shown that the uranium and thorium already mined could support all of the planet's energy needs for centuries, meaning no oil, no coal, no gas, and no vast areas of wilderness destroyed for so called "renewable energy" and no climate degradation such as is now observed.

Nuclear energy need not be risk free to be vastly superior to all other forms of energy. It only needs to be superior to everything else, which it is.

In 2013, the climate scientist James Hansen and a colleague published a highly cited paper showing how many lives had been saved by nuclear power. I post a link to it often: Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

If it is true, and I do not doubt it is, it follows that opposing nuclear energy kills people. Opposing nuclear energy kills more than people. It's killing the planet.

The selective attention of antinukes, their complete lack of knowledge of the subject, is neither ethically nor practically an excuse to kill the planet.

Have a nice day.

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