The data quality to evaluate and compare health, safety,
environmental, and climate impacts of different energy sources is very good.
There are no significantly disputed numbers. We should also keep in mind that
impacts can be abated through different mechanisms such as pollution scrubbers,
carbon capture, and safety protocols. Pollution abatements are often required
regulations with the understood threat of compliance enforcement. Carbon
capture has not been mandated for good reasons, as it would be too costly at
present. Thus, we also rely heavily on voluntary compliance, which is often
coupled with government incentives and cooperation. I would argue that this has
been a successful way to deal with carbon emissions. Pollution abatement has
largely been successful but still needs tweaks on the local level, which is a
good argument for continued lower air pollution targets. People in the
immediate vicinity of a polluting facility, whatever their socioeconomic status
or racial makeup, should be protected.
Hannah Ritchie, data
scientist at Our World in Data, wrote about this subject on the Our World in
Data website in February 2020, with updates in 2022 and 2024. The obvious
conclusion to data from the very good quality data is that acquiring and
producing nuclear, solar, and wind power is safer, less polluting, and less
carbon-intensive than acquiring and producing fossil fuels. These are
facts.
Air pollution is a major
cause of illness and death around the world. Fossil fuels are responsible for
some of those deaths, although wood, biomass, and dung fires, particularly
indoor cooking fires, are the worst.
“…millions of people die prematurely every year as a result
of air pollution. Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass — wood, dung, and
charcoal — are responsible for most of those deaths.”
As the graph below shows,
quite conclusively, and with that quality data, fossil fuels have the highest
death rates by far from accidents and air pollution, and the highest carbon
emissions by far. I would argue that this graph alone is enough to keep
subsidizing wind, solar, and nuclear. Along with that subsidization, there should be permit reforms to lower costs and unnecessary red tape.
Ritchie takes the time in the
article to explain the data sources, the data, and some possible skewing of the
data. She notes that 171,000 of the 176,000 deaths attributed to hydroelectric
power occurred during the 1975 Banqian Dam failure in China. Thus, without that
event, the death rate of hydropower is similar to that of wind power. Below,
she explains that the data was normalized to deaths per TW of electricity.
“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.”
The data includes accidental and pollution deaths along the
supply chains of each energy source, including the transport of resources. She
notes that the death rate from the solar and wind industries is only available
till 2013. I don’t believe there has been an uptick since then, although the
damage from lithium-ion battery fires does cause significant air pollution. I
am not sure if that is included in any way. She notes that the fossil air
pollution estimates are based on plants in Europe, which have very good
pollution abatement controls compared to those in, say, India and China, which
don’t. The statistics show an indisputable trend – that nuclear, wind, solar,
and hydro are much safer and much less harmful 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.”
To further explain the data
and conclusions, Ritchie notes that the number of people in an average EU town
that consumes 1 TW of power is about 150,000 people. She then considers deaths
from accidents and pollution from each source.
Ritchie also points out that
the death rates from fossil fuels are likely to be significantly higher than
reported here since the only peer-reviewed study, dated from 2007, was from
Europe, which is likely to have low death rates compared to less developed
countries. She also notes that people in China tend to live much closer to
polluting power plants than people in Europe. She also argues that recent data
shows that the health impacts of air pollution are likely worse than thought to
be in the past (2007). Thus, any errors in the data are likely to be towards
more deaths attributable to fossil fuels.
Ritchie also notes that there
is a need for a timely global database on accidents in energy supply chains.
Some accidental deaths attributed to each energy source will be questionable;
however, she thinks that the data is generally quite good. I have used data
from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the Pipeline and
Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and found them to be good
databases with explanations of attributions.
Ritchie also indicates a need
for better estimates of the health impacts of the mining of minerals and
materials for all energy sources. However, she also notes that a better
understanding of these impacts would likely make fossil fuels even more
dangerous relative to nuclear and renewables.
I think this article and the
solid and indisputable conclusions that can be drawn from the data are a
fantastic argument in favor of continuing to transition energy from fossil
fuels to nuclear and renewables. However, it does not mean we should go too fast,
causing economic issues with the higher costs of nuclear and renewables. It
also does not mean we should regard intermittent renewables solar and wind, as
equivalent in reliability to fossil fuels. Those are considerations that must
be weighed. One thing that is clear to me is that we should not disincentivize
renewables. The current bill being debated in the U.S. Congress that takes away
clean energy subsidies and even proposes an excise tax on wind and solar
production is not a good idea. These industries need those subsidies, and our
society needs those sources of energy. It would cause the loss of tens of
thousands of jobs and bankrupt companies. It would overly delay the necessary,
even if only partial, transition to safer and less impactful energy production
and consumption.
References:
What
are the safest and cleanest sources of energy? Fossil fuels are the dirtiest
and most dangerous energy sources, while nuclear and modern renewable energy
sources are vastly safer and cleaner. Hannah Ritchie. Our World in Data. February
10, 2020. What
are the safest and cleanest sources of energy? - Our World in Data
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