Quote:
Originally Posted by **********
True, but that is still lower than anything else. There are 161 deaths for every Kilowatt hour produced by coal (world average). In china the number of deaths per khw are 278. 36 by Oil, etc. For nuclear power, the number of deaths per Kwh is only 0.04.
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I found a pretty good article here:
http://www.ecolo.org/documents/docum...e_Cohen.en.htm
Some of the highlights are:
Global warming: Burning fossil fuels produces vast quantities of carbon dioxide, for example 3.7 tons for each ton of coal burned, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps heat, increasing the earth's temperature. Estimates of the rate of the temperature rise and of the consequences vary, but eventually the effects are bound to be important
Acid rain: Burning fossil fuels releases large quantities of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide gasses which combine with moisture in the air to produce acids that fall with rain.
Air Pollution: While global warming causes only economic disruption, and acid rain kills only fish and trees, air pollution kills people and causes human suffering through illness. The problem is complicated by the fact that effect build up slowly over many years or decades, causing illness and weakening constitutions to the point where death eventually results but is not obviously tied to air pollution. The epidemiological evidence, however, seems fairly clear in indicating that something like 30,000 deaths per year in U.S. result from air pollution due to emissions from fossil fuel burning power plants.
Coal mining: Sixty percent of U.S. coal is obtained by strip mining, which involves removing up to 200 feet of covering soil. There are laws and good faith efforts to reclaim the land, but these have had only limited success, and the land is often left badly scarred. The remaining 40% of coal comes from underground mines, and this percentage is increasing. Acid drainage from these mines gets into streams, killing fish and leaving the water unfit for drinking, swimming, or many industrial applications.
Oil Spills: The highly publicised 40,000 ton oil spill off the coast of Alaska in 1989, even after 10 years of clean-up costing several billion dollars, has still left substantial long term damage to the ecology of the region. But there have been much larger oil spills, including one of 305,000 tons off the coast of Tabago in 1979 and one of 237,000 tons, which ruined many miles of French beaches in 1978. Then of course there was the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year.....