Nuclear Power Has Saved Millions of Lives, Report Says

Nuclear power plant at night in Grohnde near Hameln in Lower Saxony, Germany. Image courtesy of Thorsten Schier/Shutterstock Nuclear power has gained a good-sized cheerleading squad as a source of clean energy, but the risk of radiation exposure and the disposal of nuclear waste have also roused a fair number of opponents. Reactor disasters like the one in Fukushima highlight nuclear power's risks, but scientists now say that by reducing pollution, nuclear power actually has saved millions of lives over the last 40 years. Using data from past energy production (1971-2009) and future energy predictions (2010-2050), NASA climatologists James Hansen and Pushker Kharecha estimated how much air pollution and how many related deaths nuclear power prevents as compared to burning coal or natural gas. They published the numbers in the March issue of Environmental Science & Technology.Over the past 40 years, the NASA scientists calculated that nuclear energy prevented 64 ...