MOS: Fossil Fuels vs Nuclear Energy

I write about nuclear fuckery off and on, but here’s the problem: nuclear is not the problem. 

You’re thinking about the prehistoric chicken goo that makes cars go vroom.

Today’s Moment of Science… Who’s the real enemy?

It’s hard to figure out exactly how many people have died- and will continue to be affected- by some of the world’s largest nuclear boners. The Soviet Union’s official death toll from Chernobyl was clocked at just thirty-one people because Soviet math is fun. It’s a tad doubtful that all the excess deaths in the region over the following years from thyroid cancer and lymphoma were coincidences. Estimates vary and range from 4,000 to 16,000 fatalities in Europe from the accident. The other nuclear disaster that comes even remotely close in overall scale, Fukushima, was far more fatal from the earthquake and tsunami than the radiation. The first fatality attributed to the nuclear component of the fucking worst day ever was seven years after the disaster in 2018 from lung cancer.

Howthefuckever, I didn’t bring this up to talk about the dangers of splitting our friend, the atom.

I brought this up to tell you that beyond climate change, pits of fire in the Gulf of Mexico, and dead birds washing up on the shores of Orange County, fossil fuels used “correctly” are way fucking deadlier than nuclear energy could aspire to be.

It’s easy to write off deaths that don’t seem so dramatic. Someone dies of lung cancer, you tell yourself perhaps they smoked or it was “just their time.” It gets harder to write off all the fatalities as a coincidence when you poke through the data and, somehow, there’s an excess of lung issues in areas where the air quality is ‘rotten egg farts.’

Burning fossil fuels releases fine particulate matter that’s out to wreck lungs. PM2.5 filters are great at managing these, but living in areas where the air quality is typically ‘brimstone,’ all those tiny particles will add up. According to a study conducted by researchers at Harvard and University College London, there were 8.7 million people who died prematurely from pollution largely caused by fossil fuels in 2018. Which is fortunately lower than the 10.2 million estimated to have died from the same cause in 2012, but still accounts for one out of five premature deaths in our species. Most of these fatalities are in India and China, but there are hotspots scattered in more populated areas throughout the world. 

If your reaction is “that’s just one study,” there are many. Though their numbers vary, nobody has come to the conclusion that fossil fuel emissions are a source of vitamin C or something.

Beyond fatalities, this type of air quality degradation from fossil fuels exacerbates asthma, can cause various types of tissue damage, and contributes to cardiovascular disease. It’s hard to take up the mantle of fighting an invisible enemy when we’ve so long accepted that it’s just there. Further compounding the issue, at least in America, there are some elected officials who may sooner tell you to suck on a tailpipe for your health than to get a gas efficient car. 

I definitely don’t have an answer to solve climate change. But the answer is not, and has never been, making an enemy out of nuclear energy.

This has been your Moment of Science, bracing for nuclear grade hatemail about this one.

To get the Moment of Science in your inbox every weekday with tales of NASA funded dolphin handjobs, rocket scientist orgies, and fucking… Australia… head to patreon.com/scibabe.

Liked it? Learned something? Made you think? Take a second to support SciBabe on Patreon!