Nature Energy: An Estimate of the Death Toll Associated with a US Nuclear Power Phase Out.

[NNadir]

The paper to which I'll refer in this post is this one: Freese, L.M., Chossière, G.P., Eastham, S.D. et al. Nuclear power generation phase-outs redistribute US air quality and climate-related mortality risk. Nat Energy 8, 492–503 (2023).

I'm logged into my Nature account; apparently the paper is not open sourced.

Some excerpts:

The United States relies on nuclear and coal for 38% of its electricity generation¹. Analysis of pathways for the United States to reach a net-zero carbon emissions energy grid focus on reduction of fossil fuels and increased use of renewable energy². Nuclear power, whose use is projected to decline in the future, has historically provided many parts of the United States with low-emission (both direct and indirect) energy that has had lower health- and accident-related illnesses and deaths when compared to coal, gas and oil³. Nuclear power has also been evaluated for its role in reducing historical carbon emissions at the global scale^4,5 but it remains of public and government concern due to potential safety risks. At the same time, coal has long been one of the highest polluting sources of electricity, contributing to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths globally each year (other fossil fuel use brings this up to millions of deaths)^6,7 and 3,100 premature deaths in the United States in 2016 (a large improvement from an estimated 30,000 premature deaths in 2000)^8/sup]...

Of course, there is in this paper lots of reference to so called "renewable energy" and the usual soothsaying that goes with it, although the reality, after the expenditure of a little over 4 trillion dollars in this scam in the period between 2015 and 2023, it has done essentially nothing more other than to accelerate the rate of climate change. After nearly half a century of such soothsaying there is little reason to expect the result will be any different.

The article discusses this thing called "reality:"

Recent closures of nuclear power plants are due to a combination of economic impracticability because of inexpensive gas9, as well as health and safety concerns, and have historically led to increased use of fossil fuels to fill the gap in energy production. The Zero Emission Nuclear Power Production Tax Credit of the Inflation Reduction Act provides tax credits to financially incentivize utilities to continue the use of nuclear power between 2024 and 2032, which may push back the shut-down timeline for nuclear power plants and encourage the development of small modular reactors¹⁰. This does not guarantee the long-term use of these nuclear plants, so it is important to quantify the effect that maintaining versus shutting them down could have on health and the climate, particularly in the context of renewable energy growth and fossil fuel closures.

These recent shut-downs include the Indian Point Energy Center second reactor, which was shut down in April 2021 because of environmental and safety concerns due to its proximity to New York City¹¹. Browns Ferry and Sequoyah nuclear power plant shut-downs in 1985 led to increased coal use¹², as determined by regressions comparing power plant level production in the Tennessee Valley Area before and after the nuclear plant closures. Using similar regressions to assess generation by plants before and after the San Onofre Nuclear Plant (California) shut-down in 2012, ref. 13 found nuclear power plant closure led to increased gas use, as well as increased costs of electricity generation. Recent work has shown that phase-out of nuclear power from 2011 to 2017 in Germany led to replacement by fossil fuels¹⁴.

Many antinukes whine when I point out that they just don't give a rat's ass about climate change. The data referenced in the two paragraphs just posted makes this very clear. Even though they can't actually produce numbers that suggest that there is any form of energy with a risk as low as that of nuclear energy, they swear up and down they give a shit about climate change before launching into the usual selective attention balderdash about how "dangerous" nuclear power is. (Compared to what? Climate change?) They're lying.

The article continues:

The fossil fuels that have historically replaced nuclear power have emissions that contribute to air pollution and climate change. Fossil fuel plants emit nitrogen oxides (NO_x) and sulfur dioxide (SO₂), both of which are precursors for fine particulate matter (PM_2.5 ) and NO_xis a precursor for ozone¹⁵. Air pollution due to ozone and PM_2.5 is associated with adverse health outcomes and premature mortality^16,17. Concerns that the pending closure of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant by 2025 could result in increased use of fossil fuels and associated climate impacts¹⁸, and compromise energy grid stability, led to the decision to extend its lifetime by 5 years.

Previous work has only addressed subnational-level response to nuclear power shut-downs or has quantified regional and globally averaged avoided mortalities from nuclear power use. Using the InMAP reduced form model, ref. 19 found that the shut-down of three nuclear power plants in the Pennsylvania–New Jersey–Maryland region led to increases in PM_2.5 resulting in 126 additional mortalities. Another study⁵ quantified the global historical prevented mortalities and CO₂ emissions due to historical and potential future nuclear power generation, using average mortality rates and CO₂ emissions rates by electricity type. They project mortalities and CO₂ emissions based on energy projections by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency out to 2050, finding that 4.39–7.04 million deaths would be prevented by using nuclear power, rather than fossil fuels, due to lower emissions of air pollutants. Previous work also has not consistently accounted for the potential growth of renewable energy, which has been shown to replace the use of fossil fuels²⁰.

The study breaks down the ethnic distribution of people likely to be killed by nuclear shutdowns.

A figure from the paper:

Fig. 3: Distribution of exposure and mortalities by race and ethnicity for each county in no nuclear.

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The caption:

a–h, Percentage of each race and ethnicity (Black or African American (a,f,k,p), Hispanic or Latino (b,g,l,q), American Indian or Alaska Native (c,h,m,r), White (d,i,n,s) and Asian or Pacific Islander (e,j,o,t)) with a given summer annual average PM2.5 (a–e) and April–September MDA8 ozone exposure (k–o) and related mortality rate by county (f–j and p–t, respectively), weighted by population for the difference between no nuclear and the base (f–j and p–t, respectively). Mean population-weighted exposure and mortalities are indicated by the vertical line.

More text:

No nuclear + no coal illustrates that oil and gas, particularly plants with high emissions factors that are currently rarely used, could be increasingly called upon to meet demand in the electricity system if there is not adequate planning to replace nuclear and coal plants as they shut down. Not only does the generation and emissions from these plants become a larger percentage of the overall system but there is a net increase in emissions of NOx, SO2 and CO2 due to the reliance on these plants. As with no nuclear, Black or African American people have the largest increase in exposure to pollution due to the shut-down of both nuclear and coal power (Fig. 4).

I was banned some years back at another website, one nowhere near as good as DU, for making the true statement that opposing nuclear energy kills people, referring to James Hansen's seminal 2013 paper stating as much:

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)

Truth has a way of producing scorn. So be it.

The full paper can be accessed at the link in a good University library or by a Nature+ subscription. The authors are from MIT.

Have a nice evening.

[jpak]

1. Kookoo