A cow is more likely to kill you than a shark

13 days ago by FoxtrotDeltaTango to c/science_memes

jonesy 48 points 13 days ago

Where do these values come from because all I find when searching for 140,000 renewable-related deaths are references to wildlife deaths, and if this is the case it's pretty disingenuous to compare against nuclear accident deaths of humans.

This article has a more sensible comparison that ties deaths to the amount of power generated:

Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)

Coal – global average 100,000 (41% global electricity)

Coal – China 170,000 (75% China’s electricity)

Coal – U.S. 10,000 (32% U.S. electricity)

Oil 36,000 (33% of energy, 8% of electricity)

Natural Gas 4,000 (22% global electricity)

Biofuel/Biomass 24,000 (21% global energy)

Solar (rooftop) 440 (< 1% global electricity)

Wind 150 (2% global electricity)

Hydro – global average 1,400 (16% global electricity)

Hydro – U.S. 5 (6% U.S. electricity)

Nuclear – global average 90 (11% global electricity w/Chern&Fukush)

Nuclear – U.S. 0.1 (19% U.S. electricity)

I still.cant find where these figures are sourced, but at least these figures account for the actual amount of generation in proportion to deaths.

path: 0 25168216, hotness: undefined, score: 48, children: 5
Jesus_666 20 points 13 days ago

Humans, animals, who cares? In fact, let's just go full phylum-agnostic!

5,000 deaths from nuclear power. (humans)

140,000 deaths from renewable energy. (wildlife)

70 million deaths from a single dose of mouthwash. (~100 miillion bacteria per ml of saliva, assuming vaguely 0.7 ml of saliva in the mouth)


Seriously, though, renewables are technically more lethal than nuclear but that's mainly because NPPs are usually designed for extreme bulk production and (AFAIK) most renewable deaths are due to construction accidents. Just look at that rooftop solar number. All in all, both renewables and nuclear are pretty safe as far as pure mortality goes. Beyond mortality we of course run into the nuclear waste issue but that's another story.

Coal is comically bad on so many levels it's amazing how insistent some people are on maintaining it. It even manages to lose to nuclear on the metric of radioactive pollution. That's... impressive, I suppose. I'd prefer it if it could be impressive in a history book.

path: 0 25168216 25170083, hotness: undefined, score: 20, children: 0
edinbruh 11 points 13 days ago

How did 440 people die from solar? Fell from the roof?

path: 0 25168216 25170556, hotness: undefined, score: 11, children: 2
jonesy 6 points 13 days ago

Probably sunburn.

path: 0 25168216 25170556 25170788, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
Forester 2 points 12 days ago

Iirc its a three way split between falls electrocutions and mining deaths. In that order.

path: 0 25168216 25170556 25183881, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
IchNichtenLichten 7 points 13 days ago

Deaths from nuclear seems very hard to measure, and maybe impossible. If you were in the path of the fallout from Chernobyl and died from cancer 10 years later there's no way of knowing if the radiation caused that or if something else did.

path: 0 25168216 25176193, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 0
JasonDJ 6 points 13 days ago

There are more people eating sharks than there are sharks eating people.

We are in their territory. We get to be apex predator in land. They get to be apex predator in sea. This is an agreement we've had for a long time.

path: 0 25175836, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 0
science_memes
science_memes

@mander.xyz

login for more options
20984
7301
6216

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.


Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

go to feed...