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Do we really want to replace nuclear power with fossil fuels?

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The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author Dr. Patrick L. Walden Nuclear Physicist retired and TRIUMF experimenter emeritus. TRIUMF only provides the server for this wiki.

June 6, 2017

edit] Introduction

Three Mile Island in operation. Steam is rising from the two cooling towers which service the remaining operating nuclear plant. The other plant suffered the infamous partial melt-down in 1979, and it has been inoperative since that time.

In May 2017 the Exelon Corp. which runs the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant reported that it had for the third year in a row failed to secure a contract to deliver electricity from the PJM auction because the market price was too low for TMI profitability. PJM is the largest electricity grid operator in the Eastern United States[1]. A week later Exelon announced that it will be closing down TMI at the end of September 2019 unless it can receive sufficient subsidies to keep the plant open beyond that date.

On May 25, 2017 Joe Romm, in the wake of the announcement of the closing of TMI, wrote his musings in ThinkProgress regarding the future ability of nuclear power to compete in the market,

Nuclear industry prices itself out of power market, demands taxpayers keep it afloat

the essence of which is that if nuclear power, one of the largest sources if not the largest source of green house gas emissions free power, cannot economically compete against fossil fuel power, then it should be allowed to mercifully die.[2] This is an incredible attitude for an environmentalist who advocates the promotion of green house gas emissions free power to mitigate Global Warming. It seems that only the right kind of green house gas emissions free energy will be allowed to save the planet. Like a lot of anti-nuclear environmentalists, Romm appears to prefer Global Warming to a nuclear powered planet. He may get his wish.

edit] rebuttal

When Joe Romm writes blogs about nuclear energy, they are basically prejudicial and biased against nuclear power, and in my experience, Romm knocks nuclear power given any opportunity to do so. In doing so I find he is not above exaggerating and distorting the facts. For example in his put down of Calderia, Emanuel, Hansen, and Wigley to their open letter in 2013,

To Those Who Want To See Nuclear Power Play A Bigger Role In Climate Action

he says the cost of Fukushima will be $500 billion dollars. This is a wildly unsubstantiated number given out by the ultra anti-nuclear community that has no basis in fact. Three years later when Romm again puts down Calderia, Emanuel, Hansen, and Wigley

Why James Hansen Is Wrong About Nuclear Power

he is forced to come to terms with reality and states the cost of Fukushima is in the range above $57 billion dollars. This is more like the real case. About $13.5 billion has been spent so far. However this example shows Romm is willing to exaggerate and distort in order to put down nuclear power. He has offered no explanation as to why he originally used $500 billion.

Hence let's take a look at Romm's logic in closing down nuclear power plants. Romm is correct. Nuclear has priced itself out of the market. However is this what we want? Closing down Nuclear plants because it is uneconomic in competition with natural gas plants or other fossil fuel sources of energy? Do we let the market decide?

We are facing the catastrophe of Global Warming. Over the last century we have seen the global temperature of the earth rise by 0.8°C over the pre-industrial global average temperature. We can expect the temperature to rise another 0.8°C simply because of all the CO 2 we have already put into the atmosphere. How is this affecting us? We have already seen devastating floods, record drought, raging fires, super hurricanes plus loss of Arctic ice, oceans which are 30% more acidic, and all this is but the opening act of Global Warming as the planet continues to heat up. Hence this is not all. Sea levels will rise and inundate coastal habitats (New York City will be flooded) accompanied by a litany of other horrors like, tropical diseases moving north, loss of fresh water supplies, loss of cropland, decreased food supplies, famine, and other things like that. These shocks to the system could result in infrastructure and societal breakdown especially if the 2.3 billion more people that are expected to exist on this planet by 2050 add their demands onto a system already stretched to the limit. War over resources is a possibility. In other words we could get the Full Monty: famine, war, disease, and death, all four horsemen. Our world as we know it, will come to an end.

Thus we have no option but to reduce our emissions of green house gases. It will be an act of suicide if we do not do so.

The decline in French emissions by installing nuclear power compared to Germany's Energiewende. Nuclear power was much more effective.

Nuclear reactors are a huge source of emissions free energy. The only nations, which have significantly reduced their carbon emissions, have done so by either building up their nuclear or hydropower. Except for small economies, renewable power has not significantly reduced emissions. All nations or states, which have closed down their nuclear power capability, have seen their emissions rise or stagnate.[3] Germany is a prime example. Since Energiewende began, Germany, despite its expansion of renewable sources of energy, has not reduced its carbon emissions by one gram.[4] It is one of the highest polluters in the European Union. Right now, at the time of this writing, German emissions are 441 g(CO 2e )/kWh compared to France’s 63 g(CO 2e )/kWh.[5] The majority of France’s power comes from nuclear.

Many environmentalists including Romm view the closing of nuclear reactors as a positive thing. “Why? Because”, in the words of Romm, “the potential result of a (nuclear) disaster is the poisoning and ultimately, death of thousands of people”.[6] This is an out-and-out blatant falsehood. Maybe, with Chernobyl and Fukushima, 50 deaths can be blamed on nuclear power in the last 52 years, but it does not qualify as thousands. (see appendix II below). History has shown nuclear power to be the least dangerous of our power sources at 90 deaths/PWh including Chernobyl and Fukushima. For comparison natural gas is 4000 deaths/PWh. A PWh is a trillion kWh. Most of the true cost of a nuclear accident is an overreaction to the risk of radiation. The environment certainly does not seem to be affected as ecological assessments of both Chernobyl and Fukushima indicate. Quantitative analyses show that the risks associated with the expanded use of nuclear energy are orders of magnitude smaller than the risks associated with fossil fuels.

[7] Mortality from various forms of electricity production. A trillion kWh is a PWh. From a Forbes' article by James Conca

So why are we allowing a market which allows Nuclear energy to be replaced with fossil fuels? Is this not an act of long-term suicide? The Romm-type-environmentalists will argue that renewables will eventually take over from fossil fuels and take up the slack. However, the truth is that renewables cannot take up the slack. (See appendix I below)

First of all why get rid of nuclear power, a source of emissions free energy, and replace it with another source of emissions free energy? Is this not spinning our wheels before the onslaught of Global Warming? Romm-type-environmentalists claim this is necessary because of the dangers and risks of nuclear power. But as we have seen these dangers and risks are played up way and beyond all reason. In fact hydro, wind and solar all have higher deaths rates per trillion kWh than nuclear. Replacing nuclear with renewables does not mitigate climate change and does not make the public any safer.[8] It is nothing more than an ideological cleansing of power sources.

Second, renewables cannot replace nuclear power. Nuclear power is continuous and dispatchable. Renewable power is intermittent and non-dispatchable. Currently renewables that replace nuclear have to be backed up by fossil fuels for when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. A wind farm replacement for nuclear with natural gas backup has emissions of around 300 g(CO 2e )/kWh as compared to 12 g(CO 2e )/kWh for nuclear alone. This does not mitigate Climate Change. To have renewables alone replace a nuclear plant will require overbuilding renewable power plant infrastructure by at least a factor of three, installation of grid capacity energy storage, and a smart grid. That will be far more expensive than nuclear power and emissions will not be much lower than 100 g(CO 2e )/kWh due to the amount of mining and manufacturing that will be required for the installation. (See appendix I below)

Third, grid capacity storage does not exist and probably will never exist in the quantities that will be necessary. It will require a miracle breakthrough in technology. Miracle technical breakthroughs are unlikely to happen in time.[9][10] Do we gamble our future on it?

Thus renewables have neither the time, the cost incentive, the emissions, nor the safety improvement to replace nuclear. The move to replace nuclear with renewables is based on “reservations” concerning nuclear power that have no basis in actual fact.



Hence as much as Joe Romm would like this to happen, we are not seeing renewables replacing nuclear power. We are seeing fossil fuels, namely natural gas, replace nuclear power. So again why are we allowing a market, which allows Nuclear energy to be replaced with fossil fuels? Is this not an act of long-term suicide?

But first let us examine why renewables, a source of low green house gas emissions energy, can compete economically with fossil fuels. I mean, if nuclear power cannot economically compete with natural gas, how come renewables can do so? The answer is that they are not competing. The rules of priority dispatch say that renewable energy must be accepted on the grid, paid guaranteed rates, whenever it is available. Power from fossil fuels must be cut back. Why? Because power from renewables reduce carbon emissions. Would not this same reasoning be applicable to nuclear power? Well no, it appears not to be. The rule states that that power from renewable sources must be accepted, and nuclear power, although carbon emission free, is not renewable, even though there is enough fuel to last at least 500 years.[11] If GEN IV reactors ever come on line, there will be enough fuel to last 300,000 years.[11] Hence under the rules of priority dispatch we have the idiotic situation of having to shut off nuclear power, a source of reliable emissions free power, in favour of a source of non-reliable emissions free power. These are rules to shut down nuclear power plants, not to mitigate Global Warming.

So I ask again why are we allowing a market, which allows Nuclear energy to be replaced with fossil fuels? The short answer is that we are crazy. The longer answer is that we are putting short-term profitability before acknowledging the fact that we are destroying our future. An even simpler answer is that we believe people like Romm who say, “the potential result of a (nuclear) disaster is the poisoning and ultimately, death of thousands of people”. The perception of nuclear power is as a threat to our existence. It is not viewed as a lifeboat to our future. The move to allow nuclear to be shut down in “economic” competition with fossil fuels is based on “reservations” concerning nuclear power that have no basis in actual fact.

So if we are rational, if we wish to have a future, we should not accept the presumption that nuclear power is obsolete and is closing down because of pressures from the market economy. The market is not rational and has no mind. If we really wish to mitigate climate change and have a future, we have to eliminate the emissions of green house gases. Hence why are fossil fuels allowed to compete directly with nuclear energy while dumping their green house gas waste into the atmosphere for free? Nuclear must secure and seclude its waste material. Fossil fuels must do the same. Currently carbon capture and sequestration is not a viable technology[12] and there are doubts that it will ever be. In the meantime, there is no time, to await this technology. The answer is to impose a carbon tax to level the economic playing field.

What price should this carbon tax be? Currently coal kills 15,000 people per PWh and natural gas kills 4,000 per PWh. The tax should at least compensate for that danger to the public health. However it should also compensate for climate change weather disasters and the cost of new infrastructure to adapt to this climate change. Global Climate Change will radically change the environment of the Earth. It may cause the collapse of civilization, result in billions of deaths, and cost quadrillions of dollars. That is where to peg the carbon tax, to acquire the capital to combat that scenario, and that tax will be huge. That tax should easily tip the scales to nuclear power. It will be far cheaper to invest in nuclear power than to continue as we are, benefitting from short-term profitability until the consequences of that foolish path comes home to roost.

While we are at it, why not pursue other rule changes to rationality? Change the rules of priority dispatch to favour energy sources from low carbon emissions and not as it is now to sources of renewable energy. Why not? After all the name of the game is to bring down carbon emissions as fast and as pragmatically as possible. The game is not a campaign to promote the growth of the renewable power industry. Turning off nuclear for renewables does not bring down carbon emissions. Do you think a grid dispatcher would turn off a nuclear power plant delivering steady dependable amounts of clean green electrical energy for an uncertain erratic amount of wind and solar even if it was cheaper? That would be a pain. I am sure nuclear power would do very well in economic competition against renewable energy.

That is it. All that is required to stop the apparent failure of nuclear power is two rational rule changes. Tax carbon emissions appropriately to reflect the health and environmental cost that continued emissions of carbon will make to our present and future, and change the rules of priority dispatch to low carbon emissions not renewable energy. The goal is to eliminate carbon emissions, not to promote the renewable energy industry. Anti-nuclear environmentalists like Joe Romm seem to have forgotten that fact. Is it not intellectually corrupt to call oneself an environmentalist and to applaud the demise of emission free nuclear power because it cannot economically compete with cheap fossil fuels emitting 4000% more green house gases per kWh? It seems both illogical and crassly hypocritical. If the market is closing down one of the largest sources of emission free energy in favour of polluting fossil fuels endangering public health and our future, you change the market. You do not praise it.

"And every time a nuclear plant closes, natural gas takes its place, not renewables."[13]

edit] Appendix I

A Simple Model of Renewable Energy Installation

In the figures which follow, a picture of a wind turbine represents a wind farm which can supply 100% of the power demand of a local community when the wind is blowing. For ease of analysis, the wind is either "on" and the wind farm is supplying 100% of the community's power demand, or it is "off" and it is supplying zero. A Wind farm has an average capacity factor of 36% meaning it delivers on average only 36% of its peak power. In this model the capacity factor of 36% represents a probability that the wind will be "on". The probability that it will be "off" is then 1-0.36 = 64%.

A picture of 2 turbines represents a wind farm installation that will supply 200% of the local community's power demand when the wind is "on", and so on, etc. etc.

Likewise a picture of a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) represents a gas turbine plant that can supply 100% of a local community's electricity demand whenever it is switched on.

A picture of a battery represents the energy storage capacity that is capable of storing and delivering one day's supply of electrical power to the local community.

For the ease of visualization and computation all local communities draw the same amount of power at a constant rate throughout the day 24/7 and 365 days a year.

The results of this model are akin to what Physicists refer to as a back-of-the-envelope calculation. They are not accurate results, but give you an intuitive idea of what's going on. More accurate models will change the details but are unlikely to change the qualitative conclusions of the initial simple model.

If our model consisted of just one local community then we would need just one wind farm to provide 100% of the power when the wind is "on", and one CCGT to supply 100% of the power when the wind is off. The life-cycle costs of wind is $73.6/MWh and of the CCGT is $72.6/MWh of which $53.6/MWh represents its operating costs.[14] Hence the life-cycle costs of the wind/CCGT combination is

0.36x73.6 + (72.6-53.6) + 0.64x53.6 = $79.8/MWh

as $(72.6-53.6)/MWh represents the fixed capital costs of the CCGT and 0.36x$73.6/MWh represents the effective cost of the wind power. Presumably the wind operators are happy receiving $73.6/MWh for wind power when it is "on" only 36% of the time.

This wind/CCGT combination is quite a bit cheaper than nuclear at $95.2/MWh life-cycle cost. However the name of the game is to reduce green house gas (GHG) emissions. To compute the emissions for this wind/CCGT combination we use 11 g(CO 2e )/kWh for wind power and 490 g(CO 2e )/kWh for the CCGT[15] and we get

0.36x11 + 0.64x490 = 318 g(CO 2e )/kWh.



Wind infrastructure built up to 200% of requirement in order to supply adjacent area if wind is not blowing. The cost of new nuclear is $95.2/MWh for comparison.

The emissions from a nuclear power plant are 12 g(CO 2e )/kWh. If our goal is to mitigate climate change, and it most definitively is the goal, it is not accomplished by closing down nuclear power plants and replacing them with renewables in the manner that it is now done with renewables and a fossil fuel backup. Notice that it does no good to build more renewables like more wind farms because this extra wind power will just be "on" when the current 100% farm is "on" and this extra energy will just be wasted. This extra wind farm energy cannot be "on" when it is needed (i.e., when there is no wind). Thus, to first order, renewables cannot replace nuclear power if the goal is to mitigate global warming.

To decrease the emissions from renewables by reducing the need for fossil fuel backup, you can import wind and solar energy from where the wind is blowing and the sun is shining to where it is not. In the figure to the left, we have the setup to supply two local communities. Each community has enough wind capacity to supply 200% of its demand when the wind is blowing and a CCGT that will supply 100% of the community's demand when it is switched "on". When the wind is blowing in one community and not in the other the 200% wind power in each community allows wind power from the community where the wind is blowing to power the community where it is not blowing by sending the power over the transmission line. In this case the probability that the wind is not blowing in both locations and that the CCGTs are turned on is

0.64x0.64 = 0.4096 or 40.96%, which makes the probability that renewable wind energy is being used is 1-0.4096 = 0.5904 or 59.04%

This is a considerable improvement over the single location renewable use of 36%. Putting in the calculations for costs and emissions we get

2x0.36x73.6 + (72.6-53.6) + 0.41x53.6 + 3.1/2 = $95.5/MWh

and

2x0.36x11 + 0.41x490 = 209 g(CO 2e )/kWh.



summary of smart grid to reduce emissions. The costs are life cycle costs throughout the entire life-cycle of the facility. The total costs are from construction, mining, operation, and decommissioning divided by the total electrical output. Similarly the emissions are are the same. Total emissions throughout all stages of the facility divided by the total electrical output.

where $3.1/MWh is the cost of the transmission line.[16] The cost has increased to approximately the same as nuclear power because of the additional capital costs of more wind farms and a transmission line. However the emissions of 209 g(CO 2e )/kWh are still unacceptably high if the name of the game is to reduce carbon emissions.

Extending this procedure to 3 communities emissions are reduced to 140 g(CO 2e )/kWh at a cost of $116/MWh. Emissions are still high and the cost is now higher than nuclear power. Extending the analysis to 5 communities (see figure to the right) gets emissions down to 72 g(CO 2e )/kWh but at a cost of $163.4/MWh which is much greater than nuclear power. Extending this series much beyond 5 is both impractical and exorbitantly expensive. The 5 communities must have wind patterns that are random and uncorrelated otherwise the emissions and costs would rise. Finding 5 communities that have wind patterns that are random and uncorrelated would almost necessarily span the size of a continent and thus expansion beyond 5 communities would be limited by the ocean's shore.[17] If the goal is to mitigate global warming by reducing carbon emissions, the cheapest and most effective way to do it is with nuclear power. Nuclear costs $95.2/MWh with emissions of 12 g(CO 2e )/kWh, a figure which cannot be approached by renewables on a smart grid with fossil fuel backup.

Wind infrastructure built up to 300% of requirement with 3 days energy storage from batteries. Gas turbine backup is still required 20% of the time.

The panacea to rescue renewables from dependence on a fossil fuel backup has always been energy storage. Despite the fact that energy storage on the grid scale that will be required presently does not exist at any price,[9][10] we can speculate on what effect energy storage can have. In the figure to the left we have a community which has 300% of its power demand provided when the wind is "on". Thus while one wind farm provides the community's electrical needs, the other two farms can be charging up the battery energy storage which can hold a 3 day supply. If the wind dies down and the battery storage is empty, there is a CCGT plant that can be turned on to supply the community's needs. With a simple Monte Carlo running for a number of events, which shall be called "days", it can be decided whether or not the wind is "on" for that "day" or not based on a 36% probability. If the wind is "on", the community is supplied with wind power and the battery storage is charged up. If the wind is "off", the community's power needs are supplied from the battery storage or, if drained, from switching on the CCGT. The result of this little exercise is recorded in the figure, wind is "on" 36% of the time, the battery storage supplies power 44% of the time, and the CCGT has to still be fired up up 20% of the time. This result was surprising in that even with storage there was still a high dependence on fossil fuel backup. Even if we had a 7 day storage supply, the CCGT would be fired up 8% of the time. What are the costs and emissions from the system in the figure? For costs we have…

3x0.36x73.6 + (72.6-53.6) + 75 + 0.20x53.6 = $184.2/MWh

and emissions…

3x0.36x11 + 0.44x48 + 0.20x490 = 131 g(CO 2e )/kWh.

The $75/MWh cost is an estimate for the effective life-cycle cost of the batteries[18] and 48 g(CO 2e )/kWh is an estimate for their emissions in manufacturing.[19] The result is not really an improvement over the 3 location or community solution of the smart grid (see table above). The emissions are slightly lower but the cost is up. What puts a damper on this solution is that the batteries only last 8 years. If the wind turbines and CCGT last 40 years, the batteries have to be replaced 5 times over. Now, as shown in the figure over to the left, the cost is $484/MWh and emissions are 215 g(CO 2e )/kWh. This is not a pleasing solution compared to nuclear at $95.2/MWh and 12 g(CO 2e )/kWh.

We could combine storage solutions[9][10] with the smart grid to further reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, but, to do so, my back-of-the-envelope model starts to require some serious programming to produce some numbers. I am not presently equipped for it. I am retired and no longer have access to students to do my programming as they did for the last 28 years of my career. I am not about to relearn how to program again and install the necessary programs into my laptop. However based on what we have, I do not see a renewable, energy storage, and smart grid solution with a tiny requirement for a fossil fuel backup[20] being less expensive than twice the cost of nuclear or of having emissions less than 100 g(CO 2e )/kWh.[21]

If the name of the game is, and it is most certainly is the name of the game, to reduce green house gas emissions as fast as it is pragmatically possible, the cheapest and most effective way to do it is through the build up of nuclear power. A renewables solution is both more expensive and less effective than nuclear. The current practice of replacing nuclear power with fossil fuels or a renewable/fossil fuel combination because it is "cheaper" and supposedly "market driven" is being pound foolish and penny wise. Emissions will rise from 12 g(CO 2e )/kWh to over 300 g(CO 2e )/kWh. This will never be adequately reversed by any combination of renewables, storage, and transmission lines. This is NOT the name of the game, and in the course of time the catastrophic consequences of such an insane course of action will come home to roost.[22]

edit] appendix II

Deaths at Chernobyl, statistics, and scientific models

It has been pointed out to me that the Chernobyl Forum, made up from a consortium of members from the following UN agencies, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), the OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), the UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation), the WHO (World Health Organization), the World Bank, and members from the governments of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, did issue a statement that

"a total of up to 4000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant".

I would like to stress that the operative word here is "could", meaning that the deaths did not necessarily happen. Also in that same release was the statement,

"The estimated 4000 casualties may occur during the lifetime of about 600000 people under consideration. As about quarter of them will eventually die from spontaneous cancer not caused by Chernobyl radiation, the radiation-induced increase of about 3% will be difficult to observe (my emphasis)." In other words, these deaths exist only on paper and will be impossible to document because the number will be statistical insignificant. The deaths were estimated from the LNT model which is currently now suspect. These 4000 probable deaths due to Chernobyl radiation are statistically equivalent to zero.

Here are two articles which explain the situation.

The first which was issued by Slate has this statement.

How Many People Have Really Been Killed by Chernobyl?

"In 2005, the United Nations predicted 4,000 deaths. Three years later, its committee on atomic radiation abandoned the linear no-threshold model (LNT) for predicting Chernobyl cancer deaths from doses below the lifetime equivalent of four abdominal CAT scans because of 'unacceptable uncertainties'…When evidence is lacking, people make a judgment call about whether to believe something that is theoretically possible but can’t be detected. In the case of cancer deaths from low-level Chernobyl radiation, the U.N. has decided that they don’t exist and linear no-threshold adherents have decided that they do. Neither can be proved right or wrong."



The second was issued by Forbes

Will The Truth About Chernobyl Ever Come Out?

"As concluded in the 2008 report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation: 'There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure.' Immediately after the accident, the ultra-conservative regulatory Linear No-Threshold (LNT) dose hypothesis was used to guesstimate that about 4,000 deaths could eventually occur by radiation from Chernobyl, but these still have not been observed. The United Nations has since warned that using the LNT model to calculate such deaths is an incorrect use of this model, and should be avoided."

Thus the 4000 deaths are based on a scientific model, the LNT model, which has no observational evidence to show that it is applicable for low level radiation doses. These are the doses experienced by the Chernobyl population. So those 4000 deaths have no real scientific basis in reality and exist only on paper.

As a result of the misinterpretation of these 4000 "deaths" by the general public the same agencies refused to estimate any deaths for Fukushima saying that there will be no measurable change in the background cancer rate as a result of Fukushima radiation.

However all this does not let Romm of the hook. He cannot claim that he is unaware of the status of these "4000 deaths". He has access to the same information that I have. He is just as smart as I am. He is aware of how dubious are these "4000 deaths". Yet he comes out and says unequivocally that

“the potential result of a (nuclear) disaster is the poisoning and ultimately, death of thousands of people”.

He is saying that these will be real deaths, and yet he has no basis on which to make this claim. Chernobyl was the worst possible nuclear disaster. An actively fissioning core[23] was ruptured by the steam explosion of its pressurized cooling water and partially distributed into the surrounding environment. This did not result in "the poisoning and ultimately, death of thousands of people". It resulted at most in 50 confirmed deaths directly attributed to the accident.[24] He is either making up his figures, or he is basing these figures on a hypothetical calculation based on a hypothetical model which has been shown to be inapplicable for the situation found at Chernobyl. Either way he is spreading unsubstantiated misinformation and fear to exaggerate the risk that nuclear energy is too dangerous, an assertion that does not stand up to rational assessment. This is his only justification for closing down nuclear reactors or blocking their construction and it is dishonest.

In his claim Romm is no better than the Ultra Anti-nuclear fringe community. Greenpeace and similar organizations have contended that there were from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands deaths caused by Chernobyl. Helen Caldicott has repeatedly stated that Chernobyl caused a million deaths based on a throughly trashed publication Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment by Dr. Alexy Yablokov.

This publication is covered more throughly in

Environmentalists vs. Nuclear Energy

and

Mousseau at the Helen Caldicott Symposium

If Romm can use the $500 billion figure for the cost of Fukushima from Helen Caldicott's Physicians for Social Responsibility, he can also embellish the number of deaths from a nuclear accident. However, I would say, it places uncertainty on accepting Romm's version of the facts.

edit] references and footnotes