Leading climate scientists, including the outgoing head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, recently published a paper asserting that nuclear power has the potential to prevent millions of pollution-related deaths and is a superior tool for fighting climate change compared to natural gas.
The study entitled "Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power" used historic power production data to estimate that nuclear plants worldwide have prevented 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths to date. By generating power that otherwise would have been produced using fossil fuels, the study estimates reactors have also kept the equivalent of 64 gigatonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere. The research was published in the American Chemical Society's "Environmental Science and Technology" journal last month.
"Because nuclear power is an abundant, low-carbon source of base-load power, on balance it could make a large contribution to mitigation of global climate change and air pollution," the study's abstract reads. That is in contrast to expanded natural gas generation, which the study concluded would not mitigate climate change and would result in more deaths.
Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen authored the study. One of the country's most visible climate scientists, Hansen will retire from NASA this week to advocate for reductions in greenhouse emissions.