New Nuclear Power is Preventing at Least 50,000 Deaths Per Year from More Coal Plants

There are about 440 nuclear power reactors operating in 32 countries plus Taiwan, with a combined capacity of about 390 GWe. In 2021 these provided 2653 TWh, about 10% of the world’s electricity. About 60 power reactors are currently being constructed in 15 countries, notably China, India and Russia. There is 8-12 GW of new nuclear power being added each year from now to 2028.

In the first half of 2023, China approved 52 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power, started construction on 37 GW, announced 41 GW of new projects, and revived 8 GW of previously shelved projects. In 2023, global coal generation reached a record high of 10,440 TWh, which represented 36% of the world’s electricity generation. This was an increase of 1%, or 47 TWh, from the previous year. Coal is the world’s leading source of carbon dioxide emissions. In 2021, coal combustion produced 14.98 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. In 2022, coal was on track to produce 15.1 billion metric tons of CO2. If all current global nuclear power was stopped and replaced with coal power this would add 3 billion metric tons of CO2 each year.

Recently we saw nuclear plant shutdowns in Japan and more coal and natural gas added.
There were nuclear plant shutdowns in Germany more coal added. Germany was not able to reduce coal usage for decades despite spending hundreds of billions on solar and wind. There was some progress from 2017-2021 with reduced coal usage then the Ukraine War stopped Russian Natural gas and coal usage increased at the same time as there were more nuclear shutdowns.
When Nuclear power plants are not shutdown then lives are saved from less air pollution. (Particulates).

Global Coal is still causing 250,000 deaths per year. 20% more global coal by shutting down nuclear and replacing with coal (as was done in Germany over the last few years) would add 50,000 more deaths per year. Global average death rates from fossil fuels are likely to be even higher than reported in the chart below. The death rates from coal, oil, and gas that we use in these comparisons are sourced from the paper of Anil Markandya and Paul Wilkinson (2007) in the medical journal, The Lancet. To date, these are the best, peer-reviewed references I could find on the death rates from these sources. These rates are based on electricity production in Europe. However, there are three key reasons why I think that these death rates are likely to be very conservative, and the global average death rates could be substantially higher. Our World in Data expects that 1.1 million to 2.55 million people die from fossil fuels used for electricity production each year. The estimates we get from Markandya and Wilkinson (2007) death rates undercount by a factor of 4 to 9. This would suggest that actual death rates from fossil fuels could be 4 to 9 times higher. That would give a global average death rate from coal of 93 to 224 deaths per TWh.Unfortunately, we do not have more up-to-date death rates for coal, oil, and gas to reference here but improved estimates are sorely needed. The current death rates shown are likely to be underestimated.

There is also millions of hospitalizations and perhaps 7% of China’s GDP due to air and water pollution damage from coal and fossil fuels.

The capacity of oil- and gas-fired power stations under development around the world grew by 13% in the year to July 2023, reaching a total of 783GW.

If 60 Gigawatts of global nuclear power was not added then there would be even more than 150 gigawatts of coal and oil and gas. Nuclear power plants have higher capacity utilization at 80-90% versus 50-60% for coal plants. 60 GW of nuclear is about 420-480 TWH per year of energy.

About 100 power reactors with a total gross capacity of about 100,000 MWe are on order or planned, and over 300 more are proposed.

Most nuclear reactors currently planned are in Asia, with fast-growing economies and rapidly-rising electricity demand.