This is unsurprising and in large part traceable to China's domestic coal consumption. When people say that coal power plans routinely kill orders of magnitude more people than nuclear plants ever have, this is what they're talking about.
Nuclear plants don't kill anyone outside of a couple of accidents, so "infinitely more" would even be correct.
However, I'm not very excited about China's nuclear power program, I don't have confidence that they aren't going to cut corners in ways that would cause a huge disaster down the line.
> According to Environment Canada, coal-fired power plants in Alberta in 2011
emitted only 0.4% of PM2.5 of human-made emissions (excluding wildfires).
But somehow most of the bashing by media, green/left politicians and 'ecological' organizations is targeted at coal power plants, instead of real pollution sources.
And ignorants enforce this lies, by repeating that "coal power plans routinely kill orders of magnitude more people than nuclear plants".
> And ignorants enforce this lies, by repeating that "coal power plans routinely kill orders of magnitude more people than nuclear plants".
We can enumerate everyone who has been killed in a nuclear plant accident since the plants themselves do not emit any radiation or pollution when they are generating electricity. Nuclear power only has the problem of safety (keep bad accidents from occurring) and waste disposal, while coal plants pollute continuously, and emit much more radiation than a nuclear power plant (and even its waste).
The coal plants in China do not have any sophisticated environmental features like the ones in the west. Additionally, the burn much dirtier coal (mined in China) than the much cleaner coal that can be mined in say, West Virginia or Australia.
China's PM2.5 output is overwhelmingly attributed to its coal power plants, so I think it's a bit of a rhetorical stretch to call what I said an "ignorant lie". Further:
* The Chinese coal industry is built out of boiler designs that are difficult to retrofit the "clean coal" stack of technologies on
* Despite aggressive investment in filtration and treatment in the US, field studies show fluctuating (at times increasing) levels of PM2.5 pollution in cities near coal plants
* Reductions in PM2.5 matching the levels stated by the coal industry documents you're providing depend not just on expensive retrofits of existing plants, but also on careful selection of (more expensive) higher-grade coal, and on expensive ongoing upkeep of consumable filtration components
I'm not opposed to clean coal, where its efficiency and effectiveness can be demonstrated and, equally importantly, regulated. But that's not the Chinese coal industry.
