Is Nuclear Power Good for You? - ScienceInsider

In dueling studies released yesterday, scientists are debating whether a projection of 130 future cancer deaths from the meltdowns at the reactors in Fukushima last year indicates that nuclear power is good or bad overall to the health of people.

The argument centers on a paper by meteorologist John Ten Hoeve and environmental engineer Mark Jacobson, who are both at Stanford University in California, published online yesterday in Energy & Environmental Science. (A copy of the paper is available.) The pair started with estimates of the radioactive nuclides released when meltdowns occurred in multiple reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant due to the loss of power to cool nuclear fuel after the earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011.

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