To meet the global demand for electrical power there are two choices: fossil fuels or nuclear. Renewables do not scale to meet the growing demand for baseload power. So, basically you have fossil fuels, nuclear and no power. No power is deadly because absent of electricity, people burn solid fuels such as wood or coal to cook their food and to heat their homes. Burning solid fuels, particularly in small scale, produces a lot of small particles that are responsible for millions of deaths from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases every year.[1] Burning fossil fuels is the root cause of climate change, also deadly through more frequent extreme weather events, rising sea levels causing arable land to be inundated and lost through ground water salination. Climate change causes prolonged droughts in some areas with soil suitable for agriculture such as the Indus valley by melting glaciers in the Himalayas that act as reliable natural round-year sources of fresh water.[2] Climate change is the most serious challenge humanity has faced for a very long time. It will destabilize societies and make hundreds of millions of people refugees.[3] Nuclear fission has a very low death rate from accidents on a per produced terawatt hour basis. [4]

Image Credit

1. http://indiaclimatedialogue.net/2014/07/17/millions-die-indians-still-cook-wood-dung/

2. https://phys.org/news/2013-03-indian-drought-himalayan-glaciers-retreat.html

3. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/nov/03/global-warming-climate-refugees

4. https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy