How Many Deaths Does it Cost to Power the World

When switching a lightbulb on, one usually does not think of how many people it kills by leaving the light on longer than necessary. Nevertheless, as with almost everything in our industrialized world, not much comes without the cost of human life.

Most means of energy production come with a considerably high amount of environmental pollution as a by-product and even allegedly clean and safe energy sources, like wind and water plants, still carry the risk of killing people through malfunction and accidents while setting them up.

As this estimation shows, energy costs some 500,000 lives per year. The cleanest source of energy might surprise you: nuclear power is currently the safest option we have – well, at least if we cut out the fact that the active waste will accompany us for the next few centuries.