Was shutting Japan’s reactors deadlier than the Fukushima disaster?

SNUGGLED AMID lush fields and forests, Namie was doomed by its proximity to the local power plant. In 2011 the town’s 21,000 residents were ordered to evacuate after a tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima nuclear facility 4km away. Soon after, all 54 reactors in Japan were shut down amid safety fears, winking out nearly 50 gigawatts of generating capacity. A new paper* argues that that decision may have cost far more lives than the initial disaster.

The Fukushima accident led to a surge in imports of coal, gas and oil. In the four years after the meltdown, the share of generation from fossil fuels leapt from 62% to 88%. Nuclear power, which once produced over 30% of Japan’s electricity, fell to zero. The result, say three academics, was a sharp spike in electricity prices.

Many people responded to higher prices, in turn, by switching off their electric heaters. Average electricity consumption per household fell by 8% in some areas in 2012, according to government surveys. The biggest drops were in regions such as Tokyo, where electricity prices rose by over a third. The increased exposure to the cold in winter caused an additional 1,280 deaths from 2011 to 2014, the authors claim. Given that fossil fuels are far dirtier than nuclear power, the shift almost certainly added to air pollution and thus to respiratory ailments,...

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