Fossil fuels are both the dirtiest and most dangerous in the short term, and emit the most greenhouse gases per unit of energy.

And they all have long-term impacts by contributing to climate change.īut, their contribution to each differs enormously. They all have short-term impacts on human health, either through air pollution or accidents. In 2020, 91% of global CO 2 emissions came from fossil fuels and industry. The third is greenhouse gas emissions: fossil fuels are the main source of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of climate change. And it also includes accidents that occur in the transport of raw materials and infrastructure, the construction of the power plant, or their maintenance. This includes accidents that happen in the mining and extraction of the fuels – coal, uranium, rare metals, oil, and gas. Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass – wood, dung, and charcoal – are responsible for most of those deaths. The first is air pollution: millions of people die prematurely every year as a result of air pollution. Energy production can have negative impacts on human health and the environment in three ways.

As the United Nations rightly says: “energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today.”īut while energy brings us massive benefits, it’s not without its downsides. We look at the electricity mix below.Įnergy has been critical to the human progress we’ve seen over the last few centuries. Energy consumption represents the sum of electricity, transport and heating. Note that this is based on nuclear energy's share in the energy mix. In 2019, just over 4% of global primary energy came from nuclear power. Here we describe this adjustment in more detail. It does this by converting non-fossil fuel sources to their 'input equivalents': the amount of primary energy that would be required to produce the same amount of energy if it came from fossil fuels. Note that this data is based on primary energy calculated by the 'substitution method' which attempts to correct for the inefficiencies in fossil fuel production. This interactive chart shows the share of primary energy that comes from nuclear sources. But to understand how large of a role nuclear plays in the energy system we need to put this in perspective of total energy consumption. We previously looked nuclear output in terms of energy units – how much each country produces in terawatt-hours. Nuclear in the energy and electricity mix What share of primary energy comes from nuclear? In fact, we see a sharp dip in nuclear output following the Fukushima tsunami in Japan in 2011, as countries took plants offline due to safety concerns.īut we also see that in recent years, production has once again increased. In the interactive chart shown we see how global nuclear generation has changed over the past half-century.įollowing fast growth during the 1970s to 1990s, global generation has slowed significantly. Nuclear power generation has been around since the 1960s, but saw massive growth globally in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Nuclear energy – alongside hydropower – is one of our oldest low-carbon energy technologies. Nuclear energy generation Global generation of nuclear energy How much of our energy comes from nuclear power? How is its role changing over time? In this article we look at levels and changes in nuclear energy generation across the world, and its safety record in comparison to other sources of energy. The role that nuclear energy plays in the energy system is therefore very specific to the given country. Nuclear energy and renewable technologies typically emit very little CO 2 per unit of energy production, and are also much better than fossil fuels in limiting levels of local air pollution.īut whilst some countries are investing heavily in increasing their nuclear energy supply, others are taking their plants offline. As the world attempts to transition its energy systems away from fossil fuels towards low-carbon sources of energy, we have a range of energy options: renewable energy technologies such as hydropower, wind and solar, but also nuclear power.

Nuclear power plant fission or fusion