This statistic is very relevant here, and surprising to many! Deaths per kWh produced for all energy sources.
Solar and nuclear both really stand out immensely as the safer alternatives.
People tend to think of nuclear as dangerous, but that's just propaganda. There has been a lot of anti-nuclear propaganda over the years. But the numbers speak truth:
If one tries to quantify the value of those deaths, using the "statistical value of a human life" (somewhere around $12M/death), one finds in the case of both wind/solar and nuclear, using those numbers, the value of those lives contributes negligibly to the cost of energy. This is unlike with coal.
This means that in choosing between solar/wind and nuclear, one cannot use the deaths/TWh to choose between them unless they are almost dead even in other costs (and they are not).
No, I don't think we need both. In particular, building new nuclear plants would be worse than just putting all that money into renewables + storage. The latter displaces fossil fuels more quickly and more cheaply.
Parts of Europe are close to the worst case for renewables (specifically, some parts away from coasts without a good wind resource). Even there, new nuclear might be only competitive with renewables.
This web site provides an optimization scheme for determining how expensive it would be to provide 365/24/7 steady power from wind/solar in various geographical areas, using historical weather data. Even in Europe it's not that bad. The 2030 cost figures may already be obsolete given the crash in battery prices.
Note that in this model it's essential to have something beyond batteries to use for long term storage (to smooth wind output, and to provide seasonal storage of solar output). The model uses hydrogen, but long term thermal storage may be even cheaper. Europe has ample geology for storage of hydrogen (salt formations).
Solar and nuclear both really stand out immensely as the safer alternatives.
People tend to think of nuclear as dangerous, but that's just propaganda. There has been a lot of anti-nuclear propaganda over the years. But the numbers speak truth:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...