Although natural gas burning emits less fatal pollutants and GHGs than coal burning, it is far deadlier than nuclear power, causing about 40 times more deaths per unit electric energy produced (ref. 2). Also, such fuel switching is practically guaranteed to worsen the climate problem for several reasons.The main benefits of nuclear power are that is it more efficient than burning fossil fuels as the amount of energy released from uranium per gram is much more than that of fuels such as oil or coal; approximately 8,000 times more efficient in fact.Nuclear power plants are expensive to build but relatively cheap to run. In many places, nuclear energy is competitive with fossil fuels as a means of electricity generation. Waste disposal and decommissioning costs are usually fully included in the operating costs.Fuel comparison. With a complete combustion or fission, approx. 8 kWh of heat can be generated from 1 kg of coal, approx. 12 kWh from 1 kg of mineral oil and around 24,000,000 kWh from 1 kg of uranium-235. Related to one kilogram, uranium-235 contains two to three million times the energy equivalent of oil or coal.

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