Germany’s Phaseout, Clean Air, and a Rare Case of Good Science
Description
In the 44th installment of The Atomic Exchange Podcast, co-hosts Dr. Goran Calic and Michael Tadrous open with quick campus notes and a milestone update, then bring back Good Science vs Bad Science with a deep read of a new study on Germany’s nuclear shutdown. They walk through the paper’s method using a synthetic Germany built from peer countries, the main result of roughly 17 potential life years lost per 100,000 people per year from increased air pollution, and why the effect concentrates in ages 50–59. Along the way they highlight the authors’ unusually strong robustness checks, convert health impacts into euros using standard value-of-life-year ranges, and compare the ongoing public health cost to the small, infrequent risk cost of a Fukushima-scale event. They close on policy trade-offs, capacity factor reality, and what evidence should guide future phaseout decisions.
United States
