Coal
Electricity from hard coal, lignite, and similar solid fuels.
At this rate, one death corresponds to about 670–6,000 people's annual electricity.
Deaths per terawatt-hour
This scale is logarithmic: each step to the right is ten times the previous one, so the visual distance understates how much larger the fossil numbers really are.
counted deaths · modeled deaths
The small grey figure under each source is the same rate turned human: roughly how many people’s yearly electricity corresponds to one death. Coal, about 700–6,000 people; solar, a few million.
The figures as a table
| Source | Low | High | Modeled | 1 death per |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coal | 24.6 | 224 | 95% | 670–6k people |
Deaths
24.6–224 deaths/TWh
Fossil-fuel rates are dominated by modeled air-pollution deaths; the high bound reflects global-average caution.
Our World in Data, What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?CO₂
740–910 gCO₂eq/kWh
IPCC AR5 WGIII Annex III lifecycle emissions mediansLand
6–18 km²/TWh/yr
UNECE lifecycle assessment of electricity generation optionsCost
68–166 USD/MWh
Lazard LCOE+ 2026, version 19.0The uncounted cost — priced at the central value of a statistical life ($14.1M), Coal's death toll is worth about $347 per MWh generated — against a market price of $118/MWh. That cost is on no electricity bill. Value of a life →
How it kills
Almost entirely through chronic air pollution — fine particulates, sulphur and nitrogen oxides — inhaled across the whole downwind population over years. Mining and transport accidents are real but a small fraction of the total.
What dominates the number
Long-term particulate exposure across the public. Chronic effects account for roughly 88–99% of the total; acute accidents are the remainder.
What the estimate does not capture
Site conditions, country-specific controls, labor practices, reliability, storage, and long-tail waste questions are outside this coefficient.