NPP stands for nuclear power plant. The research concludes Chernobyl cost 318 million life years by discouraging NPP construction in favor of air polluting energy sources.
According to our baseline estimates (Table 1), over the past 38 years, Chernobyl reduced the total number of NPPs worldwide by 389, which is almost entirely driven by the slowdown of new construction in democracies. Our calculations thus suggest that, globally, more than 318 million expected life years have been lost in democratic countries due to the decline in NPP growth in these countries after Chernobyl.