The Climate Vulnerabilities of Global Nuclear Power

SarahM. Jordaan, Afreen Siddiqi, William Kakenmaster and AliceC. Hill

Global Environmental Politics, 2019, vol. 19, issue 4, 3-13

Abstract: Nuclear power—a source of low-carbon electricity—is exposed toincreasing risks from climate change. Intensifying storms, droughts, extremeprecipitation, wildfires, higher temperatures, and sea-level rise threatensupply disruptions and facility damage. Approximately 64 percent of installedcapacity commenced operation between thirty and forty-eight years ago, beforeclimate change was considered in plant design or construction. Globally, 516million people reside within a fifty mile (80 km) radius of at least oneoperating nuclear power plant, and 20 million reside within a ten mile (16 km)radius, and could face health and safety risks resulting from an extreme eventinduced by climate change. Roughly 41 percent of nuclear power plants operatenear seacoasts, making them vulnerable to increasing storm intensity andsea-level rise. Inland plants face exposure to other climate risks, such asincreasingly severe wildfires and warmer water temperatures. No entity hasresponsibility for conducting risk assessments that adequately evaluate theclimate vulnerabilities of nuclear power and the subsequent threats tointernational energy security, the environment, and human health. Acomprehensive risk assessment by international agencies and the development ofnational and international standards is necessary to mitigate risks for new andexisting plants.

Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/glep_a_00527 (application/pdf)
Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:19:y:2019:i:4:p:3-13

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://mitpressjour ... rnal/?issn=1526-3800

Access Statistics for this article

Global Environmental Politics is currently edited by Steven Bernstein, Matthew Hoffmann and Erika Weinthal

More articles in Global Environmental Politics from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().