Earthquakes and rising sea levels vs. nuclear power plants

Issues are interconnected!

The climate crisis is causing sea levels to rise.

Nuclear power plants need cooling, so they are built near bodies of water (rivers, ocean coastlines, etc.).  In fact, 40% of the world’s nuclear reactors sit on coastlines, where sea-level rise, earthquakes and tsunamis endanger them and can cause catastrophes for huge portions of the world.

For example, the nuclear power plants at Fukushima, Japan, melted down when an earthquake struck them and a tsunami resulted from the earthquake and caused even more damage.  Even now — nine years later — radiation is still spewing into the Pacific Ocean every day, and it has crossed the Pacific Ocean and reached the U.S.

Nowadays 56 nuclear reactors are under construction worldwide, and 93% of them are at risk of catastrophes caused by the climate crisis.  These include sea-level rise and increasingly destructive hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons.

The U.S. is part of the problem.  Rising sea level poses a danger to the nuclear power plant at Florida’s Turkey Point, but the federal agency responsible for protecting us (the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC) strongly supports the nuclear power industry and fails to protect public health and safety.  The NRC stated that rising sea levels at Turkey Point are “outside the scope of the agency.”  It went ahead and granted an extended operating license so the reactor’s owner can continue operating it for many, many years into the future, as if the climate crisis did not exist.

 

 

 

 

About GlenAnderson 1499 Articles
Since the late 1960s Glen Anderson has devoted his life to working as a volunteer for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and progressive political issues. He has worked through many existing organizations and started several. Over the years he has worked especially for such wide-ranging goals as making peace with Vietnam, eliminating nuclear weapons, converting from a military economy to a peacetime economy, abolishing the death penalty, promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society, and helping people organize and strategize for grassroots movements to solve many kinds of problems. He writes, speaks, and conducts training workshops on a wide variety of topics. Since 1987 he has produced and hosted a one-hour cable TV interview program on many kinds of issues. Since 2017 he has blogged at https://parallaxperspectives.org He lives in Lacey near Olympia WA. You can reach him at (360) 491-9093 glen@parallaxperspectives.org