Ten foot sea level rise by 2100 would threaten coastal nuclear power plants

In an article entitled "Climate Seer James Hansen Issues His Direst Forecast Yet," Mark Hertsgaard has reported at the Daily Beast that "James Hansen’s new study explodes conventional goals of climate diplomacy and warns of 10 feet of sea level rise before 2100. The good news is, we can fix it."

Although the article lists nuclear power as a "non-carbon fuel," alongside solar, wind, and efficiency, as potential energy sources for averting climate catastrophe, it does not mention the famed NASA scientist's pro-nuclear advocacy. Hundreds of environmental groups have challenged Hansen's nuclear power advocacy as illogical and misinformed, while continuing to thank him for his essential work on climatology.

Along similar lines, IEER showed nearly a decade ago now that nuclear power is incapable of averting climate catastrophe, in its trailblazing 2006 book Insurmountable Risks by Dr. Brice Smith. IEER's president, Dr. Arjun Makhijani, followed up with a description of climate solutions, in his 2007 Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy.

Hansen's nuclear power advocacy also ignores the fact that nuclear power cannot operate safely in destabilized climatic conditions. For that matter, nuclear power has shown five times in 35 years that it can't operate safely in stable climate conditions (the meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, the explosion and fire at Chernobyl in 1986, and the meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi 1, 2, and 3 in 2011).

Ten foot sea level rise would not only flood major cities, as Hansen's study has warned. It would also flood many coastal nuclear power plants, threatening not only reactor operations, but also on-site radioactive waste storage (see U.S. reactors located along both coastlines on the map in the Beyond Nuclear pamphlet about "routine" radiation releases into surface waters).

Even if not directly inundated, such sea level rise would threaten nuclear power plants located at higher elevations, or further inland, with storm surges and other extreme weather coming off the oceans.

For more information on why nuclear power cannot operate safely in a destabliized climate, see Beyond Nuclear's "Climate Chaos and Nuclear Power" fact sheet, published in 2008.