"Nuclear power is too risky to operate in a destabilized climate"

In an online post entitled "Flooded Nebraska nuclear plant raises broader disaster fears," Steve Hargreaves at CNN Money has quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps on the growing risks to nuclear power plants from severe weather events caused by the climate crisis. The story reports:

"With the vast majority of the world's climate scientists predicting more extreme weather events in the years ahead as the planet warms, activists are calling for the at-risk plants to be shut or, at the very least, strongly reinforced.

'Each one has its own pathway to disaster,' said Kevin Kamps, an activist at the watchdog group Beyond Nuclear. 'Nuclear power is too risky to operate in a destabilized climate. We think it should be phased out.'...

...The Missouri River is flooding as a result of a particularly snowy winter in Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas, as well as heavy spring rains.

Kamps brought up the possibility of any one of the half-dozen dams upstream from the plant failing, calling that event a 'nightmare' scenario that would push the water well past the 1,014-foot level the facility was built to withstand.

In that event, power to the plant from either its grid connection or back-up diesel generators could be lost, resulting in an inability to circulate water to keep either the reactor core or the spent fuel pool cool, said Kamps."

Beyond Nuclear's pamphlet, "Routine Radioactive Releases from Nuclear Power Plants in the United States: What Are the Dangers?," contains a map showing the locations of the 104 operating atomic reactors in the U.S. Dozens of reactors are located on rivers, potentially at risk from floods. Dozens of reactors are on the sea coasts, potentially at risk from hurricanes or storm surges -- and, eventually, from rising sea levels. And dozens of inland reactors, including those on the Great Lakes (and there are an additional 20 reactors on the Canada-side of the Great Lakes), are at risk from such natural disasters as tornadoes -- potentially exposing the drinking water supply for 40 million people to catastrophic radioactive contamination. Beyond Nuclear's backbgrounder, "Climate Chaos and Nuclear Power," prepared in Feb. 2008, shows clearly that nuclear power is not safe in an ever worsening climate crisis.