Court Decision to Allow Nuclear Regulator to Ignore Climate Impacts on Future Reactor Operations Does Not Serve Public Safety

A unanimous decision by three US Court Of Appeals judges in the District Of Columbia to deny an appeal based on the risks of climate change on nuclear reactor safety is a shocking disregard for the ever worsening weather conditions that could put reactor communities at grave risk, said Beyond Nuclear today, one of the groups that brought the appeal.

The petition denied by the court was brought by Beyond Nuclear and the Sierra Club, against the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), et al. The NRC is federally mandated to protect public safety. The NEI is the lobbying arm and trade group representing the nuclear power industry.

The petitioners argued that the NRC and industry did not adequately consider how aging components and climate change would affect the risk of severe accidents involving reactor-core damage. Of greatest concern is the extension of operating the licenses of the country’s already aging nuclear power plants well beyond the initial 40-year licensing period and the NRC’s refusal to view the more extreme conditions caused by climate change as risk factors to future safe operation.

“We are stunned by the court’s decision, which let the NRC get away with the generalized claim that large conservatisms in their accident risk analyses can cover the unique and site-specific effects of climate change,” said attorney Diane Curran, who argued the case on behalf of Beyond Nuclear and the Sierra Club. “The NRC has never provided a shred of evidence to show that it has, in fact, evaluated the effects of climate change on accident risk — so how could it know that?”

Paul Gunter, director of the reactor oversight project at Beyond Nuclear said, “This decision allows the NRC to consider future safety challenges to nuclear plants caused by worsening climate conditions by looking in the rear-view mirror. What we are already experiencing today with raging wildfires and extreme flooding, sea-level rise and more frequent violent storms due to climate change, sends a warning that evaluating reactor safety based on the worst climate conditions of the past is not only unrealistic but reckless.

“Just this past week we have seen extreme climate change-driven conditions with raging wildfires in Canada that could equally easily happen in the hotter United States and catastrophic flooding in Texas," Gunter said. "It is shocking that the court accepted the NRC’s argument that under future climate conditions the chances of a severe accident are ‘small.’ Instead of evaluating the real risks, the court decided to adjudicate whether or not the NRC’s environmental review was ‘reasonably explained.’ This does not serve the interests of public safety,” Gunter said.

Beyond Nuclear is carefully evaluating its legal options and will continue to challenge the extreme license extensions at the Oconee (SC), Peach Bottom (PA) and North Anna (VA) nuclear power plants.

“Oconee is of particularly alarming concern because it sits downstream of two earthen rock-filled dams and two million acre feet of water,” Gunter pointed out. “In bringing this case, we were striving to ensure that this community does not become the tragic test case for a failure to guarantee robust safety regulations at our nation’s nuclear plants for the remainder of their operating lives.”