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The security of nuclear power plants against terrorist attack has been hotly debated since 9/11. Less has been said about another threat that could compromise the viability of nuclear plants and seriously damage their surroundings. It is a menace largely ignored by power plant designers, utility companies and the U.S. government. 

That menace was felt in France this past August, when a devastating heat wave killed more than 14,000 people and left the French nuclear power industry under a cloud of questions. 

Nuclear power plants need an abundant supply of cool water to operate. After a week of scorching temperatures, the French power company Electricité de France (EDF) instituted emergency measures—at one point using garden sprinklers to hose down the exterior of a plant in the Alsace region—saying hot weather and lack of rainfall had severely reduced supplies of river water cold enough to sufficiently cool reactors. 

In the end, rather than cut back power generation, EDF was allowed to discharge hot water into rivers and streams, which can destroy aquatic life. 

Could what happened in France happen here? There are 103 nuclear power plants operating across the United States, by all accounts an aging fleet. Most plants date back to the 1970s, the same period as French reactors. All were designed using historical temperature data from their specific locations rather than anticipating an increasingly warmer climate. 

Experts on climate change say that in coming years, nuclear plants will likely be subject to similar environmental conditions that plagued Europe this summer. 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules require a plant licensee to submit an environmental site assessment covering a 40-year period. Scott Burnell, a spokesman with the NRC, says new plant guidelines are unnecessary. “Global warming occurs on such a slow scale that we would be able to deal with any changes at an operational level as opposed to a policy level,” Burnell says. 

But climate scientists say the natural world may be on a different timetable. 

“We’ve known since 1984 that the main way we will feel the presence of global warming is through the increased probability of cracking extreme threshold events,” says Stephen Schneider, co-director of the Center for Environmental Science at Stanford University. Schneider and colleagues estimate that during the next 50 to 100 years there is at least a 90 percent probability of higher temperatures, more heat waves, greater risk of drought and increased demands on electricity supply systems. 

“If we had that sort of extreme event today, we would probably respond in a similar way to France,” says Per Peterson, director of the Nuclear Engineering Department at UC Berkeley. “You either reduce the power output from the plant, which will have societal consequences, or you get an exception from the regulatory agencies to allow discharged water to come out warmer.” 

In France, hospitals overflowed with heat-stricken elderly, and refrigerated trucks were turned into impromptu morgues. Cutting power was a last resort, and officials opted to discharge hot water. Environmentalists were outraged. 

In the future, overheated water from power plants could be released into an already heat-stressed and drought-ridden environment. “Global warming will make it more likely that operation of power plants will lead to thermal discharges that exceed mandated limits,” says Dr. Peter Gleick, Director of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security.  

Lance Vail, Senior Research Engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has studied salmon habitat in the Yakima River in Washington state. “There is a temperature at which water becomes lethal for salmon,” Vail says. “If you have five or six consecutive years of lethal temperatures in a particular location, they may simply go extinct.” 

In addition to a license from the NRC, plant owners must obtain a discharge permit from the Environmental Protection Agency. Under the Clean Water Act, temperature can be considered a pollutant. That may be small comfort to those concerned about protecting water systems anytime soon. The Bush administration’s new EPA director is Utah governor Michael Leavitt, whose state was declared by the EPA in February to be guilty of significant non-compliance with the Clean Water Act. 

Power plant designers are planning no hardware changes. Vaughn Gilbert of Westinghouse, a nuclear power plant manufacturer, said that their newest reactor will operate at high temperatures but, “to my knowledge we did not take global warming as such into account during the design phase of the plant.” 

Essentially moribund since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, nuclear power is being resurrected by the Bush administration, which has pledged millions in federal subsidies and a streamlined licensing process. 

Peterson says he expects that the U.S. nuclear power industry may react to what happened in Europe by re-examining operating limits in order to obtain license amendments, which will allow plants to operate at higher temperatures. “Environmental limits are a policy decision between how much you like your water and how much you like having electricity,” Peterson said.  

Scientist Peter Gleick sees little reason for optimism. “I am afraid that as climate change continues to manifest itself, we will see growing impacts on rivers, growing pressure on power plants, and a risk that governments will move away from environmental protections in the name of economic protection.” 

Paul Schwartz is an American freelance journalist currently working in Europe.