Disaster Management for Boiling Globe by World’s 441 Nuclear-heated Water

• Main Author: Atsuji, Shigeo
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Proceedings of the 59th Annual Meeting of the ISSS - 2015 Berlin, Germany 2017
• Subjects: disaster management; resilience; global boiling; sustainability; disaster anchor; Fukushima; Pacific; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://journals.isss.org/index.php/proceedings59th/article/view/2587

The present research reviews, firstly outlines the ‘unstoppable’ nature of nuclear power generation as exemplified by the system lifecycle of ageing nuclear reactors, the decommissioning of reactors, and the nuclear waste disposal problem, which stakeholders find difficult to understand. Secondly, it highlights the sea-temperature rise in the northern hemisphere, specifically the North Pacific and North Atlantic, as a result of the thermal effluent water from nuclear power plants which is a product of today’s nuclear industry. Thirdly, it presents the hypothesis of the ‘Boiling Globe’ caused by this thermal effluent water, whereby the overheating of whole oceans compounds CO2–based atmospheric warming and accelerates the spread of infectious tropical diseases to the northern hemisphere. The research points to the unsustainability of this global boiling caused by the world’s 441 nuclear plants with an average lifespan of 30 years. The traumatic experience of the Fukushima disaster has become a ‘disaster anchor’ based on psychological and cultural aspects, comparable to the career anchors of Edgar Schein (1978), and is a cultural function forming the premise of decision-making. From the standpoint of Japan, which has experienced Fukushima and other frequent disasters, it is therefore important to make the world aware of the necessity of disaster management for our sustainable future.