Climate change: assessment of the vulnerability of nuclear power and cost of adaptation - 15038

This paper reports on the outcome of an OECD study (2013-14) aimed at assessing the vulnerability of nuclear power generation to climate change, including both extreme weather events and gradually increasing air and water temperatures. Nuclear power plants (NPPs), just as other energy infrastructures, can be affected by phenomena such as floods, storms, heat waves, droughts, etc. Also, as with other thermo-electric power plants, increasing temperatures of water used for cooling can lead to reduce power output due to decreasing thermal efficiency. This paper reports on examples of extreme weather events - not necessarily attributed to climate change but considered representative of the type of climatic events that climate change may increasingly bring about - which that have affected the operation of NPPs, and describes the adaptation strategy that can be implemented to improve the resilience of existing generating assets as well as new infrastructures. (authors)