Communities Hosting US Commercial Nuclear Power Plants

Abstract

This chapter attempts to look into demographic characteristics of the communities that host US commercial nuclear power plants. The overall goal of this chapter is to better understand how the populations vulnerable to the risks associated with the nuclear power emergencies are, the types of risks they face, and to provide demographic information for effective nuclear emergency planning. The host community boundaries are defined according to the emergency planning zones of the US NRC. There will be an in-depth look at the communities hosting the nuclear power plants, in order to better understand environmental justice issues and consequences of exposure to low-level radiation. This chapter discusses the study question, study variables, study data, and study methods under the subtitle of Data and Research Methods. The findings are discussed on overall demographic composition by distance. Demographic compositions are studied in two areas: urban and non-urban. Sixth, host communities at individual nuclear power plants are discussed in terms of their demographic compositions. The changes in demographic characteristics in two decadal time periods, from 1990 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2010, are tracked. Finally, the chapter concludes by discussing some issues in how to address evacuation of large populations living in the surrounding areas of nuclear power plants.