Across the U.S., more than 50 power plants were operating in more than half of the states as of 2023. A new study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health suggests that proximity to these plants is linked to higher cancer rates.
“U.S. counties located closer to operational nuclear power plants (NPPs) have higher rates of cancer mortality than those located farther away,” said a press release from the school. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, there were 93 operating commercial nuclear reactors at 54 nuclear power plants in 28 states as of Aug.
1, 2023.
At nuclear power plants, nuclear power reactors use heat produced during atomic fission to boil water and produce pressurized steam, the EIS explained. Then, the steam is routed through a reactor steam system to spin large turbines, driving magnetic generators to produce electricity.
While nuclear power has benefits, such as generating electricity without carbon emissions, it also comes with documented risks. For example, the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine that released massive amounts of radioactive material into the environment and killed 28 workers in the months following the incident.
Harvard T.H. Chan said that the new nuclear power plant study, published Monday in Nature Communications, is “the first of the 21st century to analyze proximity to NPPs and cancer mortality across all NPPs and every U.S. county.” It also builds on previous studies that have indicated a potential link between these power plants and cancer, though the school noted that those past studies have had conflicting results.
“These studies have been rare and limited in their scope, focused on a single NPP and its surrounding community,” it added. On the other hand, this new study includes a national assessment of NPPs and cancer mortality between 2000 and 2018 using advanced statistical modeling “that captured the cumulative impact of all nearby NPPs, rather than just one.”
Data researchers obtained from the U.S. Energy Information Administration was used to conduct the study, along with county-level data on cancer mortality obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They found that roughly 115,000 cancer deaths across the U.S. during the study period – equal to about 6,400 deaths per year – were attributable to proximity to NPPs.
“U.S. counties located closer to nuclear power plants experienced higher cancer mortality rates, even after accounting for socioeconomic, environmental, and health care factors,” the study authors found.
“Our study suggests that living near a NPP may carry a measurable cancer risk—one that lessens with distance,” said
Senior author Petros Koutrakis, Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation said the study suggests that living near a nuclear power plant comes with a “measurable cancer risk.” He added that his team recommends more studies be done to address the health impacts of NPPs, “particularly at a time when nuclear power is being promoted as a clean solution to climate change.”
A similar study the researchers conducted in Massachusetts had similar results to the one published this week. Still, the team “emphasized that the findings are not enough to establish causality.”