Arctic Resource Rush Holds Nuclear Risks

A Russian Delta class III nuclear-powered submarine. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Department of Defense.)Here’s a scary revelation: while climate change has, for the first time in recorded history, opened up the Northwest Passage and sparked a new land/fossil fuel/resource rush in the Arctic, it might also increase the risk of nuclear contamination in the region. A report in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs notes that, “Between 1958 and 1992, Russia dumped 18 nuclear reactors into the Arctic Ocean, several of them still fully loaded with nuclear fuel.”

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