Nuclear refugees after large radioactive releases

International audienceHowever improbable, large radioactive releases from a nuclear power plant would entail major consequences for the surrounding population. In Fukushima, 80,000 people had to evacuate the most contaminated areas around the NPP for a prolonged period of time. These people have been called "nuclear refugees". The paper first argues that the number of nuclear refugees is a better measure of the severity of radiological consequences than the number of fatalities, although the latter is widely used to assess other catastrophic events such as earthquakes or tsunami. It is a valuable partial indicator in the context of comprehensive studies of overall consequences. Section 2 makes a clear distinction between long-term relocation and emergency evacuation and proposes a method to estimate the number of refugees. Section 3 examines the distribution of nuclear refugees with respect to weather and release site. The distribution is asymmetric and fat-tailed unfavorable weather can lead to the contamination of large areas of land; large cities have in turn a higher probability of being contaminated. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd

Évaluation pilote des choix expérimentaux auprès de spécialistes français du nucléaire : mesure de la valeur intangible de territoires contaminés

International audienceA discrete choice experiment was conducted in France to value the loss of welfare from a nuclear accident, using a sample of 400 respondent working in the French nuclear safety authority (ASN) and the French Institute for radiation protection and nuclear safety (IRSN). The respondents were asked to choose between three different alternatives describing life conditions in their supposed living territory after a nuclear accident. These alternatives were characterized by the proportion of people who stay in the territory after the accident, the proportion of services remaining in the territory, whether or not access to nature is prohibited and the duration of the deteriorated situation. A mixed-logit model shows that the access to areas of nature and the runaway of services are the main sources of disutility. People having children under 18 years old and those living outside the Paris region give more importance to these aspects, whereas younger people and people leaving in the Paris region value the proportion of persons and services around them higher. The mean willingness to pay (WTP) per household to avoid living in a contaminated territory for 30 years is about 18,000 euros. An important finding of the paper is that places considered as more important by inhabitants are not necessarily the ones they attend more. The study sheds some light on strategies to mitigate welfare loss of welfare after a nuclear accident

Évaluation pilote des choix expérimentaux auprès de spécialistes français du nucléaire : mesure de la valeur intangible de territoires contaminés

International audienceA discrete choice experiment was conducted in France to value the loss of welfare from a nuclear accident, using a sample of 400 respondent working in the French nuclear safety authority (ASN) and the French Institute for radiation protection and nuclear safety (IRSN). The respondents were asked to choose between three different alternatives describing life conditions in their supposed living territory after a nuclear accident. These alternatives were characterized by the proportion of people who stay in the territory after the accident, the proportion of services remaining in the territory, whether or not access to nature is prohibited and the duration of the deteriorated situation. A mixed-logit model shows that the access to areas of nature and the runaway of services are the main sources of disutility. People having children under 18 years old and those living outside the Paris region give more importance to these aspects, whereas younger people and people leaving in the Paris region value the proportion of persons and services around them higher. The mean willingness to pay (WTP) per household to avoid living in a contaminated territory for 30 years is about 18,000 euros. An important finding of the paper is that places considered as more important by inhabitants are not necessarily the ones they attend more. The study sheds some light on strategies to mitigate welfare loss of welfare after a nuclear accident

Évaluation pilote des choix expérimentaux auprès de spécialistes français du nucléaire : mesure de la valeur intangible de territoires contaminés

International audienceA discrete choice experiment was conducted in France to value the loss of welfare from a nuclear accident, using a sample of 400 respondent working in the French nuclear safety authority (ASN) and the French Institute for radiation protection and nuclear safety (IRSN). The respondents were asked to choose between three different alternatives describing life conditions in their supposed living territory after a nuclear accident. These alternatives were characterized by the proportion of people who stay in the territory after the accident, the proportion of services remaining in the territory, whether or not access to nature is prohibited and the duration of the deteriorated situation. A mixed-logit model shows that the access to areas of nature and the runaway of services are the main sources of disutility. People having children under 18 years old and those living outside the Paris region give more importance to these aspects, whereas younger people and people leaving in the Paris region value the proportion of persons and services around them higher. The mean willingness to pay (WTP) per household to avoid living in a contaminated territory for 30 years is about 18,000 euros. An important finding of the paper is that places considered as more important by inhabitants are not necessarily the ones they attend more. The study sheds some light on strategies to mitigate welfare loss of welfare after a nuclear accident