Question: I read your profile notes and wanted to know if working at a nuclear power plant means harming any species of animals?

Rebecca Wong answered on 6 Mar 2020:

Hi,

Nuclear power plants are required to do environmental assessments to make sure that their operation doesn’t have a harmful effect on animals, plants and the wider environment. Nuclear plants but also other kinds of buildings (factories, hospitals etc.) will release some ‘waste’ to the environment, maybe in the form of gases up a chimney or liquids down a drain but they are supposed to be processed and monitored so that anything released is as clean as possible. Unfortunately accidents may happen and there may be a release which is harmful to animals, but this will be detected and the organisation will be fined (or even maybe stopped from operating depending on how serious it is) to stop it happening again.

Any protected species that live on a site will be regularly monitored to make sure that they are OK while the plant is operating and then even when it is being decommissioned.

I guess also when a plant is being constructed this will inevitably mean a loss of habitat to some animals, but this is no different to any other construction site.