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Flawed review of Darlington nuclear station

justiceDarlington nuclear assessment “blinkered,” court told, Toronto Star 7 May 14 Environmental groups told a federal court that the review of the proposal to overhaul the Darlington nuclear station was flawed The agencies who gave the overhaul of the Darlington nuclear station an environmental green light had their “heads in the sand” at the prospect of a catastrophic accident, a federal court was told Tuesday.

“The responsible authorities’ blinkered approach to major accidents is not what Parliament intended,” Richard Lindgren told Mr. Justice Michael Phelan.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) proposes to overhaul the four reactors at Darlington starting in 2016, extending their lives to 2055.

Greenpeace, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and Northwatch have challenged the environmental approval granted to the project in 2013.

They want the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to give it further scrutiny.

In its environmental impact statement, OPG was only required to plan for accidents with the odds of occurring more frequently than once in a million years, per reactor.

In the world of accident assessment, that rules out catastrophic accidents on the scale of Fukushima or Chernobyl, with a widespread release of radiation and the need to evacuate many thousands of people.

“Those kinds of effects were not assessed at all,” Lindgren told the court.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act requires the assessment of accidents that “may” occur, he argued………

Darlington’s cooling system draws in cold lake water, circulates it through the plant, and then releases it back into the lake. Some fish are trapped on screens covering the intakes; smaller fish and eggs may be drawn in and killed.

May 7, 2014 Posted by | Canada, Legal | Leave a comment

Nuclear power is no answer to climate change

globalnukeNOWe shouldn’t warm to nuclear power  Western Daily Press  May 02, 2014 Allan Jeffery is the assistant co-ordinator of the Stop Hinkley campaign. Here he outlines why he believes nuclear is not the answer to our energy needs

Climate change is widely acknowledged as being one of the most pressing issues for the global community – affecting many aspects of the environment and society, including, human health, ecosystems, agriculture, water supplies, local and global economies, sea levels and extreme weather events.

However, the nuclear industry tries to depict nuclear energy as the most effective way to solve the climate problem. This claim has no basis in fact. Nuclear energy is neither effective nor viable. It is not a sustainable source and it causes devastating problems that humanity is not able to handle.

Looking at the whole nuclear energy cycle, nuclear energy does indirectly generate greenhouse gases. Much less than coal and oil, though not a lot less than gas, but significantly more than sustainable renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydro and tidal.

Increasing nuclear generation on a large scale would mean exploiting much lower grade uranium ores. Therefore much more energy from fossil fuels would be needed to mine, enrich and fabricate the uranium fuel, greatly increasing the amounts of greenhouse gases emitted. Using low grade ores to produce the nuclear fuel will produce similar levels of greenhouse gases as burning gas in the power station in the first place.

Nuclear power only produces electricity. Globally nuclear produces about 16 per cent of the world’s electricity production and this is declining. Even if we switched all fossil fuel generation to nuclear by building hundreds of new nuclear reactors we would not solve the problem. Global electricity production is only one of many human activities producing greenhouse gases, and only produces nine per cent of global greenhouse gases. The rest of the emissions are produced by transport, heating, agriculture, cement production and deforestation. To have any significant effect on global warming, global emissions will need to be reduced 50 per cent by 2050. To do this many hundreds of new nuclear reactors will need to be built rapidly. The average reactor construction time for all builds up to 2013, was eight years and many much longer. Worldwide growth in building new nuclear reactors has slowed drastically as investors refuse to buy into the dubious economics of nuclear power………

The potential for renewable energy is vast. Each day the energy that falls on the earth is more than the earth’s global population would use in 27 years.

Solar generated power could provide the current world energy 10,000 times over, cleanly. http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/shouldn-t-warm-nuclear-power/story-21045803-detail/story.html?email-tobe-verified=true#ixzz314D9lCVz

May 7, 2014 Posted by | general | 1 Comment

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