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Gordon Edwards explains and comments on Canada’s policy on radioactive waste and nuclear decommissioning

Until recently, Canada’s stated policy on radioactive waste management consisted of a flimsy 25-year-old statement of 143 words, making no mention of intermediate level waste (such as decommissioning waste) or plutonium extraction (reprocessing).

In 2019, a team of IAEA nuclear experts reviewed Canada’s nuclear regulatory practices and recommended that Canada produce an enhanced radioactive policy statement and articulate an accompanying national radioactive waste strategy for the first time ever.

In 2020 Canada accepted this recommendation and undertook a two year consultation period with hundreds of Canadian organizations and individuals. 

Non-governmental organizations overwhelmingly recommended that Canada should have radioactive waste management and decommissioning agency that is independent of the nuclear waste producers and agencies that promote nuclear power, such as the Natural Resources Department (NRCan).

They also recommended that reprocessing (plutonium extraction) be banned altogether and that careful consideration be given to establishing a classification of radioactive waste materials based on toxicity, mobility, longevity, and radioactive progeny. Special attention was paid to the need for a policy regarding intermediate level wastes such as those resulting from rector decommissioning operations.

In 2022 a draft policy was released for public comment and an alternative policy was recommended by Nuclear Waste Watch, incorporating the policy recommendations mentioned in the preceding paragraphs.

In March 2023, the government — through NRCan, the very department that is obligated to promote nuclear power and uranium mining — released its final radioactive waste and decommissioning policy. That document ignores almost completely the input from civil society over the course of the previous two years. The policy is verbose and rhetorical with very little substance, and with a pronounced pro-nuclear bias.

On May 25, Nuclear Waste Watch hosted a “debriefing” webinar to inform other groups who had also participated in the consultation process of the nature of the government’s policy, and the distressing fact that NRCan has relegated to the nuclear waste producers the task of constructing a radioactive waste strategy for Canada.

Here is a short slide show (bilingual) that summaries and briefly comments on the main features of the Canadian government’s radioactive waste policy:

Click to access Radwaste_Policy_2023.pdf

May 29, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, decommission reactor