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The challenge of long-lived alpha emitters in the Chalk River legacy wastes

Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, January 22, 2024 (revised September 17, 2024)

Why is so little Chalk River waste suitable for near surface disposal?

Extensive research work at the Chalk River Laboratories on nuclear reactor fuels, and in the early days, on materials for nuclear weapons, produced waste with large quantities of long-lived alpha emitters. This waste is difficult to manage and can even become increasingly radioactive over time.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, because of the presence of long-lived alpha emitters, waste from nuclear research facilities is generally classified as intermediate level, and even in some cases, as high level. This waste cannot be put in a near surface disposal facility because its radioactivity will not decay to harmless levels during the period that the facility remains under institutional control.

Alpha emitters decay by throwing off an alpha particle, the equivalent of a helium nucleus, with two protons and two neutrons. The external penetrating power of an alpha particle is low, but alpha emitters have extremely serious health effects if ingested or inhaled. They can lodge in your lungs and cause cancer.

Research at Chalk River and all other nuclear laboratories is ultimately based on three long-lived alpha emitters — thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238. These are the “naturally occurring” or “primordial” radionuclides. They were created by large stars and then incorporated into the Earth and the solar system when they formed some 4.5 billion years ago. The waste inventory proposed by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories for the Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) includes over six tons each of thorium-232 and uranium-238……………………………………………………..

Hazards increase when uranium and thorium are mined and concentrated from ores and used in their pure form. Marie Curie, who spent much of her career isolating radium and polonium from uranium, died of radiation-induced leukemia at age 66. She was buried in a lead-lined tomb because her corpse emitted so much radiation.

When thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238 are irradiated in a reactor, as at Chalk River, they absorb neutrons and produce significant quantities of new, man-made, long-lived alpha-emitters. Irradiated uranium-238 absorbs a neutron and temporarily forms uranium-239. Uranium-239 transmutes to neptunium-239, which quickly transmutes to long-lived plutonium-239, with a half-life of 24,000 years.

Plutonium-239 is “fissile” – it can readily support a chain reaction. It is what the early Chalk River researchers produced for the manufacture of U.S. nuclear weapons, by separating the plutonium from irradiated reactor fuel. They also used the separated plutonium to make “mixed oxide” (MOX) reactor fuel, mixing it with fresh uranium………………………………………….

Detecting alpha emitters in mixed waste is expensive and challenging. Putting inadequately characterized waste in the NSDF would invalidate its safety case.

Unfortunately, the NSDF Project lacks adequate waste characterization procedures. If the project is allowed to proceed, workers and future Ottawa valley residents could be exposed to unknown quantities of long-lived alpha emitters and suffer the serious health effects associated with them. https://concernedcitizens.net/2024/09/17/the-challenge-of-long-lived-alpha-emitters-in-the-chalk-river-legacy-wastes/

September 19, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, radiation | Leave a comment

Federal Conflict Rules Would Have Barred New Brunswick, Ontario Cabinet Ministers from New Corporate Posts, Expert Says

The ENERGY MIX, Mitchell Beer September 12, 2024

Two former provincial cabinet ministers would have been barred by conflict of interest legislation from the senior positions they’ve taken with engineering services and nuclear energy giant AtkinsRéalis if they’d been in federal politics, an expert in government and corporate ethics has concluded.

Former New Brunswick natural resources minister Mike Holland and Ontario energy minister Todd Smith both left their positions over the summer and signed on with Montreal-based AtkinsRéalis within a couple of weeks of quitting politics. Holland resigned from cabinet in late June and was appointed as Atkins’ director of business development for North America in early July. Smith quit in mid-August and was hired as vice-president, marketing and business development for Atkins subsidiary Candu Energy two weeks later……………………………………………………

Holland’s and Smith’s career moves are permitted by New Brunswick’s and Ontario’s conflict of interest rules, respectively. Both provinces set 12-month bans on activities like direct lobbying after a former official leaves office, but do not bar other employment with a company that does business with the official’s former government.

……………………………………………… Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher said neither official would have been allowed to make the move if they’d been serving in the federal cabinet. And Smith would have been barred by Ontario rules if he had been working as minister’s staff, rather than as minister.

A Preceding Transaction

“At the federal level you wouldn’t be allowed to do what they did,” Conacher told The Energy Mix.

“There’s a preceding transaction, a negotiation they provided advice on. They were both quoted in AtkinsRéalis’ news release.”

That was a reference to an April 13, 2022 release in which Candu Energy and Saint John, New Brunswick-based Moltex Energy announced a “strategic partnership to advance the development and deployment of next-generation Small Modular Reactor (SMR) nuclear technology in Canada,” including a “first of a kind” installation in New Brunswick. In that release, Holland and Smith both showed up as early boosters for the partnership.

“New Brunswick welcomes investment in clean energy, especially as it builds on the province’s established core of expertise in nuclear technology,” Holland said. “This agreement contributes not only to the growth of long-term, high-quality jobs in New Brunswick’s energy sector; it also recognizes the leadership role of both Moltex and the province in advancing the next generation of nuclear technology.”

“I’m thrilled to welcome this new partnership between Moltex and SNC-Lavalin that builds our provincial energy industry, one renowned for its talented work force and strong nuclear supply chain,” Smith added. “This partnership enhances our clean energy advantage and reputation as a global hub for SMR expertise, making Ontario an even more attractive place to do business and create jobs.”

The release cited Candu Energy as a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin, the politically connected but often deeply troubled global firm that eventually rebranded as AtkinsRéalis in September, 2023. But not before it set up Candu Energy by acquiring key commercial nuclear contracts, intellectual property, and personnel from federally-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. in 2011.

‘You’re Never Allowed’

Neither Holland nor Smith would have been allowed to join AtkinsRéalis if they were bound by the federal Conflict of Interest Act, Conacher told The Mix.

“You’re never allowed to act on behalf of any person or organization connected with something you were involved with in government. It’s not 12 months. It’s never. You’re never allowed,” Conacher said.

“And then secondly, you’re not allowed to give advice to anyone using confidential information,” he added. That amounts to a blanket restriction because “they learn things every day that are not disclosed,” which means all the advice a former cabinet official gives is based on confidential information.

“How do you unknow what you know and then give advice pretending you don’t know what you know? It’s impossible.”

That concern doesn’t apply in New Brunswick or Ontario, and Conacher said New Brunswick’s conflict of interest rules are the weaker of the two. In mid-August, Holland was listed in the federal lobbying registry as an AtkinsRéalis senior officer whose lobbying activities represented more than 20% of his duties.

Other Ways to Be Useful

But direct lobbying isn’t the only way, or even the most useful way, a former cabinet minister can help out a new corporate employer.

If a provincial ban applies only to lobbying, “you just don’t make the representation,” Conacher explained. “You give strategic advice to the company’s lobbyists on who they should be talking to, who’s the real decision-maker in cabinet, and what you should be saying to make something go through smoothly or get some extra benefit, like a subsidy or a [deadline] extension without any penalty. And that’s why they’re hired—because they have that inside knowledge.”………………………… https://www.theenergymix.com/exclusive-federal-conflict-rules-would-have-barred-new-brunswick-ontario-cabinet-ministers-from-new-corporate-posts-expert-says-old/

September 15, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

‘Unacceptable’: Is this Ontario nuclear waste dump a risk to Quebec’s water supply?

The Bloc Québécois is calling for work to immediately stop on an already-approved nuclear waste facility at the Chalk River research site in eastern Ontario, arguing its current placement unnecessarily risks Quebecers’ water supply — a claim that the company behind the project denies.

Sept. 10, 2024, By Alex Ballingall, Ottawa Bureau, Toronto Star

OTTAWA — The Bloc Québécois is calling for work to immediately stop on an already-approved nuclear waste facility at the Chalk River research site in eastern Ontario, arguing its current placement unnecessarily risks Quebecers’ water supply — a claim the company behind the project denies.

Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet held a news conference on Parliament Hill Monday with First Nations from Ontario and Quebec who also oppose the project. Trumpeting his solidarity with the leaders, who claim the project’s approval early this year violated their rights as Indigenous Peoples, Blanchet said the waste facility is too close to the Ottawa River that separates Quebec from Ontario and flows into the St. Lawrence River.

Speaking in French, Blanchet described the plan as a way to take the “dangerous” waste from Ontario’s nuclear industry and place it in a spot that he claimed could put the water supply of Quebecers at risk.

“This is unacceptable to us,” Blanchet said. He added that the planned facility “should be placed elsewhere.”

Chief Lance Haymond of the Kebaowek First Nation, who attended the news conference with Blanchet, accused the company building the facility — Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, which is contracted to run the Chalk River facility by an arms-length federal Crown corporation — of dismissing his community’s concerns, which include worries about disruption to local bears and other wildlife.

Haymond said the company is presenting a “façade of reconciliation” over its failure to seek his nation’s consent for the project, which is on unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg near Deep River, Ont., almost 200 kilometres northwest of Ottawa.

The Kebaowek First Nation has also launched a legal process in Federal Court that seeks to overturn the January decision by Canada’s federal nuclear regulator to green-light the project.

“We will not stand by while our rights are trampled, our lands desecrated and our future put at risk,” Haymond said. ……………………………………………………………..

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved the project in January, more than eight years after Canadian Nuclear Laboratories first raised the idea.

A spokesperson for the commission declined to comment Monday, citing the Federal Court challenge………………………………………………………………………….

According to the safety commission, most of the waste slated for disposal there will come from the company’s existing Chalk River Laboratories operation at the site, with about 10 per cent coming from other sites, including commercial sources like hospitals and universities.

The waste site is planned as an “engineered containment mound” that covers 37 hectares, alongside other facilities like a wastewater treatment plant.

The project has been controversial for months, with several municipalities in the region and environmental groups stating their opposition alongside First Nations. Bloc MPs and Green Leader Elizabeth May have also denounced the project. https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/unacceptable-is-this-ontario-nuclear-waste-dump-a-risk-to-quebecs-water-supply/article_27adb27e-6ec2-11ef-985e-9345e7a9932d.html?source=newsletter&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=C574FBD817092BE3920DD70067C080F0&utm_campaign=frst_1906

September 13, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, wastes, water | Leave a comment

Bloc Québécois backs First Nation fighting nuclear waste site.

By Natasha Bulowski , Ottawa Insider, September 10th 2024

Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet is throwing his weight behind a First Nation fighting a nuclear waste disposal site near the Ottawa River.
Flanked by three BQ MPs — Sébastien Lemire, Mario Simard and Monique Pauzé — Blanchet reaffirmed the BQ’s support for Kebaowek First Nation’s sustained opposition to the radioactive waste disposal site, located about 190 kilometres northwest of Ottawa at Chalk River Laboratories.

Blanchet called on the federal government to immediately suspend the project. …………………………………………………………………………………..more https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/09/10/news/bloc-quebecois-radioactive-waste-facility

September 12, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, indigenous issues | Leave a comment

Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) in Canada

While civil society opposition to SMRs is broad and substantial in Canada, ultimately the exorbitant cost of SMRs will be their undoing. Conclusive analysis shows that SMRs cannot compete economically with wind, solar and storage systems.

SMRs will last as long as governments are willing to pour public funds into them, and SMRs will start to disappear after the money tap is turned off. Already the nuclear hype in Canada is turning back to big reactors.

WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor, August 29, 2024 | Issue #918, By Brennain Lloyd and Susan O’Donnell

Introduction: CANDUs versus SMRs

Canada developed the CANDU reactor, fueled with natural uranium mined in Canada and cooled and moderated with heavy water. All 19 operating power reactors in Canada – 18 in Ontario on the Great Lakes and one in New Brunswick on the Bay of Fundy – are CANDU designs with outputs ranging from about 500 to 900 MWe.

It’s been more than 30 years since the last CANDU was completed and connected to the grid in Canada. Attempts to build new ones were halted over high projected costs, and CANDU exports have dried up. To keep itself alive, in 2018 the nuclear industry launched a “roadmap” to develop smaller reactors and kick-start new nuclear export opportunities.

From 2020 to 2023, the Canadian government funded six so-called “Small Modular Nuclear Reactor” (SMR) designs. Only one – Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) design – is Canadian.

The six designs are not only unlike the CANDU but also different from each other. The fuels range from low-enriched uranium, TRISO particles and HALEU (High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium) to plutonium-based fuel, and the different cooling systems include high-temperature gas, molten salt, liquid sodium metal and heat pipes. One design – Moltex – requires a separate reprocessing unit to extract plutonium from used CANDU fuel to make fuel for its proposed SMR.

Only one of the grid-scale SMR designs seems plausible to be built – the GE Hitachi 300 MWe boiling water reactor (BWRX-300) being developed at the Darlington nuclear site on Lake Ontario. This design uses low-enriched uranium fuel and is cooled by ordinary water. The Darlington site owner, the public utility Ontario Power Generation (OPG), is planning to build four of them.

Canada gave OPG a $970 million “low-interest” loan to help develop the BWRX-300 design. The other five SMR designs received considerably less federal funding, from $7 million to $50.5 million each, and most SMR proponents have been struggling to source matching funds. One design, Westinghouse’s off-grid eVinci micro-reactor, had early development costs funded by the U.S. military and now seems to have independent funding.

The Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) at Chalk River received more than $1.2 billion in 2023. CNL is operated by a private-sector consortium with two U.S. companies involved in the nuclear weapons industry and the Canadian firm Atkins-Réalis (formerly SNC Lavalin) which is also involved in almost every SMR project in Canada. CNL and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited are building an “Advanced Nuclear Materials Research Centre” at Chalk River, one of the largest nuclear facilities ever built in Canada, that will conduct research on SMRs.

Canada recently released a report suggesting that SMRs will be in almost all provinces by 2035, although most provincial electrical utilities have expressed no interest, and only Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta are promoting SMRs. Alberta says it wants SMRs to reduce the GHG emissions generated in tar sands extraction.

SMR “project creep”

Proponents of most of the SMR designs keep changing the description of their projects. This is not unique to Canada, but is certainly apparent in Canada, and the regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), aids and abets that practise for those SMRs in the review stream.

In the case of the BWRX-300 proposed for the Darlington site, the CNSC not only accepted a 2009 environmental assessment for very different reactors as a stand-in for the BWRX-300 but also is carrying out the current review as if for a single reactor. The nuclear regulator made this decision despite Ontario Power Generation very publicly stating its intent to construct four reactors in rapid succession at the Darlington site.

The proposed “Micro Modular Reactor” (MMR) for the Chalk River site in Ontario is another example of “project creep” and demonstrates just how flexible “scope of project” is in the domain of the CNSC.

Earlier this year, CNSC staff released a document outlining communications from the MMR proponent, Global First Power, describing significant project changes. The proponent wants to triple power output, and to operate with fuel enrichment levels from 9.75% (LEU+) up to 19.75%.

Global First Power also wants a shift from no need to refuel in a 20-year operating life to provision for on-site refueling and defueling with periods varying from three to 13.5 years. They also want to double their facility design life from 20 years to 40 years.

Despite all these significant changes to key elements of the design, the CNSC staff concluded that the Global First Power MMR project remained within scope of its initial (very different) description.

Another example of SMR project creep is in New Brunswick. In June 2023, the provincial utility NB Power applied to the CNSC for a licence to clear a site for the ARC-100 design at the Point Lepreau nuclear site on the Bay of Fundy. The design for the sodium-cooled reactor requires HALEU fuel, which is scarce because of sanctions imposed on Russia, the sole supplier.

News reports have suggested the ARC-100 design might need to change because changing the fuel means changing the design. Meanwhile the ARC company CEO left suddenly, and staff received layoff notices. Despite these obvious problems, the application under CNSC review and a provincial environmental assessment underway with the CNSC are continuing with the original design.

SMRs complicate radioactive waste management

One of the (many) false promises floated about SMRs is that they will alleviate the significant challenges of managing radioactive wastes. This is patently false. Some of this misleading rhetoric stems from the notion of “recycling” and claims by some SMR promoters that their particular design of reactor will use high-level radioactive wastes as “fuel” for their reactor.

But the reality is that the introduction of so-called “next generation” designs of reactors in Canada will only complicate the already complex set of problems related to the caretaking of these extremely hazardous materials.

……………………………………………..The shift from natural uranium to enriched uranium in commercial power reactors in Canada will fundamentally change the nature and characteristics of the spent fuel waste and will take away one of the nuclear industry’s favourite pitch points for the CANDU design: that there is no potential for criticality after the fuel is removed from the reactor.

The new potential for the irradiated enriched fuel wastes to “go critical” is only one of the many problems being overlooked by both government and industry.

Another very obvious shift is in the dimensions of the fuel, from the relatively uniform dimensions of CANDU fuel to the widely divergent shapes and sizes of fuel being depicted for the various small modular reactor designs.

The CANDU fuel bundles are approximately 50 cm long and 10 cm in diameter. In contrast, the fuel waste dimensions are significantly different for SMRs. For example, the BWRX-300 fuel bundles are much larger, the casks much heavier, and the reactor will generate higher level activity wastes. These differences will require different approaches and designs for interim and long-term dry storage of used fuel.

SMR wastes not considered in Canada’s repository design

As a fleet, small modular reactors will generate more waste per energy unit than the larger conventional reactors that preceded them. But in Canada they will also require redesign of the “concept” plan currently being promoted for the long-term dispositioning of the used fuel to a deep geological repository (DGR).

Since 2002 an association of the nuclear power companies, operating as the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), have been pursuing a single site to bury and then abandon all of Canada’s high-level nuclear waste.

Their siting process, launched in 2010, caught the interest of 22 municipalities that allowed themselves to be studied for the “$16-24 billion national infrastructure project.” Hundreds of millions of dollars later – with tens of millions going directly into the coffers of the participating municipalities – the NWMO is now down to two candidate sites in Ontario.

The NWMO say they will make their final selection by the end of 2024. But even at this late date they have produced only “conceptual” descriptions of their repository project, including for key components such as the packaging plant where the fuel waste would be transferred into that final container, and the DGR itself. But all of the conceptual work is premised on the characteristics and dimensions of the CANDU fuel bundle.

The process lines of the used fuel packaging plant, the final container, and the spacing requirements for the repository will all need to be redone for different SMR wastes with their very different dimensions and characteristics.

While it could be said that the NWMO design progress has been surprisingly slow given their target of selecting a site this year and beginning the regulatory and licensing process next year, it will be back to square one if their proposed DGR is to accommodate SMR wastes.

There is, however, a strong possibility that the regulator, the CNSC, will allow the NWMO to skate through at least the first license phase with large information gaps, as the CNSC is doing with the plan to construct four BWRX-300s at the Darlington site.

As mentioned in the example of “project creep,” earlier this year the CNSC announced it would accept an environmental assessment approval of a generic 2009 reactor proposal instead of requiring that the BWRX-300 be subject to an impact assessment. This was despite the marked differences between the technologies assessed in 2009 and the BWRX-300 technology.

These differences will impact the management of the project’s radioactive waste. For example, the BWRX-300 public dose rates are estimated to be 10 x higher for one accident scenario (pool fire) and 54% higher in a dry storage container accident, the waste contains different proportions of radionuclides than the waste that was assessed in 2009, radio-iodine and carbon-14 emissions will be higher, alpha and beta-gamma activity per cubic metre of waste will be higher and the BWRX-300 will generate higher activity spent fuel.

Despite the NWMO having successfully wooed two small municipalities, there is broad opposition to the transportation, burial and abandonment of all of Canada’s high-level radioactive wastes in a single location, either in the headwaters of two major watersheds in northern Ontario or the rich farm lands of southwestern Ontario.

This opposition is amplified by concerns about SMR wastes and the NWMO’s open ticket to add other operations to their DGR site. Of particular concern are the potential for the NWMO to add an SMR to power their repository site or even to add a reprocessing plant at the site to extract plutonium from the used fuel. The Canadian government’s refusal to include an explicit ban on commercial reprocessing in the 2022 review of the national radioactive waste policy heightened the latter concern.

Who/what is behind the SMR push in Canada?

Although proponents claim that SMRs will contribute to climate action, critics are sceptical. It is doubtful that any SMR will be built in time to contribute to Canada’s target to decarbonize the electricity grid by 2035, and independent research found that SMRs will cost substantially more than alternative sources of grid energy.

The high cost and lengthy development timelines of SMRs, the questionable claims of climate action, as well as the significant challenges related to SMR wastes, raises an obvious question: who is pushing SMRs and why?

A central reason is a political imperative to keep the Canadian nuclear industry alive. The industry is small in Canada, but nuclear power looms large in the political imagination. Canada sees itself as a global leader in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Without a nuclear weapons industry, Canada needs nuclear exports to keep its domestic industry alive and ensure Canada’s membership in the international nuclear club. Earlier this year, Canada released an action plan to get nuclear projects built faster and ensure that “’nuclear energy remains a strategic asset to Canada now and into the future.”

Since the start of the nuclear age, Canada has spent a disproportionate amount of research funding on nuclear reactor development. Politicians see the CANDU design as a success, despite its costly legacy and lackluster exports. The CANDU reactors in Canada have all required significant public subsidies, and the CANDUs sold for export have been heavily subsidized by Canada as well.

Selling more CANDUs outside Canada is unlikely in the foreseeable future. But Canada wants a nuclear industry, and that requires choosing and aggressively marketing at least one nuclear reactor design. Despite being a U.S. design, the G.E. Hitachi BWRX-300 is the chosen favourite in Canada. The reactor, in early development at the Darlington site, is being promoted globally by Ontario Power Generation as part of an international collaboration with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Synthos Green Energy.

What’s the future for SMRs in Canada?

Since the nuclear industry and its government partner Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) launched their SMR roadmap in 2018, the political and business hype for SMRs has been intense. The SMR buzz is meant to attract private sector investment, but so far that strategy is failing.

Almost everyone understands now that SMRs, like the CANDUs, are expensive projects that will need continuous massive public subsidies. To date, taxpayers have provided just over $1.2 billion in direct subsidies to SMR proponents in Canada, not nearly as much as the industry will need to develop an SMR fleet in the country.

A broad coalition of groups – from climate activists to Indigenous organizations and other groups protecting lands and waters from radioactive waste – have been pushing back against public funding for SMRs. A 2020 statement signed by 130 groups called SMRs “dirty, dangerous distractions” from real climate action. In March this year, 130 groups in Canada also signed the international declaration against new nuclear energy development launched in Brussels at the Nuclear Summit organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The Bruce Nuclear Generating Station on Lake Huron in Ontario, with eight CANDU reactors, is already the largest operating nuclear plant in the world. Bruce Power recently began the formal process to develop four new big reactors at the site, to generate another 4,800 megawatts of electricity. It remains to be seen if the sticker shock for the proposed big nuclear reactors will, like it has for SMRs, scare off investors.

Although more than six years of SMR promotion in Canada has produced almost no private investor interest, the SMR buzz remains strong. The SMR star may be fading but the SMR story is far from over.

Brennain Lloyd is the coordinator of Northwatch in Ontario. Susan O’Donnell is the lead researcher for the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick and a spokesperson for CRED-NB. https://crednb.ca/small-modular-nuclear-reactors-smrs-in-canada/

September 6, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

That time when Canada cancelled its nuclear submarine order

The decision to cut the Australian community out altogether — except where we will be called upon to service the US military as it builds its base in WA — puts us in the relationship of a vassal state, existing only to do the bidding of our powerful friend.

By Julie Macken and Michael Walker, Aug 30, 2024, https://johnmenadue.com/that-time-when-canada-cancelled-its-nuclear-submarine-order/

Back in 1987, when no one knew that the Cold War was just about to end, the Canadian Government signed up to build 10 nuclear-powered submarines. That submarine program lasted for all of two years before being cancelled in 1989. No nuclear Canadian sub ever even began construction, let alone getting put in the water.

There is a very real sense of déjà vu when we look at the Canadian experience and the current Australian experience of AUKUS. The good news is that it is not too late to learn the lessons the Canadians learnt for us.

One of the reasons for the Canadian cancellation was the $8 billion price tag, or about $19 billion in today’s money. Two billion dollars per submarine now sounds like a bargain compared to the astronomical $45 billion per submarine under AUKUS. Canada decided it had other priorities where that money could be put to better use.

But before the contract was cancelled in Canada, the ministries involved in its construction became embroiled in conflict, the Government itself was in a cost-of-living-crisis with immediate, real-world needs pressing and the hasty and secretive choice of vessel design came under withering criticism from the Treasury department for poor procurement with the cost expected to blow out to $30 billion ($70 billion today). And finally, media support eroded, with 71% of the population opposed to the project.

Déjà vu much?

On 12 June, the US Congressional Research Document service produced a research and advice document called the Navy Virginia-Class Submarine Program and AUKUS Submarine (Pillar 1) Project: Background and Issues for Congress.

The document points out the AUKUS deal was a three-step process. The first was to establish a US-UK rotational submarine force in Western Australia. The second was that the US would sell us three or five Virginia nuclear powered submarines and the third would be that the UK assists us in building our own AUKUS class nuclear submarines.

But the Congressional report outlines when comparing the “potential benefits, costs, and risks” of the three stage plan, it might just be better for the US to operate more of its own boats out of WA. That is, “procuring up to eight additional Virginia-class SSNs that would be retained in US Navy service and operated out of Australia along with the US and UK SSNs”.

That’s right, why bother with the whole step two and three when the US is best served by simply operating its nuclear-powered attack submarines out of WA?

This is an extraordinary development and one that demands more attention than has been given previously because a number of issues flow from this kind of thinking.

First, this potentially frees up $400 billion that could be put to far better use on a national housing construction program or high-speed rail network running the entire east coast of Australia or other large and much-needed nation-building projects. But not so fast.

The US Congressional Research Document suggests that “those funds (the $400 billion) could be invested in other military capabilities”, such as long-range missiles and bombers, “so as to create an Australian capacity for performing non-SSN military missions for both Australia and the United States”.

The fact that the document only referenced the “potential benefits, costs, and risks” from the US perspective, without any attempt to imagine how Australia may view becoming a life support for a US submarine base, makes the nature of our relationship pretty clear.

Australia’s Government may not consider it necessary to have done its due diligence on AUKUS but the Americans are happy to do that for us and, you guessed it, even though they quietly have doubts about the SSN project, they’ve already thought of plenty of other ways to spend our money on their own defence objectives. Spending it on the well-being and prosperity of our own people didn’t even rate a mention.

September 1, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, Canada, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Inside the ‘suitably opaque’ response to a toxic sewage spill at Chalk River nuclear lab

Internal communications raise questions about transparency at nuclear organizations amid pollution incident

Brett Forester · CBC News ·Aug 20, 2024

When a nuclear research facility was directed to stop polluting the Ottawa River with toxic sewage earlier this year, at least one official seemed pleased with the non-transparency of the facility’s public messaging.

“This is suitably opaque,” wrote Jennifer Fry in an April 24 email to Jeremy Latta, director of communications and government reporting at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), a Crown corporation.

The two AECL officials were discussing a planned public communiqué from Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) to be released that day. AECL owns the Chalk River nuclear research campus near Deep River, Ont., about 150 kilometres upstream from Ottawa, but outsources site management to private sector corporate consortium CNL.

Chalk River’s sewage plant began failing toxicity tests on Feb. 21, meaning the treated wastewater, or effluent, was confirmed toxic to fish. (One hundred per cent of the rainbow trout directly subjected to the effluent died over a four-day period, records show. A death rate over 50 per cent fails the test.)

And so on April 23, after two months of this toxic water going into the Ottawa River, Environment Canada stepped in, prompting both CNL’s communiqué and AECL’s assessment of it.

“Reads fine to me, not major risks,” Latta had written, “and who knows if it gets traction.”

Those emails are among more than 100 pages of internal communications released by AECL under access-to-information law, which are raising questions about transparency around the pollution incident.

CBC News requested an interview with an AECL spokesperson to discuss the corporation’s handling of the incident based on a review of the records, and Latta agreed to speak last week.

Latta defended the response, maintaining there was no deliberate effort to hide information. He brushed off Fry’s comment as one person’s opinion………………………………………………………………………

“We have absolutely no confidence in the fact that, if there is a major incident, they will disclose it to us,” said Haymond, a vocal opponent of CNL’s plan to build a radioactive waste dump at Chalk River.

“It just really speaks to the challenge in the relationship where they profess to want to have better communications, and said they would make the effort. Time and time again, there’s incidents which demonstrate that that’s not happening.”…………………………………….

CNL ultimately didn’t answer many of CBC’s questions directly at the time, including one explicitly asking whether the effluent was going into the Ottawa River……………………….. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/chalk-river-sewage-foi-documents-1.7299822

August 24, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Nuclear power on the prairies is a green smokescreen.

By M. V. Ramana & Quinn Goranson, August 19th 2024, Canada’s National Observer https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/08/19/opinion/nuclear-power-prairies-green-smokescree

On April 2, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith declared on X (formerly Twitter) “we are encouraged and optimistic about the role small modular reactors (SMRs) can play” in the province’s plans to “achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.”

SMRs, for those who haven’t heard this buzzword, are theoretical nuclear reactor designs that aim to produce smaller amounts of electricity compared to the current reactor fleet in Canada. The dream of using small reactors to produce nuclear power dates back to the 1950s — and so has their record of failing commercially.

That optimism about SMRs will be costing taxpayers at least $600,000, which will fund the company, X-Energy’s research “into the possibility of integrating small modular reactors (SMRs) into Alberta’s electric grid.” This is on top of the $7 million offered by Alberta’s government in September 2023 to oil and gas producer Cenovus Energy to study how SMRs could be used in the oil sands.

Last August, Saskatchewan’s Crown Investments Corporation provided $479,000 to prepare local companies to take part in developing SMRs. Alberta and Saskatchewan also have a Memorandum of Understanding to “advance the development of nuclear power generation in support of both provinces’ need for affordable, reliable and sustainable electricity grids by 2050”.

What is odd about Alberta and Saskatchewan’s talk about carbon neutrality and sustainability is that, after Nunavut, these two provinces are most reliant on fossil fuels for their electricity; as of 2022, Alberta derived 81 per cent of its power from these sources; Saskatchewan was at 79 percent. In both provinces, emissions have increased more than 50 per cent above 1990 levels.

It would appear neither province is particularly interested in addressing climate change, but that is not surprising given their commitment to the fossil fuel industry. Globally, that industry has long obstructed transitioning to low-carbon energy sources, so as to continue profiting from their polluting activities.

Canadian companies have played their part too. Cenovus Energy, the beneficiary of the $7 million from Alberta, is among the four largest Canadian oil and gas companies that “demonstrate negative climate policy engagement,” and advocate for provincial government investment in offshore oil and gas development. It is also a part of the Pathways Alliance that academic scholars charge with greenwashing, in part because of its plans to use a problematic technology, carbon capture and storage, to achieve “net-zero emissions from oilsands operations by 2050.”

Carbon capture and storage is just one of the unproven technologies that the fossil fuel industry and its supporters use as part of their “climate pledges and green advertising.” Nuclear energy is another — especially when it involves new designs such as SMRs that have never been deployed in North America, or have failed commercially.

X-energy, the company that is to receive $600,000, is using a technology that has been tried out in Germany and the United States with no success. The last high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor built in the United States was shut down within a decade, producing, on average, only 15 per cent of what it could theoretically produce.

Even if one were to ignore these past failures, building nuclear reactors is slow and usually delayed. In Finland, construction of the Olkiluoto-3 reactor started in 2005, but it was first connected to the grid in 2022, a thirteen-year delay from the anticipated 2009.

Construction of Argentina’s CAREM small modular reactor started in February 2014 but it is not expected to start operating till at least the “end of 2027,” and most likely later. Both Finland and Argentina have established nuclear industries. Neither Alberta nor Saskatchewan possess any legislative capacity to regulate a nuclear industry.

What Alberta and Saskatchewan are indulging in through all these announcements and funding for small modular nuclear reactors is an obstructionist tactic to slow down the transition away from fossil fuels. Discussing nuclear technology shifts attention from present and projected GHG emissions, while enabling a ramp-up of fossil fuel reliance in the medium-term and delaying climate action into the long-term.

Floating the idea of adding futuristic SMR technology into the energy mix is one way to publicly appear to be committed to climate action, without doing anything tangible. Even if SMRs were to be deployed to supply energy in the tar sands, that does not address downstream emissions from burning the extracted fossil fuels.

Relying on new nuclear for emission reductions prevents phasing out fossil fuels at a pace necessary for the scientific consensus in favour of rapid and immediate decarbonization. An obstructionist focus on unproven technologies will not help.

Quinn Goranson is a recent graduate from the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs with a specialization in environment, resources and energy. Goranson has experience working in research for multiple renewable energy organizations, including the CEDAR project, in environmental policy in the public sector, and as an environmental policy consultant internationally.

M.V. Ramana is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He is the author of The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India (Penguin Books, 2012) and “Nuclear is not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change” (Verso Books, 2024).

August 21, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Black bears to be evicted for nuclear waste site

Matteo Cimellaro, Urban Indigenous Communities in Ottawa, August 13th 2024 https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/08/13/news/black-bear-habitat-nuclear-waste-Canadian-Nuclear-Laboratories?utm_source=National+Observer&utm_campaign=13ad847627-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_08_16_11_38&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-13ad847627-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D#:~:text=As%20many%20as%20eight%20black,facility%20near%20the%20Ottawa%20River.

As many as eight black bears are facing eviction from their homes by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, the company building a nuclear waste facility near the Ottawa River.

A letter sent to the Kebaowek First Nation and obtained by Canada’s National Observer says the company is taking action to block the bears from their dens. The letter was sent after representatives from the First Nation found evidence of at least three active bear dens during a tour of the area three weeks ago, Lance Haymond, chief of Kebaowek First Nation, said.

Evidence of those bear dens traces back to data collected for the Algonquin-led environmental assessment of the waste facility published in 2023.

The timing of CNL’s decision to evict the bears, with only a week’s notice, has left Kebaowek representatives wondering if the action over the bear dens is “retaliatory” after it challenged the decision to approve the site last month. It is also leaving Kebaowek “no choice” but to look towards a court injunction over the bear dens, Haymond said.

Canada’s National Observer contacted CNL to confirm the number of active dens in the region within and surrounding the waste facility’s pre-construction area, but did not hear back by time of publication.

The company plans to deter the bears from their dens using sensor-based noise emitting devices, as well as weighted plywood and tarps, the letter to Kebaowek states.

Land guardians from the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan, the only Algonquin First Nation within Ontario, will be present to monitor and observe the installation of the deterrents, according to the letter. Pikwakanagan and CNL have a long-term relationship agreement that provides funding for a guardian program to provide monitoring for the nuclear organization.

In an interview, Haymond criticized CNL for using Pikwakanagan to “justify” the construction of the waste facility and the environmental harms it poses. In particular, Haymond is concerned about black bear habitat and the precedent this poses for the eastern wolf. Last month, the wolf species, also known as the Algonquin wolf, was upgraded from a status of special concern to threatened species.

We should have been fully involved from the beginning,” Haymond said. Negotiations around Kebaowek involvement in monitoring is ongoing, but right now CNL is “just pushing us aside,” he added.

In the letter, CNL maintains the activities will not result in any irreparable harm to black bears. But Haymond is not buying it. The location of the forested slope is ideal for the dens given its natural protection from climate change events, according to the Algonquin-led assessment.

“If that’s the way they’re treating the black bear, can you imagine what they’re going to do or want to be doing with the eastern wolf?” Haymond asks.

It’s still unclear what regulations apply to the pre-construction activities. In Ontario, it is illegal to interfere with, damage or destroy black bear dens, but nuclear regulations fall under federal jurisdiction. Canada’s National Observer contacted Ontario and federal officials about jurisdiction, but did not hear back by time of publication.

Even before Kebaowek had heard about the bears, the First Nation filed a judicial review over the construction of the nuclear waste facility, citing it did not do enough to consult and consider Kebaowek’s inherent rights as Indigenous peoples.

“It’s just very presumptuous and ignorant of them to go ahead,” Haymond said. “They’re operating like they’re already going to win [the judicial review].”

Kebaowek has been actively campaigning against the Near Surface Disposal Facility, a nuclear waste site that was approved and licensed by Canada’s nuclear regulator last January. That led to the legal challenge, which brought the consortium before a judge last month.

The court action centres around the United Nations Declaration Act (UNDA), which enshrined the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into Canadian law. The declaration specifically references the need for free, prior and informed consent when hazardous waste will be stored in a nation’s territory.

The judge’s decision is not expected for another few months, Haymond told Canada’s National Observer.

— with files from Natasha Bulowski

Matteo Cimellaro / Canada’s National Observer / Local Journalism Initiative

August 19, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, environment | Leave a comment

NATO member gives Ukraine green light to use its weapons in Russia

Rt.com 16 Aug 24,

Kiev is free to use donated Leopard tanks and other combat vehicles during its incursion into Kursk Region, Canada has said

Ukraine has been given approval to use Canadian-donated tanks and armored vehicles on Russian soil, according to a statement by Canada’s Department of National Defense on Thursday. Kiev is currently waging a large-scale incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region.

Ottawa has donated to Kiev a total of eight German-made Leopard 2A4 tanks as well several dozen armored combat vehicles, hundreds of armored patrol vehicles, and several M-777 howitzers. Last month, the Canadian government also announced an additional $367 million military aid package for Kiev.

“Ukrainians know best how to defend their homeland, and we’re committed to supporting their capacity,” Canadian Defense Department spokesperson Andree-Anne Pulin told the media on Thursday…………………………………….

Russian officials have also repeatedly condemned the West for continuing to provide military support to Kiev, arguing that the Ukraine conflict is effectively a proxy war being waged by NATO against Russia, in which Ukrainians serve as ‘cannon fodder.’………………………….. more https://www.rt.com/russia/602685-ukraine-canada-wepons-russia/

August 18, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Rebranded SNC-Lavalin seeks as much as $75M in taxpayer dollars to build more powerful Candu nuclear reactors.

AtkinsRéalis wants to develop a new Candu reactor to sell around the world, but an industry insider says the company’s past could be a ‘big problem’ to getting funding

National Post Ryan Tumilty, Aug 15, 2024

OTTAWA – A company formerly at the centre of one of the biggest scandals of the Trudeau government is now looking for as much as $75 million in annual funding to update a nuclear reactor Canada has exported around the world.

AtkinsRéalis, formerly named SNC Lavalin, launched the Canadians for Candu campaign earlier this year. It’s a push to get both provincial governments and the federal government to back a new, more powerful Candu nuclear reactor that could be built both home and abroad.

The lobbying effort, started earlier this year, has recruited other engineering and construction firms, local unions and other groups to advocate for government support of the made in Canada reactor. The co-chairs of the campaign are former prime minister Jean Chrétien and Ontario premier Mike Harris.

Gary Rose, executive vice-president of nuclear, said the company wants Canadians to be aware of the potential.

“The campaign is really all about promoting Candu, the fact that Canada owns a world-class nuclear technology,” he said. “As provinces make decisions on which technologies that they wish to pursue, when it comes to large nuclear, we want that pursuance to be Candu technology because it’s a Canadian technology.”

AtkinsRéalis holds the license for Candu reactors which were first developed in the 1950’s by the Canadian government. All of Canada’s current nuclear reactors are Candu models ………….

In 2011, the Harper government sold the right to develop Candu reactors to what was then SNC-Lavalin for $15 million. The Crown corporation, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, retained the intellectual property of the reactors.

With the license in place, AtkinsRéalis has worked on large refurbishment projects and last year signed a deal to build two new reactors in Romania with the help of export financing from the Canadian government.

The proposed Romanian reactors are Candu-6 models capable of producing 700 megawatts of power, but to attract more business, including here in Canada, AtkinsRéalis is working on a new reactor, the Candu Monark, which would be capable of 1,000 megawatts…..

That’s where the company is seeking federal cash. Rose said they are currently spending $50 to $75 million a year on engineering to complete the Monark design and expect to do the same over the next three years. They would like the government to match that spending, potentially adding up to a $300 million bill for taxpayers.

He said ultimately the government will win out in the end.

“We’re asking for it to be an investment. We’re not asking for a handout,” he said. “The IP that we develop as Monark will stay owned by the Canadian government.”

Minister of Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson’s office said only that they were aware of the Canadians for Candu campaign when the National Post reached out.

…………………………….AtkinsRéalis has at least one specific project in mind for the Monark, the proposed expansion of the Bruce Nuclear plant in southern Ontario. That project announced last year aims to add up to 4,800 megawatts of power to the Bruce plant, which is already the largest nuclear installation in the world.

Ontario’s then Minister of Energy Todd Smith, said last year, the province would need a lot more power………………….

The proposed site C project is in its infancy and the company has only just started consultations with local communities and planning for what the project would look like. It has only started to look at what reactor technology it might use, but has said it intends to conduct an open process with a “technology neutral” approach.

Rose said the Monark design work could be done in the next four years and be ready to build at the end of this decade.

“The Monark is an evolution of existing Candu technology so we are not starting from scratch,” he said. Most of the components, over 85 per cent, of a Monark reactor would come from Canadian suppliers.

Aaron Johnson, a vice president with AECON construction who worked on nuclear refurbishment projects with AtkinsRéalis and is part of the Canadians for Candu campaign, said new reactors would be a big boost to the local economy.

“That’s already an existing supply base, and that’s something that would only be furthered upon in a Candu new build application,” he said………………………………….

AtkinsRéalis’ request for more government funding comes as the company is shedding the SNC-Lavalin brand that was tarnished in a scandal.

In 2019, the company pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to a $280 million fine for its actions in Libya between 2001 and 2011. In an agreed statement of facts at the time, the company admitted having paid nearly $48 million to the son of Libyan dictator Muammar Ghadafi to secure contracts.

Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet earlier that year after she came under pressure from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office to work out a deal with the company. The ethics commissioner ultimately found Trudeau had improperly pressured Wilson-Raybould.

Rose joined the company only last year and said he was assured he was making the right choice to come aboard because much more than the name of the company has changed.

“The entire management team, leadership team, programs that support it. I believe it’s a totally different company than it was,” he said.

Chris Keefer, president of the group Canadians for Nuclear Energy, acknowledges that AtkinsRéalis’ former name will be a political problem………………………..

Keefer’s group doesn’t receive funds from AtkinsRéalis and isn’t a member of Canadians for Candu, but he does believe the reactor should get government support. American company Westinghouse, which has the AP1000 reactor, received U.S. support for its design and Keefer argued it is not uncommon in the industry…………………………

At the COP 28 climate change conference last year, more than 20 countries including Canada, signed onto a pledge to triple nuclear power production by 2050.

Rose said he believes Candu reactors could easily be 10 per cent of the global market, but they need government support to do it.

“We’re building up front with the hopes of selling 25 in Canada, 75 to 100 globally, and having the federal government standing up and supporting us on that is really key.”https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/snc-lavalin-candu-nuclear-reactors?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=National%20Post%20-%20Posted%202024-08-15&utm_term=NP_HeadlineNews

August 17, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

The nuclear lobby wants new large nuclear reactors to be classed as “Small”

By magic, QUITE LARGE nuclear reactors are now SMALL.

And geewhiz – these new nuclear reactors no longer need much safety regulation

10 Aug 24, The Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA, the nuclear lobby) has written to all federal Members of Parliament in preparation for the 2025 budget. Their requests are in two sections: “investment tax credits” and “regulatory improvements.”

The investment tax credits allow companies to reduce their taxes owed if they spend money on nuclear development.

The CNA has numerous requirements , especially regarding SMRs

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) – the numerous requirements include:

*Adjusting the definition to include projects up to 1400 megawatts thermal, or roughly 470 megawatts electrical.

*The CNA wants nuclear regulations to be reduced, particularly for Impact Assessments.

Streamline the Impact Assessment (IA) process:

Narrow the scope to factors of federal interest and indigenous rights and Remove the requirements for a Detailed Project Description

******************************************

From the International Atomic Energy Agency. Small modular reactors (SMRs) are advanced nuclear reactors that have a power capacity of up to 300 MW(e) per unit, which is about one-third of the generating capacity of traditional nuclear power reactors. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-are-small-modular-reactors-smrs

From the International Atomic Energy Agency (For Small Modular Reactors) The main concepts underpinning the current safety approach — such as, for example, defence-in-depth, which assures prevention and mitigation of accidents at several engineering and procedural levels — are relevant for SMRs . A comprehensive safety assessment of all plant states — normal operation, anticipated operational occurrences and accident conditions — is required. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/technology-neutral-safety-and-licensing-of-smrs

August 11, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, safety | Leave a comment

Analysis of Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA) recommendations for Budget 2025

The lack of new nuclear projects in Canada reflects investor decisions, not excess regulation. No nuclear project has been assessed since the Act came into force nearly five years ago.

Ole Hendrickson , 10 August 24

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance announced its annual pre-budget consultations process on June 24, 2024. It invited the submission of written briefs no later than August 2, 2024. The committee will table a report on these consultations in the House of Commons, with recommendations to be considered by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in their development of Budget 2025. On July 30, 2024, the Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA) submitted its recommendations.

Part 1 – “Clean Economy” Investment Tax Credit (ITC) Programs

The CNA brief refers to four “Clean Economy” investment tax creditprograms from Budget 2024. Three were passed into law in June 2024.

Nuclear projects should not be eligible for investment tax credits. Nuclear power is not clean. It produces vast amounts of pollutants and waste, ranging from toxic mine tailings to irradiated fuel rods. Providing tax credits for nuclear power represents poor economic and environmental policy.

The only apparent reason for providing investment tax credits for nuclear power is that the Minister of Natural Resources Canada, whose department provides “engineering and scientific guidance” for the ITC programs, has a mandate to promote nuclear power under the Nuclear Energy Act.

1. Clean Technology ITC

Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) are the only nuclear power projects eligible for the 15% refundable tax credit under this program. The accepted definition of an SMR is a reactor that has a power capacity of up to 300 megawatts electrical per unit, or roughly 900 megawatts thermal.

The CNA wants to expand the definition of an SMR to include reactors up to 1400 megawatts thermal, or roughly 470 megawatts electrical.

There is considerable evidence that SMRs would produce far more expensive electricity than other generating facilities, including larger nuclear reactors. Does the CNA anticipate that the 300-megawatt BWRX-300 reactors that Ontario Power Generation plans to build at the Darlington nuclear site will not be cost-competitive without additional subsidies?

2. Clean Hydrogen ITC

This ITC program provides refundable tax credits ranging from 15-40% depending on the carbon intensity of the hydrogen produced. Widespread use of hydrogen as an energy source would require expensive new infrastructure investments. Using expensive nuclear power to produce hydrogen would further increase costs. The CNA wants hydrogen produced by using nuclear power to hydrolyze water to be considered as a qualified clean hydrogen project. The Government of Canada has not provided details on eligible projects under this ITC program.

3. Clean Technology Manufacturing ITC

This ITC program provides refundable tax credits for “clean technology manufacturing and processing.” The CNA wants to see explicit mention of the extraction and processing of uranium as a “critical mineral”, of the manufacturing of nuclear energy equipment and nuclear fuels, and of the manufacturing of “equipment for lifecycle handling of uranium fuel,” as being eligible for tax credits.

All the activities in the nuclear fuel “lifecycle” generate waste that is hazardous to human health and difficult to manage. The use of robotic equipment to handle the highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel waste is one of the most expensive parts of this “lifecycle”. A “clean economy” program should not subsidize waste management for a particular industry, particularly when that industry has delayed its decommissioning and waste management activities for decades.

4. Clean Electricity ITC

Under this ITC program, which has not yet passed into law, the CNA wants to “include all components enabling clean electricity assets to continue operating in refurbishment expenditures.”

Ontario Power Generation and Bruce Power have active reactor refurbishment programs. The Ontario provincial government already provides a $7.3 billion taxpayer subsidy to hold down electricity rates and shield industrial and household ratepayers from reactor refurbishment costs. A new federal subsidy for refurbishment of Ontario’s reactors would further hide nuclear costs, and would provide no apparent benefit to Canadian taxpayers in other provinces.

Part 2 – Policies that “enhance the regulatory framework to expedite project approvals”

The CNA is seeking to restrict the public’s ability to participate in assessments of nuclear projects. This builds on proposals from a Ministerial Working Group on Regulatory Efficiency for Clean Growth Projects, and a review of the Physical Activities Regulations (the “Project List”) by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. Policy matters that go beyond the Committee’s request for views on 2025 Budget priorities should be debated by appropriate Parliamentary committees.

1. Exempting nuclear projects from impact assessment

Based on a plan (Building Canada’s Clean Future) created by a Ministerial Working Group on Regulatory Efficiency for Clean Growth Projects, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada wishes to reduce the possibility that future nuclear projects will be assessed under the Impact Assessment Act. On July 30, 2024, the Agency released a Discussion paper on the review of the Physical Activities Regulations – the so-called “Project List” – with comments due September 27, 2024.

Proposals in the Agency’s discussion paper mirror those in the CNA’s submission to the Finance Committee, suggesting that the two may have been working together. The CNA wants to exempt nuclear reactors of any size that are built on “brownfield” sites (e.g., sites where coal- or gas-fired generating stations have been shut down), or on licensed nuclear sites, from assessment. At present, only reactors of up to 200 megawatts thermal on brownfield sites, or 900 megawatts thermal on licensed sites, are exempt. The CNA proposal would also limit technical assessments to “First of a Kind” reactors, with only site considerations for future reactors of a similar design.

The CNA also wants to exempt construction, expansion and decommissioning of uranium mines with an ore production capacity of up to 5,000 tons per day. This would double the current 2,500 tons/day exemption. And it wants to allow provincial assessments to replace federal assessments.

These are not constructive proposals. They would increase the likelihood that nuclear projects will generate conflicts and fail to gain social license. The Act improves the chances that a project will proceed by encouraging public participation in project planning stages, The ability of independent experts to examine technical details brings rigor to the assessment process.

The lack of new nuclear projects in Canada reflects investor decisions, not excess regulation. No nuclear project has been assessed since the Act came into force nearly five years ago.

2. Putting the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) in charge of impact assessment

If a nuclear project is captured by the Physical Activities Regulations under the Impact Assessment Act, under Section 44 of the Act the Minister of the Environment must create a review panel, set the panel’s terms of reference, appoint the chairperson and at least two other members of the panel, and ensure that they are unbiased and free from any conflict of interest relative to the project.

The Minister also has the power to designate a project for assessment, even if it is not captured by the Project List. The CNA wants to remove the Minister’s powers and give them to the CNSC.

An expert panel report, Building Common Ground: A New Vision for Impact Assessment in Canada, noted the long-standing perception of a lack of independence and neutrality of the CNSC because of its close relationship with the industry it regulates, and its promotion of projects it is tasked with regulating. The panel found that the CNSC has eroded confidence in the assessment process, leading to widespread use of the term “regulatory capture” to describe this body.

Taking away the Ministers’ powers and reassigning them to the CNSC would be a regressive step, leading to further loss of social license for nuclear projects, as has been the case with the proposed Near Surface Disposal Facility at the federally owned Chalk River Laboratories.

3. Amending the Species at Risk Act

Under section 79 of the Species at Risk Act, the proponent of a project must “notify the competent minister or ministers in writing of the project if it is likely to affect a listed wildlife species or its critical habitat.”

The CNA recommends that section 79 be modified “to align with the Supreme Court of Canada opinion, focusing on federal jurisdiction.” The Court, in its reference decision on the Impact Assessment Act, considered the Species at Risk Act and found that the protection of migratory birds, fish, fish habitat, and aquatic species should be included in the definition of adverse federal effect in the Impact Assessment Act. The Court did not discuss amending the Species at Risk Act.

The Species at Risk Act applies to all wild species found in Canada and has provisions to promote cooperation with other governments and jurisdictions. The CNA recommendation to amend the Act in the context of Budget 2025 would represent an inappropriate use of budget legislation.

August 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Canada’s future generations: affordable clean energy vs. legacy nuclear debt?

For the sake of today and tomorrow’s young, Canada needs to follow a ‘sustainable renewables path to net zero’ using all of our people and financial resources.

Our government must not saddle the generations to come with the debt for nuclear ‘white elephants’ when affordable, clean, renewable power can meet our needs now and theirs in future, writes Gail Wylie.

BY GAIL WYLIE | August 1, 2024, https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2024/08/01/canadas-future-generations-affordable-clean-energy-vs-legacy-nuclear-debt/429822/

Canadians concerned about climate change want Canada to meet its obligations to future generations by addressing climate change rapidly and responsibly. This requires us to implement current technologies for efficiency, renewable power, modern storage, and electrical grid options.

Instead, the federal government has placed inordinate bets on nuclear power expansion. This includes tens of millions of dollars in funding and loans for experimental small modular reactors, and $50-million in federal predevelopment funding to assess new generation opportunities for Bruce Power’s facility. Nuclear expansion, however, fails Canada’s decarbonization goals of speed and affordability, and takes limited resources away from lower cost, proven climate solutions.

On affordability, Ontario’s lowest cost decarbonized power sources are: efficiency 1.6 cents per kWh, solar plus storage 10 cents per kWh, onshore wind plus storage 10.5 cents per kWh and Quebec water power 5.2 cents per kWh. Nuclear falls among higher costs at 10.5 cents per kWh in 2024, rising to 13.7 cents projected with refurbishments for 2027, and future new nuclear reactors 24.4 cents per kWh.

Ontarians are still paying down the original $38.1-billion in debt and liabilities from Ontario Hydro in 1999 when its finances were over-extended during the period of expanded nuclear power facilities.

The lengthy approval and construction times and costs for new nuclear are a further caveat highlighted by the World Nuclear Industry Status Report. France renationalized Électricité de France in 2023 facing $70-billion in debt, including the Flamanville reactor at 19.1 billion euros and 17-year completion for 2024. The United Kindgom’s Hinkley Point C which began in 2018 is delayed to 2027 projecting costs of $44-billion. The first of two Vogtle U.S.A. reactors, going live in 2023, took 10 years at $35-billion in cost estimate for the pair. International banks have rebuffed plans by 22 countries at COP28 to “triple nuclear power by 2050,” indicating the lack of a business case for such investment.

The hope of faster, cheaper small modular reactors (SMRs) is fading as the lead developer, NuScale, lost its Utah Utilities investor as projections rose from $3-billion in 2015 to $9.3-billion in 2023. Two SMR designs in New Brunswick are also unlikely to be commercialized.

Future generations who will pay for the power capacity being built in this decade cannot afford these unnecessary financial risks and delays of expanding nuclear assets. The young urgently need affordable housing with energy prices ensuring ‘affordable to heat, cool, and cook-in housing.’

The federal government falsely claims “no path to net zero without nuclear.” The industry mantra of nuclear reliability over renewables “when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow” has been debunked by science-based modelling studies. The Suzuki Foundation’s report, Shifting Power: Zero-Emissions Electricity Across Canada by 2035, and Mark Jacobson’s work at Stanford University, A Solution to Global Warming: Air Pollution, and Energy Insecurity for Canada, both outline the mix of solutions for reliable, affordable, rapid decarbonization across this country by 2035 without new nuclear. The International Renewable Energy Agency’s 2024 analysis confirms that affordable, worldwide transition is attainable with renewables.

Shrinking battery costs for power storage (kWh in 2022 costing US$159 down as low as $59 currently) and modern electrical grid technologies facilitate renewables’ reliability as reflected in energy strategist Michael Barnard’s analysis. Outages at New Brunswick’s Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station during peak winter periods in 2021 and 2022/23, and its 2024 extended maintenance, reflect nuclear’s vulnerability.

Dealing with nuclear waste is the other elephant in the room with financial and environmental impacts for generations in perpetuity. Phasing out nuclear power—not expanding it—reduces future costs.

So why is Canada not on a renewables path to net zero? Are we too balkanized to co-operate, leading Ontario to expand gas and nuclear power after rejecting Quebec’s 2019 20-year offer of five cents per kWh hydro power?

Or is this the ‘siren song’ of the nuclear lobby, funded with ratepayers’ money, seducing governments with the caché of ‘top tier’ status in the international nuclear club? Nuclear-armed club members—U.K., France, the United States, and Russia—need civil nuclear as a ‘nuclear supply chain.’ Canada does not!

August 8, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

The pictures worth a thousand words

Canada and the Atom Bomb Exhibition

Canada’s little-known role in atomic bombings on display

By Anton Wagner, 4 Aug 24, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/08/04/the-pictures-worth-a-thousand-words/

The Hiroshima Nagasaki Day Coalition launched a “Canada and the Atom Bomb” photo exhibition inside Toronto City Hall on August 2. The exhibition of 100 photographs reveals the Canadian government’s participation in the American Manhattan Project that developed the atom bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

The exhibition can be viewed in its entirety online at the Toronto Metropolitan University website.

It documents how the Eldorado Mining and Refining Company extracted uranium ore at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories in the late 1930s and shipped the ore to its refinery in Port Hope, Ontario, for sale to the Americans.

Images by the Montreal photographer Robert Del Tredici focus on the Dene hunters and trappers at Great Bear Lake who were hired by Eldorado to carry the sacks of radioactive ore on their backs for loading onto barges that transported the ore to Port Hope. Many of them subsequently died of cancer.

Before his death in 1940, the Dene spiritual leader Louis Ayah had prophesied that such an illness would befall the Dene because of white men mining on Dene territory. Ayah also prophesied a nuclear holocaust that would end human civilization.

Prime Minister Mackenzie King hosted President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Quebec City in 1943 where they agreed to have Canada participate in the production of the atom bomb.

The exhibition highlights this participation by the Canadian government, scientists, industry, and nuclear research laboratories. Posters from the Hiroshima Peace Museum show the death and destruction in the two bombed cities. The exhibition includes five images by Yoshito Matsushige, the only photographer who took pictures in Hiroshima the day the atom bomb exploded overhead.

“Canada and the Atom Bomb” concludes with photographs showing the efforts by peace activists to persuade Toronto City Council to participate in the world-wide movement to abolish nuclear weapons. In 2017, City Council reaffirmed Toronto as a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone and called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to have Canada ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Setsuko Thurlow accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in Oslo, Norway, in December 2017. A Hiroshima survivor, Thurlow, now 92, attended the opening of the “Canada and the Atom Bomb” exhibition on August 2. She will also speak at the annual August 6 commemoration at the Toronto City Hall Peace Garden to urge that Canada sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Anton Wagner is with the Hiroshima Nagasaki Day Coalition.

August 6, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, culture and arts | Leave a comment

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