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Nuclear industry veterans warn some radioactive waste destined for Ontario disposal facility should not be accepted 

Observer, Natasha Bulowski  •   Feb 16, 2024  •

Approval of a nuclear waste disposal site near the Ottawa River hinged on a promise that only low-level radioactive waste would be accepted. But former nuclear industry employees and experts warn some waste slated for disposal contains unacceptably high levels of long-lived radioactive material. 

The “near-surface disposal facility” at Chalk River Laboratories (CRL) will store up to one million cubic metres of current and future low-level radioactive waste inside a shallow mound about one kilometre from the river, which provides drinking water to millions of people in the region. But former employees who spent decades working at the labs in waste management and analysis say previous waste-handling practices were inadequate, imprecise and not up to modern standards. Different levels of radioactive material were mixed together, making it unacceptable to bury in the mound. 

“Anything pre-2000 is anybody’s guess what the hell they have on their hands,” said Gregory Csullog, a retired waste inventory specialist and former longtime employee of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), the Crown corporation that ran the federal government’s nuclear facilities before the Harper government privatized it in 2015. 

 Csullog described the waste during this earlier time as an unidentifiable “mishmash” of intermediate- and low-level radioactivity because there were inadequate systems to properly label, characterize, store and track what was produced at Chalk River or shipped there from other labs. “Literally, there were no rules,” said Csullog, who was hired in 1982 to develop waste identification and tracking systems. 

International safety standards state low-level radioactive waste is suitable for disposal in various facilities, ranging from near the surface to 30 metres underground, depending primarily on how long it remains radioactive. High-level waste, like used fuel rods, must be buried hundreds to thousands of metres underground in stable rock formations and remain there, effectively forever. Intermediate-level waste is somewhere in the middle and should be buried tens to hundreds of metres underground, not in near-surface disposal facilities, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 

Radioactive waste is recognized by many health authorities as cancer-causing and its longevity makes disposal a thorny issue. Even short-lived radioactive waste typically takes hundreds of years to decay to extremely low levels and some radioactive isotopes like tritium found in the waste — a byproduct of nuclear reactors — are especially hard to remove from water. 

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) originally wanted its near-surface disposal facility to take intermediate- and low-level waste when it first proposed the project in 2016. Backlash was swift and concerned groups, including Deep River town council and multiple experts, argued it would transgress international standards to put intermediate-level waste in that type of facility. In 2017, CNL changed its proposal and promised to only accept low-level waste. The announcement quelled the Deep River town council’s concern, but some citizen groups, scientists, former employees and many Algonquin Nations aren’t buying it. 

CNL says its waste acceptance criteria will ensure all the waste will be low-level and comply with international and Canadian standards. Eighty seven per cent of the waste will be loose soil and debris from environmental remediation and decommissioned buildings. The other 13 per cent “will have sufficiently high radionuclide content to require use of packaging” in containers, drums or steel boxes in the disposal facility, according to CNL. 

However, project opponents note that between 2016 and 2019, about 90 per cent of the intermediate-level waste inventory at federal sites was reclassified as low-level, according to data from AECL and a statement from CNL. The timing of the reclassification raised the alarm for critics, who took it to mean intermediate-level waste was inappropriately categorized as low-level so it could be stored in the Chalk River disposal facility. CNL said the 2016 estimate was based on overly “conservative assumptions” and the waste was reclassified after some legacy waste was retrieved, examined and found to be low-level. 

The disposal facility will also accept waste generated over the next two decades and some shipments from hospitals and universities. 

The history of Chalk River Laboratories 

To fully understand the nuclear waste problem, you first have to know the history of Chalk River Lab’s operations and accidents,…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.pembrokeobserver.com/news/local-news/nuclear-industry-veterans-warn-some-radioactive-waste-destined-for-ontario-disposal-facility-should-not-be-accepted Natasha Bulowski is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter working out of Canada’s National Observer. LJI is funded by the Government of Canada. 

February 6, 2024 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

Radioactive waste beside Ottawa River will remain hazardous for thousands of years: Citizens’ groups

Toula Mazloum, CTV News Ottawa Digital Multi-Skilled Journalist, Feb. 5, 2024

Citizens’ groups from Ontario and Quebec have issued a warning saying that the radioactive waste destined for a planned nuclear waste disposal facility in Deep River, Ont., one kilometre from the Ottawa River, will remain hazardous for thousands of years.

The disposal project — a seven-storey radioactive mound known as the “Near Surface Disposal Facility” (NSDF) – was licensed by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) last month.

The CNSC said it determined the project is not likely to cause significant adverse effect, “provided that [Canadian Nuclear Laboratories] implements all proposed mitigation and follow-up monitoring measures, including continued engagement with Indigenous Nations and communities and environmental monitoring to verify the predictions of the environmental assessment.”

The groups sent a letter Sunday to the federal government, asking to stop all funding for the project and to look for alternate ways to dump the waste underground.

In the letter, the groups warned that waste destined for the mound is “heavily contaminated with very long-lived radioactive materials” that puts the public at risk of developing cancer, birth defects and genetic mutations.

“We believe Cabinet or Parliament has the power to reverse this decision and they need to do so as soon as possible,” said Lynn Jones of Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area.

“It’s clear that the only benefit from the NSDF would go to shareholders of the three multinational corporations involved, AtkinsRéalis (formerly SNC-Lavalin), Fluor and Jacobs. Everyone else would get only harm—a polluted Ottawa River, plummeting property values, increased health risks, never-ending costs to remediate the mess and a big black mark on Canada’s international reputation.”

One million tons of radioactive and other hazardous waste from eight decades of operations of the Chalk River Laboratories (CRL) will be held if the project is completed, according to the group.

The groups say that according to scientists and after a few hundred years, “the mound would leak during operation and break down due to erosion,” contaminating drinking water in the Ottawa River.

The controversial project has been concerning for many residents and organizations since 2016, including residents of Renfrew County and Area, the Old Fort William (Quebec) Cottagers’ Association, Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive and the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, the groups say.

“People need to wake up and realize the truth that this waste is full of deadly long-lived, man-made radioactive poisons such as plutonium that will be hazardous for many thousands of years,” said Johanna Echlin of the Old Fort William (Quebec) Cottagers’ Association.

Waste from CRL is classified as an “Intermediate-level” waste class, which means it must be kept tens of metres underground, says the International Atomic Energy Agency

“A former senior manager in charge of ‘legacy’ radioactive waste at Chalk River told the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission that, in reality, the waste proposed for emplacement in the NSDF is ‘intermediate level waste’ that requires a greater degree of containment and isolation than that provided by a near surface facility.’ He pointed out the mound would be hazardous and radioactive for many thousands of years, and that radiation doses from the facility will, in the future, exceed regulatory limits,” the groups noted.

Citizens’ groups want Canada to commit to building world class facilities not only for managing radioactive waste that would keep Canadians safe, but also for safely managing the waste for generations to come.

CTV News has reached out to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) for comments.

In a statement to CTV News Ottawa, the CNSC said it will ensure that CNL meets all legal and regulatory requirements as well as licence conditions, through regular inspections and evaluations.

“The purpose of the NSDF Project is to provide a permanent disposal solution for up to 1 million cubic metres of solid low-level radioactive waste, such as contaminated personal protective clothing and building materials,” the statement said. “The majority of the waste to be placed in the NSDF is currently in storage at the Chalk River Laboratories site or will be generated from environmental remediation, decommissioning, and operational activities at the Chalk River Laboratories site. Approximately 10% of the waste volume will come from other AECL-owned sites or from commercial sources such as Canadian hospitals and universities.”

CNSC says its Jan. 10 decision applies to the construction of the NSDF project only. 

“Authorization to operate the NSDF would be subject to a future Commission licensing hearing and decision, should CNL come forward with a licence application to do so. No waste may be placed in the NSDF during the construction phase of the project,” the regulator said.

The site for the NSDF is on the CRL property, 180 km northwest of Canada’s capital, on the Ottawa River directly across from the Province of Quebec.

February 6, 2024 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

History repeats — and radiation radiates

I look on with amazement after retiring from the university, at the same unproven scheme we had protested against in our college days, soon becoming a reality. We felt at that time a repository would ultimately host nuclear waste from around the world and I have no doubt this is what the future holds.

By: Dave Taylor,  https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/2024/02/05/history-repeats-and-radiation-radiates

This year, a community will consent to host Canada’s first nuclear waste repository.

It will be hewn out of the granite in a shaft 500 metres underground and it will aspire to keep containers full of deadly radioactive spent fuel rods separated from the water that runs through it. The owners of the waste were federally appointed to convince a local population it would be safe for generations to come.

A massive PR campaign with a substantial financial hook has focused on two regions in Ontario, one adjacent to Ignace and the other near the South Bruce Peninsula. Nuclear waste is problematic for the industry and without some panacea for the spent fuel problem, building new reactors or refurbishing older ones would be untenable. Canada, along with 20 other countries, are desperate for any solution as they have called for the tripling of nuclear energy by 2050, and Ontario is planning a multibillion-dollar refurbishment of its 50-year-old reactors.

My first encounter with this bold and untested mineshaft proposal was 40 years ago in Lac du Bonnet, Man., where my parents had a small tract of land. Nestled on 10 acres and surrounded by towering pines, the farmhouse sat on a foundation of granite, part of the Pre-Cambrian Shield. It overlooked the Pinawa channel, a manmade tributary of the Winnipeg River dynamited out of the rock in the early 1900s to power a hydroelectric dam. The fishing and wildlife were abundant; great grey owls, bear and timber wolves often passed through the property.

The toings and froings of vehicles with Ontario licence plates navigating our dead-end gravel road became cause for concern. We knew that the nuclear research site near the town of Pinawa had been quietly conducting experiments since the ’60s, but were not aware that it had teamed up with Ontario Hydro to build an Underground Research Laboratory just down our road.

As a college student, I had been taught to be skeptical of biased literature, so when literature was distributed preaching nuclear power or extinction, and referring to those against nuclear power as “Kremlin inspired,” it raised my hackles.

We knew that this excavation in the rock had the potential to be easily transformed into an operating repository. A loose coalition of university students and local residents formed the Concerned Citizens of Manitoba in hopes of countering what we referred to as “Outhouse Technology” — digging a hole, throwing in the waste and covering it up for eternity. A hard-rock miner who knew first hand the permeability of the rock, a former disillusioned member of the U.S. nuclear industry who with his wife bought a cabin downstream from the site and eventually published a book entitled Getting the Shaft, as well as several keen and creative environmentalists formed a loose affiliation.

We sought to examine any relevant documents, but soon ascertained that the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), had an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act and many of their files were classified. The secrecy surrounding the Manhattan project, so brilliantly captured in the movie Oppenheimer, persisted in thwarting our pursuit of the truth.

We decided our best strategy was to follow the lead of Greenpeace and to reach the public and media through street theatre. We had many questions about the long-term plans for the shaft that we wanted straight answers to, as well as scantily referenced leaks at the reactor in Pinawa.

Using elaborate props, we re-enacted rolling a risky dice down the steps of the legislature, placed an outhouse in front of government hearings, and even demonstrated how nuclear salesmen were getting their feet in the door using an actual door frame. These protests were made for the age of television and drew the attention of viewers.

We became so effective at calling out secrecy and untruths that a public relations employee at AECL launched a defamation slap suit, based on a private email which was surreptitiously published on a chat page.

Our most effective demonstration occurred as we attempted to inform communities on or near the border that shipments of nuclear waste could be transported down their highways.

Using a borrowed flatbed truck and a number of painted barrels clearly marked Simulation, we donned our knock-off radiation suits and headed to small towns in North Dakota. Upon returning, the cameras were waiting for us at the Emerson border stop. We had filled the barrels marked “radioactive” with water and punched holes in them so they appeared to be leaking.

Thinking the coverage was done, we returned home with water spilling onto the road in front of our house. Before long, the sound of fire engines and emergency vehicles echoed through the neighbourhood.

An off-duty fireman had failed to see the simulation sign and had called the fire department assuming a radioactive spill had occurred.

Needless to say there was great consternation among the editorial writers who felt we should pay for the false alarm, however the public uproar persuaded the provincial government to enact the Manitoba’s High-Level Radioactive Waste Act with fines of up to $1 million a day for disposing of nuclear waste in the province.

Under the guise of research, the labyrinth of tunnels through the granite did get built but it was short-lived. The Underground Research Laboratory was eventually backfilled after a decade of running pumps 24-7 to rid the so-called “impermeable” shaft of groundwater. The Manitoba law we had fought so hard for, excluded our province from being considered a candidate for a repository.

Water, however, knows no boundaries and Ignace is on the Lake Winnipeg watershed.

I look on with amazement after retiring from the university, at the same unproven scheme we had protested against in our college days, soon becoming a reality. We felt at that time a repository would ultimately host nuclear waste from around the world and I have no doubt this is what the future holds.

An elder who testified at the Seaborn hearings years ago related that the rock of the Canadian Shield was sacred, the grandfather of the Earth, and he warned, “Don’t put poison in your grandfather.”

Forty years later blasting the shield will start again and a community will soon be getting the shaft.

Dave Taylor writes from Winnipeg. You can see his blog of published works on the subject at manitobanuclea.wordpress.com.

February 6, 2024 Posted by | Canada, history, opposition to nuclear, PERSONAL STORIES | Leave a comment

Ontario counts nuclear power as “Green”.

Ontario to include nuclear power projects in its green bonds, JEFF GRAYQUEEN’S PARK REPORTER, TORONTO, 2 Feb 24

Ontario has rewritten the rules for its multibillion-dollar green bond program and will now for the first time be able to use the proceeds for nuclear-power projects, the latest in a series of pro-nuclear moves made by the Progressive Conservative government.

The Ontario Financing Authority, which issues the province’s bonds, unveiled a new framework on Thursday for green bonds, which Ontario offers when it borrows money to finance capital projects that advance environmental goals.

While the program previously funded a range of infrastructure, it specifically excluded nuclear power. The new framework now includes a provision for “the deployment of nuclear energy to generate electricity and/or heat.”…….

The province has just pledged several large, and costly, expansions of nuclear power as it seeks to expand its electricity grid to meet future demand. This week, it announced the refurbishment of four 40-year-old reactors at Ontario Power Generation’s aging Pickering power station east of Toronto. That project is expected to take more than a decade and cost billions, although the government released no total cost estimate and a feasibility study is not being released to the public……………

The change made on Thursday is not the first time a debt issuer has tested whether the global market for so-called green bonds is willing to embrace nuclear power. Privately held Bruce Power, which operates the province’s largest nuclear power plant, on the shores of Lake Huron, in Tiverton, Ont., issued what was billed as the world’s first nuclear green bond back in 2021, as it sought financing for a massive refurbishment project. Provincially owned Ontario Power Generation has also recently issued a nuclear green bond.

The federal government moved to include nuclear in its green bond program late last year, after objections from the nuclear industry when Ottawa initially failed to include the sector. The European Union has made similar changes, and is being challenged over them in court by the environmental group Greenpeace.

Ontario, which is among the largest sub-sovereign debt issuers in the world, has issued green bonds for a decade. It is the largest issuer of these bonds in Canadian dollars, outstripping the federal government and all other provinces combined, at $16.5-billion. It is expected to issue its first green bonds under the new regime before March 31………………….

Keith Stewart, a senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, said nuclear power should not be considered green enough for green bonds, the way renewable solar and wind power are. He noted that there is still no permanent solution for the radioactive waste it produces.

“If you are getting some kind of a bonus for being green, you should have really high standards for that,” he said.

February 4, 2024 Posted by | Canada, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Ford Government Issues Blank Cheque for Nuclear Power, Shows Reckless Disregard for Nuclear Waste Generation

North Bay – Today’s announcement to refurbish four reactors at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station is being heralded as a colossal failure in governance by groups concerned about the large volume of highly radioactive wastes that will be generated.

Rebuilding the four aging reactors to allow an additional 30 years of operation will cost the province’s ratepayers many billion dollars – the Minister refused to estimate the total cost – and will add to the growing stockpile of highly radioactive nuclear fuel waste and refurbishment wastes.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), a consortium of nuclear utilities led by Ontario Power Generation, has been working on a plan to construct a deep geological repository for Canada’s reactor fuel wastes for over twenty years, but is still at the “concept” stage and has yet to secure a site for the proposed used fuel processing facility and the underground complex of tunnels where the waste would be placed. 

There was not a single word of acknowledgement that this refurbishment will generate large volumes of high-level radioactive waste which will require care and containment into the far, far future. The Mayor of Pickering professed that his municipality is a willing host for the refurbishment project, but there is no willing host for the wastes it will generate,” commented Brennain Lloyd, a spokesperson with the northern Ontario based environmental coalition Northwatch.

The NWMO is currently investigating two “candidate” sites for its proposed deep geological repository project, one in northwestern Ontario between Ignace and Dryden, and one in southwestern Ontario in the municipality of South Bruce.


The NWMO has not produced a detailed plan for its DGR and key parts of the project are still at the “concept” stage, but the NWMO’s plans to date have been premised on the current fleet of reactors without the refurbishment of the four reactors at Pickering.

“Refurbishing four reactors at Pickering has a large impact on the NWMO’s plan, and should send the NWMO back to square 1 in terms of informing the potential host regions about the NWMO project and its timeline and impacts. It significantly adds to the length of operations and the radiological burden that will be imposed upon those along the transportation route and in the area of the proposed facilities”, Lloyd added.

Over the 30-year operating period an additional half-million radioactive fuel bundles would be added to the inventory the NWMO has been estimating to be 5.5 million. That additional volume would mean an additional 2,265 truckloads of highly radioactive waste and add more than 900 days of operation to the used fuel packaging plant, which is expected to release radionuclides into the local environment.

Since 2021 the NWMO has been projecting that the last shipments of waste would leave Pickering in 2050, but the refurbishment would mean radioactive waste would still require interim on-site storage until at least 2105, pushing it past the 2088 date for final receipt of waste at the NWMO’s DGR site.

Residents along the transportation routes and in the vicinity of the two sites being investigated are concerned about the low levels of radiation that will emanate from  each of  the 2-3 truck shipments per day, the risk of transportation accidents, the radioactive releases from the processing facility and by ventilating  air from the underground facility unfiltered to the surface, and releases from the underground repository to ground and surface water. The NWMO has acknowledged in its own reports that the used fuel containers will fail over time.

February 3, 2024 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) Disappointed in Province’s Decision on Pickering Nuclear Plant

Toronto (January 30, 2024) – https://cela.ca/media-release-cela-disappointed-in-provinces-decision-on-pickering-nuclear-plant/

Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) is disappointed in the decision released today by the Ontario Minister of Energy, directing Ontario Power Generation to proceed to seek a license to refurbish the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station.

CELA has participated for many years in licensing matters related to the Pickering site. In particular, CELA has undertaken in depth analysis of emergency planning readiness and has expressed very high concern for the protection of the surrounding communities in the event of a severe offsite nuclear accident.

“The population density around the Pickering plant is far too high for the continued operation of a nuclear power plant,” stated Theresa McClenaghan, Executive Director of CELA, “If such a proposal was brought forward today it would never pass the siting guidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency that Canada says it follows. Putting a major commercial nuclear power plant in the midst of a high population area is unconscionable.”

For example, it is unrealistic to imagine that successful alerting and evacuation could move people out of harm’s way in time if something went seriously wrong. The length of time required for evacuating the various areas are highly impacted by traffic, weather, and other events that might be occurring simultaneously. The potential for getting potassium iodide distributed on time to all the children in the affected area would also be very questionable.

While it is hoped that a severe nuclear accident will never again happen in Ontario, the reality is that unexpected and extremely damaging severe accidents can occur. For that reason, high population areas and operating commercial nuclear plants are incompatible.

The 10-kilometer zone around Pickering extends well into the City of Toronto. Durham Region and the City of Toronto are both large, growing urban areas. “The 50 kilometer ‘ingestion zone’ covers much of the GTA,” said McClenaghan. “Based on public safety, CELA strenuously urges the province of Ontario to reconsider and reverse its decision to seek to refurbish Pickering, and instead proceed with the original plan for a safe and permanent shut down and decommissioning process.”

February 3, 2024 Posted by | Canada, safety | Leave a comment

The Future of Pickering Nuclear Generating Station and Its Impacts on Ontario

News Networl Ledger ,By James Murray, January 30 2024

THUNDER BAY – POLITICS – The Ontario government has recently announced its support for Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) plan to refurbish the “B” units (units 5-8) of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. ………………………………………………… Energy Minister Todd Smith emphasized the role of this refurbishment in attracting global business, noting that it would help Ontario compete for significant investments……………………………………………………..

Concerns and Challenges

However, this announcement has also raised concerns. Groups like Northwatch have criticized the plan for its potential environmental impact, particularly regarding the generation of highly radioactive waste. Brennain Lloyd, a spokesperson for Northwatch, expressed concerns about the absence of a long-term plan for managing this waste.

“Rebuilding the four aging reactors to allow an additional 30 years of operation will cost the province’s ratepayers many billion dollars – the Minister refused to estimate the total cost – and will add to the growing stockpile of highly radioactive nuclear fuel waste and refurbishment wastes,” states Northwatch.

“The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), a consortium of nuclear utilities led by Ontario Power Generation, has been working on a plan to construct a deep geological repository for Canada’s reactor fuel wastes for over twenty years, but is still at the “concept” stage and has yet to secure a site for the proposed used fuel processing facility and the underground complex of tunnels where the waste would be placed”.

“There was not a single word of acknowledgement that this refurbishment will generate large volumes of high-level radioactive waste which will require care and containment into the far, far future. The Mayor of Pickering professed that his municipality is a willing host for the refurbishment project, but there is no willing host for the wastes it will generate,” commented Brennain Lloyd, a spokesperson with the northern Ontario based environmental coalition Northwatch.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is currently investigating potential sites for a deep geological repository to store Canada’s reactor fuel wastes. The additional waste from the refurbished Pickering reactors complicates this plan, potentially requiring a reassessment of the NWMO’s project and its impacts.

Residents along the transportation routes and near the proposed repository sites are worried about radiation exposure, transportation accidents, and environmental releases from the processing facility and underground storage.

Regulatory Oversight and Future Steps

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) will oversee the regulatory approval process for the refurbishment, ensuring a rigorous and transparent review. The project will only proceed if it aligns with the best interests of Ontario and its ratepayers.

…………….  The decision to move forward with this project will have long-lasting implications for the province, both in terms of its energy landscape and its environmental footprint.  https://www.netnewsledger.com/2024/01/30/the-future-of-pickering-nuclear-generating-station-and-its-impacts-on-ontario/

February 2, 2024 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Ontario to announce refurbishment of four reactors at Pickering Plant

MATTHEW MCCLEARN, JEFF GRAY, QUEEN’S PARK REPORTER, TORONTO, 30 Jan 24,  https://www-theglobeandmail-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/canada/article-ontario-pickering-nuclear-reactor/

Ontario is proceeding with a massive, multibillion-dollar refurbishment of four aging nuclear reactors at its Pickering power plant east of Toronto, according to two provincial government sources.

The decision will be formally unveiled by Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith at the facility in Pickering on Tuesday, a senior government source said. This would mark the government’s latest major move to preserve and expand the province’s reactor fleet.

Another government official said the province has approved a $2-billion budget for Ontario Power Generation, the plant’s owner, to complete the necessary engineering and design work and order crucial components, which can require years to manufacture. The Globe and Mail is not naming the sources, because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the decision.

No full cost estimate for the project has been revealed. Refurbishments under way at OPG’s Darlington nuclear plant in Clarington, and at Bruce Power’s station in Tiverton, have cost between $2-billion and more than $3-billion a reactor.

Mr. Smith’s announcement had been expected. In 2022, the province asked OPG to study the feasibility of refurbishing the four Pickering “B” units, which entered service in the mid-1980s and had previously been passed over for refurbishment 15 years ago. Mr. Smith received OPG’s report last summer, but his ministry rebuffed a request from this newspaper to release it underthe province’s freedom of information legislation.

The Pickering station, situated on the shore of Lake Ontario about 30 kilometres from downtown Toronto, generates about 15 per cent of Ontario’s power. It also includes the four 1970s-era Pickering “A” reactors, which are not currently being considered for refurbishment. Two have been dormant for decades after an aborted refurbishment, and the remaining two are scheduled to shut down permanently this year.

OPG’s current licence for Pickering B allows its reactors to operate only to the end of this year. OPG has applied to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which regulates the industry, for permission to operate them until late 2026. CNSC approval would also be required for a refurbishment.

Refurbishment involves replacing major components to extend reactors’ operating lives by 30 years, although the list of required upgrades varies from station to station. Subo Sinnathamby, OPG’s chief projects officer, told The Globe earlier this month that, if the project were approved, OPG would begin Pickering’s refurbishment in 2028, with the goal of returning its reactors to service by the mid-2030s. Previous refurbishments have unfolded over longer periods.

“It is a compressed timeline,” she acknowledged. But she added that this time OPG will benefit from the experience it and its contractors and suppliers gained during previous refurbishments.

January 31, 2024 Posted by | Canada, safety | Leave a comment

Tripling nuclear power: public relations fairy dust

January 2024,  https://preview.mailerlite.io/emails/webview/664455/111177290781558405

The federal government recently endorsed two similar nuclear fantasies.

This month, Natural Resources Canada published a statement endorsing a plan to work with other countries to “advance a global aspirational goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity from 2020 by 2050.” 
The global nuclear declaration attracted endorsements from only 22 countries. In contrast, the official COP28 pledge to triple renewable energy by 2030 was signed by 123 countries and adopted by consensus as the official COP declaration.Earlier, in 2023, the Canadian energy regulator projected a tripling of Canadian nuclear generation capacity by 2050.

Why is Canada engaged in a nuclear fantasy?

Nuclear power plants operate in only two provinces. About 60% of Ontario’s electricity is produced by 18 nuclear power reactors. New Brunswick’s one power reactor produces about 19% of the electricity used in that province, when it’s not shut down. The federal energy regulator models envision tripling nuclear capacity by building small modular nuclear reactors in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is promising that its SMR design will be the first in the world to be deployed commercially starting in 2030, although the design has not yet been licenced to build in Canada or anywhere else.

Assuming that this unit is chosen for widespread deployment in Canada, nearly 90 would need to be built and operating effectively on the grid between 2030 and 2050 to achieve the proposed tripling. Given the known construction time overruns for nuclear power plants, this is impossible.

Environment and Climate Change Canada published the official COP28 statement that does not mention nuclear energy. Instead, it highlights “groundbreaking goals to triple renewable energy, double energy efficiency, and, for the first time ever… a historic consensus to move away from fossil fuels in energy systems.”

Tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency by 2030 is sensible and doable, as long as the requisite political will is present. It is past time to get real about the energy generation technologies we need to be supporting.

January 27, 2024 Posted by | Canada, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Ontario is about to decide whether to overhaul Canada’s oldest nuclear power plant. Does it deserve a second life?

All of these are Candu reactors – Canada’s homegrown reactor design. They deteriorate with age. Inside their cores, pressure tubes (which contain the uranium fuel) grow longer, thinner and weaker. They begin to sag and corrode, increasing the risk of ruptures. Feeder pipes, which supply water to the pressure tubes, also corrode and thin.

Globe and Mail,   MATTHEW MCCLEARN, 21 Jan 24

The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station’s dull, mottled-grey concrete domes testify to its more than half a century of faithful service. Lately, its six operating reactors have produced enough electricity to supply 1.5 million people, about one-tenth of Ontario’s total population.

In the coming weeks, Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith is expected to reveal whether the province will extend the plant’s life. A study last summer from Ontario Power Generation, the station’s owner, examined the feasibility of refurbishing Pickering’s four “B” reactors, commissioned between 1983 and 1986. OPG has said there’s no technical reason the work can’t proceed. If approved, it would begin in 2028, with the aim of returning the reactors to service in the mid-2030s.

The real question is whether it’s worth it.

A firm cost estimate for extending the reactors’ lifespan has not been finalized. Refurbishments under way at OPG’s Darlington nuclear plant in Clarington and Bruce Power’s station in Tiverton have cost between $2-billion and more than $3-billion per reactor. The reactors at Pickering, Canada’s oldest nuclear plant, could cost even more, though their output is relatively small by modern standards.

Ontario’s government has said little about how it is weighing this decision, and it’s unclear what other options, if any, the province is considering. OPG has said its feasibility study would compare the refurbishment’s economic viability to “potential alternatives,” but the finished report has not been released publicly.

The Globe and Mail made a freedom of information request for a copy of the study. But Sean Keelor, chief administrative officer at Ontario’s Ministry of Energy, withheld the document in its entirety. He cited exemptions within the province’s Freedom of Information Act for “advice to government” and for information that could damage the “economic or other interests of Ontario.”

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which regulates the industry, allows utilitiesto perform upgrades thateffectively double reactors’ lives, as long as “all practicable safety improvements to bring the facility up to modern standards” have been identified. Upgrading Pickering would be no small undertaking.

“They are very old reactors, and the equipment is out of date,” said Ibrahim Attieh, a reactor physicist who worked on Candu designs. “It’s going to be a lot more costly to retrofit new equipment in.”

The Pickering station, situated on the shore of Lake Ontario about 30 kilometres east of downtown Toronto, also includes the four 1970s-era Pickering “A” reactors, which are not under consideration for refurbishment.

Two have been dormant for decades after an aborted refurbishment, and the remaining two are scheduled to shut down permanently this year.

All of these are Candu reactors – Canada’s homegrown reactor design. They deteriorate with age. Inside their cores, pressure tubes (which contain the uranium fuel) grow longer, thinner and weaker. They begin to sag and corrode, increasing the risk of ruptures. Feeder pipes, which supply water to the pressure tubes, also corrode and thin.

Candus were originally expected to operate for about 30 years. The industry has said decisions on whether to refurbish should be made after a quarter century – a milestone Pickering B has already passed.

All refurbishments involve sending workers into a reactor’s radioactive core, to replace major components such as pressure tubes and feeder pipes. But the scope of work varies considerably, depending on the age, design and condition of components, as well as other factors. A utility might also improve other infrastructure at a nuclear plant, such as turbines and control room equipment.

Subo Sinnathamby, OPG’s chief projects officer, said that among the components that would need to be replaced at Pickering B are the steam generators, which use heat produced inside the core to boil water, creating steam that drives turbine blades.

Ms. Sinnathamby said these components are too large to be removed through the reactor’s airlocks.

“We will have to cut a hole in the dome to remove it,” she said.

Pickering B’s control room is straight out of the Cold War and would also require modernization.

Continue reading →

January 22, 2024 Posted by | Canada, safety | Leave a comment

Big costs sink flagship nuclear project and they’ll sink future small modular reactor projects too. 

 By Susan O’Donnell and M.V. Ramana, 024,  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/01/21/big-costs-sink-flagship-nuclear-project/

The major news in the world of nuclear energy last November was the collapse of the Carbon Free Power Project in the United States. The project was to build six NuScale small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). Given NuScale’s status as the flagship SMR design not just in the U.S. but even globally, the project’s cancellation should ring alarm bells in Canada. Yet SMRs are touted as a climate action strategy although it is becoming clearer by the day that they will delay a possible transition to net-zero energy and render it more expensive.

The NuScale project failed because there were not enough customers for its expensive electricity. Construction cost estimates for the project had been steadily rising—from USD 4.2 billion for 600 megawatts in 2018 to a staggering USD 9.3 billion (CAD 12.8 billion) for 462 megawatts. Using a combination of government subsidies, potentially up to USD 4.2 billion, and  an opaque calculation method, NuScale claimed that it would produce electricity at USD 89 per megawatt-hour. When standard U.S. government subsidies are included, electricity from wind and solar energy projects, including battery storage, could be as cheap as USD 12 to USD 31 per megawatt-hour.

A precursor to the failed NuScale project was mPower, which also received massive funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. Described by The New York Times as the leader in the SMR race, mPower could not find investors or customers. By 2017, the project was essentially dead. Likewise, a small reactor in South Korea proved to be “not practical or economic”.

Ignoring this dire economic reality, provincial governments planning for SMRs – Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Alberta – published a “strategic plan” seemingly designed to convince the federal government to open its funding floodgates. Offering no evidence about the costs of these technologies, the report asserts: “The power companies assessed that SMRs have the potential to be an economically competitive source of energy.”

For its part, the federal government has coughed up grants totalling more than $175 million to five different SMR projects in Ontario, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan. The Canada Infrastructure Bank loaned $970 million to Ontario Power Generation to develop its Darlington New Nuclear project. And the Canada Energy Regulator’s 2023 Canada’s Energy Future report envisioned a big expansion of nuclear energy based on wishful thinking and unrealistic assumptions about SMRs.

Canada’s support is puzzling when considering other official statements about nuclear energy. In 2021, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said that nuclear power must compete with renewable energy in the market. The previous year, then Environment Minister and current Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson also emphasized competition with other sources of energy, concluding “the winner will be the one that can provide electrical energy at the lowest cost.” Given the evidence about high costs, nuclear power cannot compete with renewable energy, let alone provide electricity at the lowest cost.

Investing huge amounts of taxpayer money in technologies that are uncompetitive is bad enough, but an equally serious problem is wasting time. The primary justification for this government largesse is dealing with climate change. But the urgency of that crisis requires action now, not in two decades.

All the SMR designs planned in Canada’s provinces are still on the drawing board. The design furthest along in the regulatory process – the BWRX-300 slated for Ontario’s Darlington site – does not yet have a licence to begin construction. New Brunswick’s choices – a sodium cooled fast reactor and a molten salt reactor – are demonstrably problematic and will take longer to build.

Recently built nuclear plants have taken, on average, 9.8 years from start of construction to producing electricity. The requisite planning, regulatory evaluations of new designs, raising the necessary finances, and finding customers who want to pay higher electricity bills might add another decade.

SMR vendors have to raise not only the billions needed to build the reactor but also the funding to complete their designs. NuScale spent around USD 1.8 billion (CAD 2.5 billion), and the reactor was still left with many unresolved safety problems. ARC-100 and Moltex proponents in New Brunswick have each asked for at least $500 million to further develop their designs. Moltex has been unable to obtain the required funding to match the $50.5 million federal grant it received in 2021.

Adverse economics killed the flagship NuScale SMR project. There is no reason to believe the costs of SMR designs proposed in Canada will be any lower. Are government officials attentive enough to hear the clanging alarm bells?

Susan O’Donnell is adjunct research professor and primary investigator of the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. M.V. Ramana is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia.

January 22, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Canada, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | 1 Comment

Chalk River, or low-level nuclear governance.

Monique Pauzé, The author is a Bloc Québécois MP (Repentigny) and Environment critic., January 18, 2024

A few days ago, after several “rounds of work and consultation” that began in 2016, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) ruled in favor of the Chalk River Near Surface Waste Management Facility (NSWMF) project. Opposition to this open-air radioactive dump is undeniable: a multitude of aboriginal communities, citizen groups, scientists and over a hundred cities and municipalities spread around the Ottawa River, including Ottawa, Montreal and Gatineau.

To contextualize the issues surrounding this project, and to grasp the extent to which the authorization given is highly reprehensible, if not absurd, I believe it is pertinent to address it in the light of a study by the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment, specifically on Canada’s governance of radioactive waste. Held in 2022 and concluding with a report submitted to federal elected officials, the study is absolutely relevant today.

To begin with, we remind you that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made suggestions and recommendations to the CNSC in 2019, during the peer review conducted by the Integrated Regulatory Review Service mission.  As a result, we had confirmation, despite the government’s expressed pride, that Canada was not beyond reproach in this area, and this justified the attention of federal elected officials.

Many decried it: the essential principle of keeping radioactive waste away from sources of drinking water is not respected, and in many respects the project is at odds with the recommendations and guidelines of the IAEA, as well as with the five principles agreed and adopted by the leaders of 133 First Nations in Ontario.

There is an absence of consideration for the possible hazards associated with the project’s location and underground, hazards that attract less attention than the risks of contamination of watercourses, tributaries of the river, from which potentially millions of people draw their drinking water.

Legitimate opposition

In addition, Chalk River is located at the junction of geological fractures and in the western Quebec earthquake zone, a seismic belt that spans the Ottawa Valley, the Laurentians and parts of eastern Ontario. The volume of various radioactive wastes that will be buried in the open pit is substantial. Witnesses and experts have raised the issue of the lack of clarity in identifying the substances that will be introduced into the mound.

Opposition to the project is absolutely legitimate.

Several witnesses to this study accurately addressed the physical characteristics of Canadian radioactive waste, highlighting the redefinition of what constitutes intermediate-level radioactive waste, hidden in a CNSC “proof regulation” adopted in June 2020. William Turner, retired from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and a resident of Deep River, provided the committee with a detailed fact sheet on this issue.

Gilles Provost, a science journalist and witness to the study, wrote in Le Devoir on June 13 of the same year: “[…] we come up against a scientific absurdity: in physics, the activity of a radioactive product is its decay rate. The faster it decays, the higher its activity. This means that a radioactive product with [higher] activity according to physics would now be low-level waste according to the new definition decreed by the CNSC!”

This new definition has concrete effects, since the Chalk River SRWMF is designed to receive only low-level waste. The result? Waste considered to be medium-level by physical science will end up in the mound, since it is now considered to be low-level.

For the Aboriginal communities of Kebaowek and Kitigan Zibi, the process chosen by the CNSC constitutes a failure in its duty to consult properly.

In addition to the disturbing comments made or sent by their representatives during the parliamentary committee study in 2022 about the “coercive” nature of the consultative approach, the aboriginal communities are rightly relying on Article 29.2 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states that no decision on nuclear waste storage, small modular reactors, transport or decommissioning can be taken without free, prior and informed consent.

“[…] We could explain it to you, but you wouldn’t understand it anyway. We’ll give you all the information and you won’t understand it.” This excerpt from the testimony of Reg Niganobe, Chief of the Grand Council of the Anishinabe Nation and a witness to the 2022 study, is shocking: when a representative of the sector expresses himself in this way, I think the climate they want to create is incredibly unhealthy and contemptuous. Non-native groups have also been subjected to this type of “approach” in similar processes. Their submissions to the committee study attest to this.

If there is indeed a political will to consider the communities most directly affected by these issues, then they must be given the consideration they deserve.

Reconciliation? Participatory consultations? Transparent processes and compliance with IAEA standards? The CNSC reports to Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, and the mobilization against Chalk River will continue. The federal government had better change its mind… It has the authority to do so.

https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/805514/environnement-chalk-river-ou-gouvernance-nucleaire-bas-niveau

January 21, 2024 Posted by | Canada, wastes | Leave a comment

$25 billion for refurbishment of Darlingon and Bruce reactors

Two Canadian nuclear refurbishment projects are in the top five of the largest public sector infrastructure projects currently under development in Canada, according to a newly published annual ranking. The annual Top100 Projects report, published by ReNew Canada magazine, features the 100 largest public sector infrastructure projects currently under development in the country ranked based on their confirmed project cost. Bruce Power’s refurbishment project is in third place with a project cost of CAD13 billion (USD9.7 billion), with Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington nuclear refurbishment in fourth place, at a cost of CAD12.8 billion.

Source: World Nuclear News, 15 January 2024

January 16, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Canada | Leave a comment

Commission decision a ‘gut-punch’, so years-long battle over radioactive waste mound will continue

“You cannot sit there and tell me that over the next 550 years nothing is going to leach out of this mound and get in and make its way into the surrounding environment and waterways.” —Kebaowek First Nation Councillor Justin Roy

By Shari Narine
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Windspeaker.com   12 Jan 24

Kebaowek First Nation is considering legal action now that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has given the go ahead to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) to construct a Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) for solid low-level radioactive waste at its Chalk River Laboratories site on traditional unceded Algonquin territory.

“The big thing being discussed right now is pushing for a judicial review of the project. Just based on all of our environmental findings and the impacts that could be shown, we strongly believe we’d have a good case for this,” said Kebaowek First Nation Councillor Justin Roy.

Next steps will be decided once the legal team has fully reviewed the 169-page decision from the commission, which was released Jan. 9, he says.

The commission ruled it was confident that the NSDF project, an engineered containment mound for up to a million tonnes of radioactive and hazardous waste, was “not likely to cause significant adverse effects with respect to Aboriginal peoples.”

The containment mound is to be located 1.1 km from the Ottawa River on a bedrock ridge. The Kichi Sibi (Ottawa River) is sacred to the Algonquin people. The Chalk River site is also close to the sacred Algonquin sites of Oiseau Rock and Baptism Point.

The commission concluded “the design of the NSDF project is robust, supported by a strong safety case, able to meet its required design life, and sufficient to withstand severe weather events, seismic activity, and the effects of climate change.”

Roy calls the decision a “gut punch” but admits he is not surprised.


What does surprise him, however, is that the decision states that CNL adequately undertook a duty to consult with First Nations.

“I find that hard to believe when you have 10 of 11 Algonquin communities in direct opposition to the project. After everything that we’ve done over the last number of years and everything that we presented at last year’s hearing and then even in the hearing this last August, we’re just falling on deaf ears once again,” said Roy.

On June 9, the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan signed a long-term relationship agreement with CNL and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, another nuclear organization. The agreement establishes a working group with representatives from all three parties.

The commission held that the disposal facility was also “not likely to cause significant adverse effects” when it came to fish and fish habitat, aquatic species at risk, migratory birds, or federal lands.

“We have inherent rights to our unceded Algonquin territory and that means we need to protect everything that encompasses that territory, from the environment, the trees, the land, the air, the water and all the living species that make up our Algonquin territory,” said Roy.


Algonquin people are on the ground, he said, hunting, fishing and picking berries and “were able to show that there are going to be plenty of environmental impacts and, especially, species at risk that are going to be affected by this.”………………………………………………………………  https://windspeaker.com/news/windspeaker-news/commission-decision-gut-punch-so-years-long-battle-over-radioactive-waste

January 14, 2024 Posted by | Canada, indigenous issues, wastes | Leave a comment

‘PR Fairy Dust’ Has Canada Tripling Nuclear Capacity by 2050.

So far, federal and provincial taxpayers have been footing the bill for Small Nuclear Reactor development in Canada, with little private sector investment—meaning the investor scrutiny and cost controls that torpedoed the NuScale project are muted at best.

Would Canadian taxpayers be OK with continuing to shell out up to a trillion dollars for a technology with no proven track record of producing reliable, affordable electricity?

So far, federal and provincial taxpayers have been footing the bill for SMR development in Canada, with little private sector investment—meaning the investor scrutiny and cost controls that torpedoed the NuScale project are muted at best. Would Canadian taxpayers be OK with continuing to shell out up to a trillion dollars for a technology with no proven track record of producing reliable, affordable electricity?

January 8, 2024, Susan O’Donnell and M.V. Ramana, https://www.theenergymix.com/odonnell-and-ramana-pr-fairy-dust-has-canada-tripling-nuclear-capacity-by-2050/

Near the end of 2023, the government published its second nuclear fantasy of the year. The December statement declares that Canada will work with other countries to “advance a global aspirational goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity from 2020 by 2050.”

In a sprinkling of public relations fairy dust, the declaration is labeled “COP28”, although written well before the two-week climate summit in Dubai. The nuclear declaration managed to attract only 25 endorsing countries, in contrast to the official COP28 pledge to triple renewable energy and energy efficiency by 2030, signed by 123 countries and eventually adopted by consensus in the final COP declaration.

The currently operating power generating capacity of all nuclear plants in the world is 365 gigawatts. Tripling that total by 2050, in the next 26 years, will mean reaching close to 1,100 gigawatts. Looking back 26 years, the power capacity of the global nuclear fleet has grown an average of 0.8 gigawatts each year. At that rate, nuclear capacity in 2050 will be a mere 386 gigawatts.

And tripling today’s nuclear capacity would require the industry to overcome the significant setbacks and delays in new reactor construction that have plagued it forever with no solution in sight, while building an additional large number of reactors to replace old ones shut down over the same period.

Earlier last year, the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) published the country’s previous nuclear fantasy document, with scenarios that also projected roughly a tripling of nuclear generation capacity by 2050. Canada’s six nuclear plants currently produce about 13 gigawatts of power; a tripling would bring that to 39 GW. The CER report envisions this new nuclear capacity coming from so-called small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).

Only two public utilities in Canada are proposing to build SMRs: NB Power in New Brunswick, and Ontario Power Generation (OPG). The most authoritative report to date on SMRs, from the U.S. National Academies, found that the designs planned for New Brunswick—a molten salt reactor and a sodium-cooled reactor—are unlikely to reach commercial deployment by 2050.

OPG is promising that its SMR design, a 300-megawatt boiling water reactor, will be the first in the world to be deployed commercially starting in 2030, although the design has not yet been licenced to build in Canada or anywhere else. Assuming that this unit is chosen for widespread deployment in Canada, nearly 90 would need to be built and operating effectively on the grid between 2030 and 2050 to achieve the proposed tripling. Given the known construction time overruns for nuclear power plants, this also is impossible.

The news on the SMR front from around the world has been bleak—especially in the United States, which has been trying to commercialize SMR designs for more than a decade. The flagship SMR design in the U.S., the NuScale light-water reactor, was the first to receive design approval by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. However plans to build an array of NuScale reactors were shelved in November when the estimated construction costs ballooned to US$9.3-billion (C$12.8-billion) for 462 megawatts and potential customers fled. Earlier this month, NuScale laid off nearly half of its work force.

Assuming the NuScale construction costs of $27.7 million per megawatt would be an acceptable price range to customers in Canada, that would give the OPG design, also a light-water reactor, a cost of $8.3 billion per unit. If 90 units were built as a way to triple nuclear energy capacity, the total price tag would be $747 billion. That assumes that costs won’t go up during construction, as has been the case with the majority of nuclear projects in Canada and around the world.

So far, federal and provincial taxpayers have been footing the bill for SMR development in Canada, with little private sector investment—meaning the investor scrutiny and cost controls that torpedoed the NuScale project are muted at best. Would Canadian taxpayers be OK with continuing to shell out up to a trillion dollars for a technology with no proven track record of producing reliable, affordable electricity? Particularly when the energy efficiency, solar, and wind technologies explicitly favoured by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as the quickest path to emission reductions are already proven, affordable, and ready for prime time?

Last month’s bogus “COP28” nuclear declaration is posted on the Natural Resources Canada website. Like its counterpart in the United States, the Department of Energy, NRCan is the department responsible for promoting the interests of the nuclear industry. In both the United States and Canada, that industry has been failing for decades, and one of its strategies for securing government support has been to appeal to geopolitical interests. In recent years, that appeal has usually involved pointing out how Western countries are falling behind Russia, the largest exporter of nuclear power plants, and China, which has built more nuclear plants than any other country over the past decade.

The U.S. government has responded by using its diplomatic clout to promote nuclear energy, especially small modular reactors. In Washington, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson delivered Canada’s statement on nuclear energy that linked Canadian exports of uranium and nuclear technology to energy security in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This geopolitical context explains why Russia and China were conspicuously missing from the list of signatories to the declaration to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050.

The nuclear industry’s other argument to stay alive is the bogus claim that it can help solve climate change. But as veteran energy modeller and visionary Amory Lovins pointed out: “To protect the climate, we must abate the most carbon at the least cost—and in the least time—so we must pay attention to carbon, cost, and time, not to carbon alone.” The climate crisis is urgent. The world has neither the financial resources nor the luxury of time to expand nuclear power.

Meanwhile, the website of Environment and Climate Change Canada, the department truly responsible for the country’s international climate commitments, has a genuine COP28 statement that does not mention nuclear. Instead, it highlights “groundbreaking goals to triple renewable energy, double energy efficiency, and, for the first time ever… a historic consensus to move away from fossil fuels in energy systems.”

Tripling nuclear energy by 2050 is a nuclear industry fantasy and complete make-believe. Tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency by 2030 is sensible and doable, as long as the requisite political will is present. It is past time to get real about the energy generation technologies we need to be supporting.

Susan O’Donnell is Adjunct Research Professor and leader of the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick. M.V. Ramana is Professor and Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the University of British Columbia.

January 11, 2024 Posted by | Canada, spinbuster | 1 Comment

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