Canada’s government caught up in the Small Nuclear Reactor Ponzi Scheme
Why is the federal government funding new nuclear power reactors? rabble.ca Susan O’Donnell, October 15, 2020
Today, the government made its first SMR funding announcement: $20 million from ISED’s Strategic Innovation Fund for the company Terrestrial Energy to develop its prototype SMR in Ontario.
Anyone interested in evidence-based policy is wondering: Why are they doing this? There is no evidence that nuclear power will achieve carbon reduction targets, while there is considerable research indicating the contrary.
In fact, in today’s funding announcement, federal Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan confirmed that the new reactor will take more than a decade to develop and will contribute nothing to Canada’s 2030 target for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The same week as the throne speech, the release of the 2020 World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) confirmed, as did its previous reports, that developing new nuclear energy is too slow and uneconomical to address the climate crisis compared to deploying renewable energy technologies.
Last week, research based on data from 123 countries over a 25-year period made a similar finding. December 2019 research from Stanford professor Mark Z. Jacobson refutes claims that nuclear energy is zero-carbon. A November 2019 article in the American business magazine Forbes argues that building new nuclear reactors instead of investing in more climate-effective energy resources actually makes climate change worse.
SMRs, the nuclear reactors promoted by the federal government, are in particular over-hyped as a climate crisis solution. SMRs have been proposed as a solution for remote communities and mining sites currently relying on diesel fuel but new research has found the potential market is too small to be viable.
SMRs exist only as computer models and nobody knows for sure if they will work. Last month, the Canadian energy watchdog The Energy Mix interviewed WNISR lead author Mycle Schneider, who called SMRs “PowerPoint reactors, not detailed engineering.”
Given all the research evidence pointing away from funding nuclear energy in a climate action plan, why is the federal government proposing to do it?
In a webinar presentation earlier this year, the president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility Gordon Edwards put it bluntly: “The nuclear industry is desperate.”
Edwards believes the federal government’s push for new reactor development is coming from the nuclear industry. “If they can, the nuclear industry will convince governments to pour public money into this for whatever reason, by misrepresenting its advantages and minimizing or even ignoring its disadvantages.”……….
Nuclear reactor promoters are “barely keeping themselves alive,” said Edwards, and have realized for quite a while that “they are in trouble.”
The federal government created the nuclear industry in Canada and has funded it since the late 1940s. For more than 70 years Canada has been spending vast sums of public money to keep it going. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), a Crown corporation with a mandate to promote and support nuclear science and technology and manage nuclear waste in Canada, received $826 million from the federal government in 2017-2018. Most of the public funds are turned over to a private-sector entity, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, whose majority partner is SNC Lavalin.
One description of the nuclear industry in Canada is that it can be understood as a kind of Ponzi scheme. In its current corporate plan, AECL listed a cost liability of almost $6.4 billion for decommissioning and waste management provision and $988 million for contaminated sites in 2017-18.
The industry needs new nuclear reactors as a replacement revenue stream. New reactors require capital investment but no banks or private investors are willing to invest due to the poor return on investment. Public funding is the only option to keep the industry alive and pay off its liabilities, and more public money is always required or the entire scheme will collapse. ……..
a revolving door shuttles senior government personnel involved in nuclear energy files to the CNA lobby. In one recent example, the former parliamentary secretary to the minister of natural resources who was responsible for nuclear policy is now a consultant for the CNA.
Former senior AECL executives and government nuclear energy staff are now establishing and managing various start-up nuclear companies actively seeking public funding from the federal government. And according to the throne speech, the money is available…….
The Canadian government’s plans to invest in nuclear energy contrast with the European Union’s proposed Green New Deal released in June this year that specifically excludes investment in nuclear energy because of its harmful environmental impacts. The decision followed sustainable finance guidelines also adopted this year and developed in a process that included environmental and other civil society groups as well as energy industry representatives……….https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2020/10/why-federal-government-funding-new-nuclear-power-reactors#.X4t38dAXWFc.twitter
Divisive nuclear waste programme in South Bruce, Ontario
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Proposed 1,500-acre site mapped out for Canadian nuclear waste storage in South Bruce, Ont. Scott Miller CTV News London Videographer @ScottMillerCTV October 15, 2020 TEESWATER, ONT. — We now know exactly where a proposed underground facility to house Canada’s nuclear waste will be, if it comes to fruition.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has secured all of the 1,500 acres of farmland they will need to permanently store over five million used nuclear fuel bundles that once powered Canada’s nuclear plants……… Securing all the land they need, means the NWMO can start borehole drilling in the spring, to ensure the geology of the region can support the underground project that is being designed to house the radioactive waste, forever. Similar work is underway in Ignace, the other Northern Ontario community still in the running to host the controversial project. To address community concerns, the NWMO says they’re committing to a program to compensate landowners if property values fall because of the project, if it’s built in South Bruce…….. The project has divided the small, rural community of roughly 6,000 residents. ……… The NWMO plans to pick South Bruce or Ignace to house Canada’s high level nuclear waste by 2023. https://london.ctvnews.ca/proposed-1-500-acre-site-mapped-out-for-canadian-nuclear-waste-storage-in-south-bruce-ont-1.5146504 |
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Small modular nuclear reactors create intensely radioactive wastes
A bridge to nowhere New Brunswick must reject small modular reactors, Beyond Nuclear International, By Gordon Edwards and Susan O’Donnell, 12 Oct, 20 ”……… In New Brunswick, the proposed new reactors (so-called “small modular nuclear reactors” or SMNRs) will create irradiated fuel even more intensely radioactive per kilogram than waste currently stored at NB Power’s Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station. The non-fuel radioactive wastes will remain the responsibility of the government of New Brunswick, likely requiring the siting of a permanent radioactive waste repository somewhere in the province.
Interestingly, promoters of both new nuclear projects in New Brunswick – the ARC-100 reactor and the Moltex “Stable Salt Reactor” – claim their reactors will “burn up” these radioactive waste fuel bundles. They have even suggested that their prototype reactors offer a “solution” to Lepreau’s existing nuclear fuel waste problem. This is untrue. Radioactive left-over used fuel from the new reactors will still require safe storage for hundreds of thousands of years.
……… Until now, every effort to recycle and “burn up” used reactor fuel – in France, the UK, Russia and the US – has resulted in countless incidents of radioactive contamination of the local environment. In addition, none of these projects eliminated the need for permanent storage of the left-over long-lived radioactive byproducts, many of which cannot be “burned up.”…….
The nuclear waste problem is not going away. The recent letter from more than 100 groups across Canada, and the recent cancellation of the proposed nuclear waste dump in Ontario have shown that significant opposition to new nuclear energy generation exists. Because producing nuclear energy always means producing nuclear waste as well……. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/10/12/a-bridge-to-nowhere/,
3 Canadian provinces sucked in by propaganda from 3 Small Nuclear Reactor companies
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The two big-name companies that won’t be designing Ontario’s next nuclear reactor The province has passed over two major players on its shortlist for a small-modular-reactor design. Will that mean a more competitive process? TVO By John Michael McGrath – Oct 09, 2020 The Ontario government — along with the governments of New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, and (probably) Alberta — wants to develop a new generation of nuclear reactors in Canada. This week, the provincially owned Ontario Power Generation announced it was taking the latest step toward that goal and would be working with three different companies to refine their engineering and design work so that eventually one can be selected for completion.
The three lucky companies are Terrestrial Energy (covered previously on TVO.org), GE Hitachi (with generations of nuclear experience in the United States), and X-energy. At least as notable, however, are two major omissions: NuScale and SNC-Lavalin, which makes the CANDU reactors that Ontario has relied on for decades……….. The problem for NuScale is that its design is meant to be packaged in clusters of up to 12, which is fine if you need 12 — but, right now, Ontario is looking to find one reactor that it could build reasonably quickly, to prove the design works and can be built economically, and then to reproduce it in other provinces, such as Saskatchewan……… In June of this year, however, SNC-Lavalin announced it was submitting a reactor design to the Canadian regulator in the 300-megawatt range — putting it on the larger end of the spectrum for something that’s still supposed to be “small” but is still smaller than traditional CANDU designs. Terrestrial Energy, by comparison, is offering a 195-megawatt design. Canada’s nuclear industry tried to market a 300-megawatt CANDU reactor in the 1980s (the CANDU 3) but never found a buyer. ……… handing the prize to SNC-Lavalin out of nostalgia for the CANDU design would have been a poor guarantee of value for electricity customers. https://www.tvo.org/article/the-two-big-name-companies-that-wont-be-designing-ontarios-next-nuclear-reactor |
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Canada to splurge $billions on non-existent small nuclear reactors, ineffective and no use against climate change
GIBBONS: Nuclear power no solution to climate change https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/gibbons-nuclear-power-no-solution-to-climate-change, Author of the article:, Jack Gibbons, Sep 25, 2020 At a time when action on climate change has never been more urgent, the federal Liberals want to throw billions of dollars at non-existent technology that will not make a difference for decades, if ever.
But that’s pretty much the way things have always been when it comes to federal spending on nuclear power: As long as the word “nuclear” is attached, we put common sense aside and fund projects that lead to one dead end after another.
More than $400 million for Advanced CANDU reactors that never got built? You bet. Another $600 million on the infamous Maple medical isotope reactor design, which proved unsafe to operate? No problem.
Now the industry’s latest pitch is Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and off we go on another wild goose chase with Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O’Regan once again promising billions for technology that is nowhere in sight, let alone use.
Meanwhile, costs for wind and solar have plunged to the point where these energy sources are now outcompeting even natural gas.
Nuclear, for its part, is fading fast. Due to its high costs and safety concerns, nuclear’s share of the world electricity market has cratered in the past two decades. More places are now retiring aging reactors than building them.
The nuclear industry loves to claim they are a critical climate change solution — except on a cost per tonne basis.
Nuclear is like buying a Mercedes to go to the corner store.
Ontario pays as little as two cents a kilowatt hour (kWh) for energy efficient improvements that could displace the need for nuclear while reducing greenhouse gas pollution.
Alberta is now paying around five cents per kWh for solar and four cents for wind.
Ontario Power Generation says it will need to be paid 16.5 cents per kWh for nuclear by 2025.
A whole lot has changed since the bad old days of Ontario’s Green Energy Act.
Yes, the sun doesn’t always shine or the wind blow. Which is why it is fortunate that in Ontario we live beside a giant battery.
Quebec has an enormous water-power reservoir system that Hydro Quebec is keen to integrate with renewable sources for its out-of-province customers.
When we have surplus solar and wind, Quebec stores water. When not, it produces hydro power for export.
We have the connections necessary to make this system work and can expand them at a cost that looks like spare change next to what it costs to rebuild a nuclear reactor or get an SMR prototype built.
The nuclear industry is grasping at straws. Its technology is obsolete, its promises unfulfilled and its costs ever rising.
Betting on nuclear as a climate solution is just sticking our heads in the sand because SMR technology is decades away, extremely expensive, and comes with a nasty pile of security and waste headaches. Yes. Virginia, SMRs still produce lots of highly radioactive waste and we still have no place to put the stuff.
That our government would be this gullible is distressing, especially given the havoc already being wreaked by a changing climate.
We have simple, affordable, reliable and truly clean answers to our climate problem at our fingertips.
Yet our government sits and waits for the nuclear industry to call with some good news. And the phone never rings.
— Jack Gibbons is chairman of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Small modular nuclear reactors for Canada? – useless, expensive, untested, and a wasteful distraction
NB Media Co-op 22nd Sept 2020,Premier Blaine Higgs has endorsed so-called “small modular nuclear reactors” or SMRs. SMRs represent an untested technology but what we know on the basis of technical characteristics and historical precedent is that they will be expensive and any electricity they generate will not be economical. The nuclear industry is pushing small reactors because large reactors are simply not economical. Constructing nuclear plants is just too expensive—as Ontario’s government found out after its call in 2008 for bids to build two more reactors at the Darlington site.https://nbmediacoop.org/2020/09/22/no-business-case-for-new-nuclear-reactors-in-new-brunswick/
Sierra Club Canada (accessed) 23rd Sept 2020, No plan that gets us to net zero in a reasonable time frame includes new nuclear reactors. Nuclear is far too slow and expensive to deal with the climate emergency. Just like fossil fuel energy, nuclear produces wastes that pose unacceptable health hazards and economic costs.David Suzuki on nuclear power as a climate change solution ”I want to puke.”
I want to puke. Because politicians love to say, “Oh, yeah, we care about this and boy, there’s [nuclear] technology just around the corner.”
Yeah, it’s taken a child [environmental activist Greta Thunberg] to finally have an impact that is more than all of us environmentalists put together over the past years.
The power of that child is that she’s got no vested interest in anything. She’s just saying: “Listen to the science because the scientists are telling us I have no future if we don’t take some drastic action.”
I want to puke’: David Suzuki reacts to O’Regan’s nuclear power endorsement
The Nature of Things host also addressed the climate crisis and youth’s role in climate change https://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup/is-it-time-to-call-an-election-1.5728483/i-want-to-puke-david-suzuki-reacts-to-o-regan-s-nuclear-power-endorsement-1.5731819
CBC Radio Sep 21, 2020 David Suzuki spoke to Checkup host Ian Hanomansing about how to tackle climate change while in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and took questions from callers, in Sunday’s Ask Me Anything segment.
With the COVID-19 pandemic at the forefront of the news cycle, it might be easy to forget about the ongoing climate change crisis.
While managing the pandemic has become the first priority of the Canadian government and other governments around the world, climate change was a major talking point in the 2019 federal election campaign.
This summer, the last intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic collapsed. South of the border, dry, hot weather conditions in states such as Oregon and Washington have led to historic wildfires.
David Suzuki is a scientist and environmental activist. He’s also the host of The Nature of Things on CBC television. Continue reading
The pandemic is a massive thrat – so is climate change
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The federal government shouldn’t feel it has to choose between addressing one crisis or the other, Aaron Wherry · CBC News · Sep 17, 2020 The profound and urgent threat of climate change still hangs over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government — quite literally this week, after smoke from the wildfires in California and Oregon spread across the continent, casting a dull haze across the skies.Questions are being asked now about how quickly or enthusiastically the Liberals should turn their focus back to that challenge. There is, after all, the small matter of an ongoing health emergency to tackle. But the unfolding climate emergency will not get any easier to deal with over time — and the Liberals might regret missing any available opportunities to make meaningful progress toward the mid-century goal of net-zero emissions. Although it’s not clear if the government’s actual plans for the next year have changed (or if it’s merely the official messaging about those plans that has been adjusted), it has shifted its publicly stated focus conspicuously to the immediate crisis posed by COVID-19. [Controlling the spread of COVID-19] is our government’s 100 per cent priority,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Tuesday. “It is what we are overwhelmingly focused on.” “I think we recognize and have always recognized that dealing with the pandemic is job one,” Trudeau said Wednesday. Pandemic pessimismAfter the Liberals’ heady talk in late summer about a pivotal opportunity for ambitious change, that sounds like a course correction. If so, it’s a concession to simple reality. While a moment could be emerging when political circumstance and necessity align to create a rare opportunity for real change, it would be hard for any government to do much of anything if COVID-19 is allowed to run roughshod. COVID-19 is also (understandably) the central preoccupation of most Canadians: according to a survey by Abacus Data, 45 per cent of Canadians still believe the pandemic will get worse before it gets better. Parents nervously sending their children back to school might not be terribly interested right now in hearing about the better world that might emerge in the wake of COVID-19 — and they might be very inclined to punish any government that seems to take its eye off the immediate threat. As much as combating climate change and building a clean economy can still seem like optional pursuits — things that would be nice to have rather than necessary — Liberals might worry about seeming to have let “green” interests hijack the moment. Outside government, talk of a green recovery began soon after the pandemic’s arrival. But it would be a mistake to dismiss the idea as a passing fad; while Abacus polled fear about the pandemic, it also found that concern about climate change remains high, particularly among Liberal, NDP, Bloc Québécois and Green voters. While Gerald Butts, a former senior adviser to Trudeau, counselled progressive policy wonks on Monday to mind the real pandemic-related anxieties of voters, he also was part of a panel of experts that laid out a plan Wednesday calling for $55 billion in green spending over the next five years, largely focused on retrofitting buildings, expanding the use of zero-emission vehicles and accelerating the development of clean energy. But the task force also pointed out that such investments would be in line with plans being pursued by Germany, France and the United Kingdom. If Joe Biden is elected president of the United States in November, his plans could include as much as $2.7 trillion in green spending. It’s not an either-or choiceNot all of the problems COVID-19 has exposed or created can be solved by green spending — and it can’t be said that this government has demonstrated a peerless ability to manage multiple major priorities at once. But a government interested in the long-term goal of a clean economy should still be able to find opportunities to do that while simultaneously addressing the short-term needs of a battered economy. The Liberals themselves did that in May when they offered funding to clean up abandoned oil wells and asked large companies applying for pandemic-related loans to provide climate-risk disclosure. It also shouldn’t be forgotten that the Liberals already had a list of green things to do before the pandemic arrived. The platform that Trudeau ran on in the fall of 2019 promised new support for retrofits and zero-emission vehicles, a tax cut for companies that develop clean technology, climate change accountability legislation and new flood-mapping (not to mention that plan to plant two billion new trees). A global pandemic has complicated everyone’s plans for 2020. But Parliament should return next week with the ability to resume something resembling normal proceedings. And not even a global pandemic can fully excuse a government from doing important work. Climate change as an economic issueAs if to reassure the proponents of a green recovery that something is in the works, Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson was one of the four ministers selected to stand behind Trudeau on Wednesday when this week’s cabinet retreat ended. But when Trudeau and Freeland did talk about a green agenda, it was in terms of jobs. “As we reflect on how to restart the economy, how to create good jobs for now and into the future, obviously the green sector and newer jobs and innovation and clean tech are going to be an essential part of building back better and building a stronger future,” Trudeau said. An emphasis on jobs could ground the green aspect of the government’s agenda in the most immediate and practical concerns of both nervous families and fretful economists. It also would serve as a reminder that a green recovery isn’t about hugging trees — it’s about the future welfare and prosperity of Canadians. A report released by the Institute for Climate Choices today makes the case that reducing emissions and growing the economy should not be treated as mutually exclusive goals — and that Canada’s work of building a clean economy has only begun. If a government wants to build long-term growth, a transition to a low-carbon economy seems like a decent place to start. No one can dispute the fact that other issues are now demanding the government’s attention: child care, long-term care, inequality, precarious work, a wounded economy and the ongoing challenge of living with the threat of COVID-19. No government would be easily forgiven for ignoring such things. But until Canada is on a clear path to net-zero emissions, nearly every federal government can be asked whether it has fully seized every chance to combat the climate crisis — a crisis that was worth worrying about before COVID-19 arrived and will still be worth worrying about long after the virus has faded. |
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Western Canadians do not want ”Small” nuclear reactors in Sakatchewan
Premier asks Trudeau to support nuclear reactors in upcoming throne speech, Yorkton This Week Michael Bramadat-Willcock – Local Journalism Initiative (Canada’s National Observer) / Yorkton This Week, SEPTEMBER 16, 2020 Premier Scott Moe has sent a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outlining Saskatchewan’s priorities ahead of the federal throne speech on Sept. 23. In it, he is asking Trudeau to support nuclear development in the province.
Moe wants the development of small modular nuclear reactors, also known as SMRs, in Saskatchewan to be part of Trudeau’s green agenda. ……..
In December, Moe signed a memorandum of understanding with the premiers of Ontario and New Brunswick to work together on further developing the nuclear industry. ……..
In his letter, the premier also focused on support for the oil and gas sectors, and pushed for pausing the carbon tax.
The Supreme Court of Canada will hear arguments on the federal carbon tax at the same time as the throne speech is delivered. …………
But western Canadians don’t all see eye-to-eye on the deployment of nuclear reactors, even small ones.
Committee for Future Generations outreach co-ordinator Candyce Paul of La Plonge at the English River First Nation earlier told Canada’s National Observer that while they haven’t been consulted on any aspects of the plan, all signs point to the north as a site for the reactors.
On Tuesday, Paul called it ironic that Moe spoke of western alienation from Ottawa when many in the north feel the same way about Regina.
“Trudeau, please represent the people of northern Saskatchewan because Scott Moe does not,” Paul said.
Paul’s group fights nuclear waste storage in Saskatchewan and was instrumental in stopping a proposal that considered Beauval, Pinehouse and Creighton as storage locations in 2011.
“When we informed the communities that they were looking at planning to bury nuclear waste up here in 2011, once they learned what that entailed, everybody said, ‘No way.’ Eighty per cent of the people in the north said, ‘No way, absolutely not.’ It didn’t matter if they worked for Cameco or the other mines. They said, if it comes here, we will not support it coming here,” Paul said in an interview last month. ………..
Paul said the intent behind using SMRs is anything but green and that the real goal is to prop up Saskatchewan’s ailing uranium industry and develop oilsands in the northwest.
“He’s put it right in the letter. His fear is they’re going to put out a green policy that will hurt the oil and gas sector,” Paul said.
“They’ve been looking for a way to bring the tar sands to northern Saskatchewan. We all know the mess that makes. Using small modular reactors is not lessening the carbon impact.”
She said in August that communities around Canada, and especially in the Far North, have long been pitched as sites for SMR development and nuclear waste storage, but have refused.
“None of our people are going to get trained for operating these. It supports people from other places. It doesn’t really support us,” Paul said.
Paul said on Tuesday that SMRs under 200 megawatts are currently excluded from environmental impact assessments, which means a lack of opportunity for public input.
She also said that interconnected water systems in the north would mean pollution would travel quickly into the ecosystem if there was a mishap at a reactor site.
Brooke Dobni, professor of strategy at the University of Saskatchewan’s Edwards School of Business, told Canada’s National Observer in August that any development of small reactors would take a long time.
“It could be a good thing, but on the other hand, it might have some pitfalls. Those talks take years,” Dobni said.
He said nuclear reactors face bigger challenges that have to be addressed before they can go ahead, such as public support for protecting the environment, the high cost of building infrastructure, and containing nuclear fallout and radiation.
“Anything nuclear is 25 years out if you’re talking about small reactors, those kinds of things to power up the city,” Dobni said.
“That technology is a long ways away and a lot of it’s going to depend on public opinion.
“The court for that is the court of public opinion, whether or not people want that in their own backyard, and that’s the whole issue anywhere in the world.”
On Tuesday, Paul asked the federal government to invest in critical infrastructure instead.
“We need money spent in a serious way. Not on small modular reactors that could happen in 25 years. We need things now. To bring us up to the standards in our health system, we need health facilities. The public doesn’t want the government subsidizing industries that are about to go bust. It’s a waste of money,” Paul said.
“We have extreme needs that aren’t being met by industry and never will be met by industry. Trudeau, put the money where you want to make some real reconciliation happen.”https://www.yorktonthisweek.com/regional-news/premier-asks-trudeau-to-support-nuclear-reactors-in-upcoming-throne-speech-1.24204052
Nuclear waste flyers heading to 50,000 households in Grey-Bruce
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Scott MillerCTV News London Videographer @ScottMillerCTV Contact, Monday, September 14, 2020 WINGHAM, ONT. — Roughly 50,000 homeowners in Grey and Bruce County will be getting some unexpected mail this week. “South Bruce is not a willing host to a nuclear waste dump” flyers will be showing up in people’s mailboxes thanks to a group of concerned landowners near Teeswater, where Canada’s highest level nuclear waste could be permanently buried. Michelle Stein leads the group, Protect Our Waterways-No Nuclear Waste. Why would we want to take that kind of a risk with our water and the Great Lakes basin. Anything that happens in the Great Lakes Basin happens to our Great Lakes. We need to protect our water,” she says. All of the highly radioactive fuel bundles are currently stored in above ground warehouses at Canada’s nuclear reactor sites, right now. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has two proposed sites to permanently bury over 5 million used nuclear fuel bundles, that once powered Canada’s nuclear reactors. One near Ignace, in Northern Ontario, and another north of Teeswater, in Bruce County. All of the highly radioactive fuel bundles are currently stored in above ground and near ground containers at Canada’s nuclear reactor sites, right now……… Stein says people far and wide should know that the NWMO plan includes walking away from the underground facility and the waste, after 50 to 75 years of operation, leaving the radioactive waste in the ground, forever. “There is no country in the world with an operational high level spent fuel DGR (deep geological repository), and history shows us that the low and intermediate level DGR’s have had failures, accidents, and leaks,” she says……. The Nuclear Waste Management wants to have a site selected, either South Bruce or Ignace, by 2023. https://london.ctvnews.ca/nuclear-waste-flyers-heading-to-50-000-households-in-grey-bruce-1.5104113 |
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Campaign against nuclear fuel waste storage in South Bruce, Canada
People in communities near the Municipality of South Bruce may receive a leaflet from the group Protect Our Waterways-No Nuclear Waste with information on the proposal to store used nuclear fuel deep underground near Teeswater.
Spokesman Michelle Stein said 50,000 leaflets were sent out this week to let people know some of the group’s concerns about the plan to store Canada’s nuclear waste in a Deep Geologic Repository or DGR.
Stein said the Nuclear Waste Management Organization is assembling land in the municipality of South Bruce to store irradiated nuclear fuel from 4.6 million spent fuel bundles.
“The proposed site includes the Teeswater River flowing through it, and that leads to Lake Huron. And 40 million people get their drinking water from Lake Huron,” she said.
“It’s a decision that is going to affect so many people, and change our community in such a large way, I think each individual deserves to have a vote,” she added.
Stein says 1,600 residents of South Bruce signed a petition opposing the proposed DGR. Stein wants to see a referendum on the issue, as both the Nuclear Waste Management Organization and the municipality have stated that the project needs broad community support to go ahead.
If the proposed nuclear waste dump is approved there will be two loads of spent nuclear fuel travelling by truck every day for forty years from Canada’s nuclear reactors. And if there is a radioactive leak underground it could affect 40 million people in Canada and the US,” said Stein.“People need to know the risks. Nowhere in the world is there an operating DGR for high-level nuclear waste as is being proposed here. Underground storage sites for low-medium level nuclear waste in the US and Germany have leaked radioactive material and required multi-billion-dollar clean-ups”, says Stein. “I encourage everyone who lives in a community near South Bruce to contact their own Mayor and tell them you oppose NWMO’s proposal for a nuclear waste dump.”
POW-NNW believes that the “rolling stewardship” method of managing nuclear waste is better because it maintains it in a monitored and retrievable state at all times, with continual improvements to packaging and environmental protection.
Stein added that ongoing scientific studies examine how spent nuclear fuel can be reused, reduced, and even neutralized. In its initial report to Parliament, the NWMO did not say that on-site storage at the reactor sites was unsafe or not feasible.
Bruce County divided over becoming permanent site to store Canada’s nuclear waste,
Bruce County divided over becoming permanent site to store Canada’s nuclear waste,
Canada has 57K tonnes of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel and nowhere to put it, Colin Butler · CBC News · Feb 21 2020, Bruce County calls itself a place “where the smiles are bigger and a little more frequent,” but those smiles belie a deepening divide among neighbours over what to do with Canada’s growing stockpile of nuclear waste.
The town of South Bruce, on the rim of the sparkling waters of Lake Huron, is one of two sites selected by a federal agency tasked with finding permanent locations to store Canada’s nearly three million bundles of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel.
On Thursday, politicians in Bruce County debated whether their community should be home to a place to put that waste, what’s called a deep geologic repository, or DGR; a multi-billion dollar high tech nuclear waste dump that would see the material stored in perpetuity hundreds of metres below the Earth.
At issue in the debate are the ethics of leaving the burden of some of Canada’s most dangerous nuclear material to future generations, the possible development and devaluation of prime Ontario farmland and concerns over the potential safety of the drinking water for 40 million people in two countries.
‘I am strongly opposed’
On Thursday, that politically-fraught debate took centre stage in Walkerton, Ont. before a packed council chamber where politicians debated whether DGRs were “settled science” in an argument that has already played out at dinner tables, arenas and coffee shops in the area for years, dividing neighbours and leaving communities deeply polarized.
“I am strongly opposed,” said Brockton Mayor Chris Peabody, whose township includes Walkerton, a place that two decades ago grappled with a tainted water crisis where e. coli killed six people and sickened thousands.
“The proposal is to bury the waste under the Teeswater River,” he told council. “I can’t support that. I’ve got several communities down river that get their drinking water from aquifers along that river.”
Peabody said if a deep geologic repository were to be located west of Teeswater, it would potentially devalue prime farmland and the resulting stigma of burying nuclear waste near his community might affect the ability of local farmers to sell their wares.
“It would make it very difficult for them to market their produce and survive,” he said. “I don’t think the scientific consensus supports burying nuclear waste in class one farmland in Southern Ontario.”
Utilizing a deep geologic repository isn’t simply a matter of “burying nuclear waste in class one farmland” as Peabody suggests. The proposed underground project is a highly sophisticated $23 billion nuclear waste disposal site designed to contain and isolate some of the most dangerous materials on Earth for thousands of years.
The sprawling complex of tunnels and chambers would occupy a footprint of about 600 hectares underground, where nuclear waste would be stored at a depth as low as the CN Tower is tall (500 to 600 metres). The idea is the material would be encased in containers below natural bedrock to keep the harmful effects of radiation at bay for millennia.
While proponents of the system claim a DGR is a safe way to store nuclear waste, those opposed argue it has a spotty record at best, pointing out that similar facilities in New Mexico and Germany have leaked – and by that token, opponents say a DGR near Lake Huron would potentially put the drinking water of 40 million people at risk.
It’s not the first time the debate has come to the area. Ontario Power Generation recently abandoned a 15-year campaign for a similar proposed facility to store low to intermediary waste at a site not far from the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station.
The failure to move ahead with the project is part of a larger problem of Canada’s struggle to find a permanent home for its growing stockpile of nuclear waste.
As of 2018, it’s estimated Canada had some 57,000 tonnes of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel and nowhere to put it.
So far, the federal agency tasked with disposing it, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, or NWMO, has identified two potential communities with the right geological makeup; Ignace in Ontario’s north and South Bruce, in Ontario’s Great Lakes Basin. ……. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/canada-nuclear-waste-1.5469727
Canadian Public asked for views on transport of used nuclear fuel
Public asked for views on transport of used nuclear fuel Owen Sound The Sun Times Scott Dunn 27 Aug 20 The Nuclear Waste Management Organization wants public input on its planning framework concerning shipping about 5.5 million used nuclear fuel bundles by road and possibly rail, to a permanent storage site, possibly in Bruce County.Spent nuclear fuel rods are currently stored above ground at nuclear sites and the aim is to create a long-term storage solution.
The NWMO’s draft transportation planning framework, based partly on public consultations since 2016, is the subject of a detailed online survey. The survey contains background and facts about the plan and about the management and transportation of used nuclear fuel.
There are five sections to comment on: The basic requirements of used nuclear fuel transportation planning, the plan’s objectives and principles, environmental protection, who needs to be involved in decision-making, and how should the modes and routes be decided. The survey can be found at https://ca.surveygizmo.com/s3/50081627/NWMOworkbookSMEN…....South Bruce, the local municipality near the Bruce Power nuclear station on Lake Huron, is one of two locations which remain potential sites for a $23-billion permanent storage facility buried deep underground.
So far, South Bruce has not declared itself a willing host, or even how that conclusion would be arrived at, though an opposition group has called for a community vote and the mayor has suggested that might be the solution.
The other remaining potential site is Ignace area, northwest of Lake Superior.
Approval of the local First Nations people is also required and earlier this year they turned down a separate plan to bury low- and mid-level nuclear waste in a dedicated underground vault at the Bruce nuclear site.
NWMO says it expects to select its preferred location for the used nuclear fuel vault in 2023. Operation of the deep geological repository and transportation of used nuclear fuel is planned to start in the 2040s. Transport of the bundles will take about 40 years.
The used nuclear fuel will be transported by roads and possibly rail, depending on the location of the repository.
“If an all-road approach were taken, this might involve about 620 truck shipments each year, approximately one-to-two shipments per day. If an all-rail approach were taken, this might involve about 60 train shipments each year, approximately one shipment every six days,” says the organization’s Moving Forward Together document, found on the NWMO website……….. https://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/news/local-news/public-asked-for-views-on-transport-of-used-nuclear-fuel
Canada communities don’t want the so-called “clean” Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs)
even with SMRs under 300 megawatts, nuclear waste is a byproduct.
waste generated from SMRs would become a dangerous part of the transportation system “even if they do remove it.”
“It will be big, big transports of highly radioactive stuff, driving down the roads as an easy dirty bomb
the high cost of building infrastructure and then containing nuclear fallout and radiation are all concerns before they can go ahead.
Nuclear giants team up to develop reactors in Sask. and Ontario, Michael Bramadat-Willcock / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, National Observer, AUGUST 23, 2020
Canada’s leading nuclear industry players announced an inter-provincial corporate partnership Thursday to support the launch of a research centre that will work on developing small modular reactors (SMRs) for use in Saskatchewan.
Saskatoon-based Cameco is the world’s biggest uranium producer and has long supplied fuel to Bruce Power, Ontario’s largest nuclear power company.SMRs are designed to produce smaller amounts of electricity, between 50 and 300 megawatts,……
The secretariat is mandated to develop and execute a strategic plan for the use of “clean-energy small modular reactors” in the province. ……
No timeframe or SMR sites were included in the announcement, but the government’s plans already have some northern residents raising alarms.
Committee for Future Generations outreach co-ordinator Candyce Paul of La Plonge at the English River First Nation told Canada’s National Observer that they haven’t been consulted on any aspects of the plan, but all signs point to the north as a site for the reactors.
Paul’s group fights nuclear waste storage in Saskatchewan and was instrumental in stopping a proposal that considered Beauval, Pinehouse and Creighton as storage locations in 2011.
“When we informed the communities that they were looking at planning to bury nuclear waste up here in 2011, once they learned what that entailed, everybody said no way. Eighty per cent of the people in the north said no way, absolutely not. It didn’t matter if they worked for Cameco or the other mines. They said if it comes here, we will not support it coming here,” she said.
Paul said she sees small modular nuclear reactors as another threat to the environment and to human safety in the region.
She noted that even with SMRs under 300 megawatts, nuclear waste is a byproduct.
“Even if they’re not burying nuclear waste here, they could be leaving it on site or hauling it through our northern regions and across our waterways,” Paul said.
She said that waste generated from SMRs would become a dangerous part of the transportation system “even if they do remove it.”
“It will be big, big transports of highly radioactive stuff, driving down the roads as an easy dirty bomb. You’d be driving down the road (behind a nuclear waste transport vehicle) and not know you’re following it,” Paul said.
Paul said the intent behind installing SMRs is anything but green and that the real goal is to prop up Saskatchewan’s ailing uranium industry and develop oilsands in the northwest.
Paul said that communities around Canada, and especially in the Far North, have long been pitched as sites for SMR development and have refused.
A 2018 brief from Pangnirtung Hamlet Council in Nunavut concluded “any Arctic-based nuclear power source should be an alternative energy choice of last resort.”
“None of our people are going to get trained for operating these. It supports people from other places. It doesn’t really support us,” Paul said.
SMRs have been pitched in the north as a way to move away from reliance on diesel fuel, which can be costly. Paul said any benefits of that remain to be seen.
She said companies would need to do environmental impact assessments for smaller reactors even though the exclusion zone around SMR sites is smaller.
“Even if the exclusion zone is only a few kilometres, a few kilometres affects a lot in an ecosystem and especially in an ecosystem that is wild,” Paul said.
“I’m not feeling confident in this at all, Canadian nuclear laboratories saying that it would only be a small radius exclusion zone. Well that’s our territory. That’s our land, our waters, our wildlife.
“It’s not their backyard, so they couldn’t care less.”
Brooke Dobni, professor of strategy at the University of Saskatchewan’s Edwards School of Business, told Canada’s National Observer that any development of small reactors would take a long time.
“It could be a good thing, but on the other hand, it might have some pitfalls. Those talks take years,” Dobni said.
He said nuclear reactors face bigger challenges because of public concerns about the environment and that the high cost of building infrastructure and then containing nuclear fallout and radiation are all concerns before they can go ahead.
“Anything nuclear is 25 years out if you’re talking about small reactors, those kinds of things to power up the city,” Dobni said.
“That technology is a long ways away and a lot of it’s going to depend on public opinion.
The court for that is the court of public opinion, whether or not people want that in their own backyard, and that’s the whole issue anywhere in the world.” https://www.humboldtjournal.ca/news/nuclear-giants-team-up-to-develop-reactors-in-sask-and-ontario-1.24191077
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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