Author: CREDNB

CRED-NB at the New Brunswick legislature

On Feb. 14, our Coalition made our case against SMRs to the MLAs on the Climate Change and Environmental Stewardship committee of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick. Our presentation used the best scientific analysis to critique the “advanced” SMRs for development in New Brunswick. CRED-NB core member Susan O’Donnell presented on behalf of the Coalition. Our written presentation in English is HERE (and HERE in French). The video of the session is on YouTube, HERE. Check out the video to learn more about the SMR plans and what our elected representatives have to say about them.

There were 13 presentations over two days. Other presentations to watch for are, on Feb. 14: J.P. Sapinski, M.V. Ramana. On Feb. 15: Gordon Edwards, Chief Hugh Akagi + Chief Ron Tremblay + Kim Reeder, and Louise Comeau + Moe Quershi. Each has a one-hour time slot, with 20 minutes by presenters followed by 40 minutes of Q&A with the MLAs on the committee. The full schedule of presentations is HERE. The link to the video archive is HERE (scroll through or search to find the webcast archive from Feb. 14 and 15).

CRED-NB endorses the Manifesto for an Ecosocial Energy Transition from the Peoples of the South

One of CRED-NB’s core guidelines is: “Support solidarity actions with communities experiencing harmful impacts of our energy choices in New Brunswick, across Canada and globally.” The transition to real clean energy has impacts that extend well beyond New Brunswick’s borders.

This week, a coalition of groups from the Global South released the “Manifesto for an Ecosocial Energy Transition from the Peoples of the South,” with eight core demands. CRED-NB has endorsed it. The Manifesto states that “clean energy transitions” of the North that have put even more pressure on the Global South to yield up cobalt and lithium for the production of high-tech batteries, balsa wood for wind turbines, land for large solar arrays, and new infrastructure for hydrogen megaprojects. This decarbonization of the rich, which is market-based and export-oriented, depends on a new phase of environmental despoliation of the Global South, which affects the lives of millions of women, men, and children, not to mention non-human life. In this way, the Global South has once again become a zone of sacrifice, a basket of purportedly inexhaustible resources for the countries of the North. Read the full Manifesto and support it, HERE.

Plutonium reprocessing is dirty and dangerous. So why do it beside the Bay of Fundy?

Plutonium reprocessing has never been done commercially in Canada – and it was informally banned in the 1970s. Now the New Brunswick government and NB Power are supporting a plan to reprocess plutonium at the Point Lepreau Nuclear site. Reprocessing operations are the most contaminated sites in the world. So why are we planning to do it at all, and why beside the Bay of Fundy? We need to stop this plan now. Send a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, HERE.

For more information, including fact sheets, videos and links to scientific reports, check out the website of the national campaign to ban plutonium reprocessing in Canada HERE. The direct link to the factsheet on reprocessing and environmental contamination is HERE. Check out our webinar with four international experts on the topic on Feb. 28, Plutonium: How Nuclear Power’s Dream Fuel Turned into a Nightmare, info HERE.

New Brunswick’s SMR plans finally get a public airing: webcast on Feb. 14 and 15

Finally. Finally! On Feb. 14 and 15, the public has a chance to learn more about plans by the NB government and NB Power to build two experimental nuclear reactors (SMRs) at Point Lepreau on the Bay of Fundy. The NB Legislature’s standing committee on Climate Change and Environmental Stewardship is meeting that week, including two days of hearings on SMRs that will be webcast. Please tune in to learn more about the SMR plans and what our elected representatives have to say about them.

The 13 presentations over the two days each have a one-hour time slot, with 20 minutes by presenters followed by 40 minutes of Q&A with the MLAs on the committee. CRED-NB will be represented by Susan O’Donnell at 11am on Tuesday, Feb. 14. The full schedule of presentations is HERE. The link to the webcast is HERE (the webcast link will appear when the Committee is in session).

Video: Ban Plutonium Reprocessing in Canada

More than a dozen environmental groups including CRED-NB co-sponsored a webinar hosted by Nuclear Waste Watch: Ban Plutonium Reprocessing in Canada. The international expert panel included M.V. Ramana from the University of British Columbia, Ray Acheson Ray Acheson from Reaching Critical Will, the disarmament program of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and environmental journalist Joshua Frank, author of the recently released Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America (Haymarket Book, 2022). Watch the video HERE.

Webinar – Plutonium: How Nuclear Power’s Dream Fuel Turned Into a Nightmare

Tuesday, Feb. 28 @ 8pm Atlantic. NB Power and the NB government are supporting a plan to build a plutonium reprocessing plant at Point Lepreau on the Bay of Fundy. To inform the public about this development, CRED-NB is co-sponsoring a webinar featuring a conversation with international experts on plutonium reprocessing and nuclear weapons proliferation. With Frank von Hippel, senior research physicist and professor of public and international affairs emeritus with Princeton’s Program on Science & Global Security; Jungmin Kang, a former chairman of South Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission; Masafumi Takubo, an independent nuclear policy analyst based in Tokyo and member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials; and M. V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia. More info HERE. Register for the webinar HERE.

CRED-NB: Comments on NB Power’s proposed rate hike

CRED-NB representative Gail Wylie (Council of Canadians) prepared a comment to the Energies and Utilities Board (EUB) responding to the proposed NB Power rate hike. Read or download the submission HERE. The document outlines the choices available to NB Power moving forward and includes a history of NB Power’s nuclear activities and a critique of its plans to develop SMRs.

CRED-NB member Dave Thompson of Leap Forwards made an oral presentation, text HERE. The Conservation Council of New Brunswick also submitted a document to the EUB, details HERE.

CRED-NB on CBC’s The Current

CRED-NB was represented on CBC’s The Current this morning by Susan O’Donnell. CRED-NB is fighting for a nuclear free renewable energy future. We unfortunately need to spend much of our time countering the misinformation spread by the nuclear industry (and their government collaborators).

Have a listen to the interview with The Current’s Matt Galloway. The recording HERE is the discussion between Susan and Joe McBrearty, the CEO and President of Canadian Nuclear Labs. To listen to the full segment on the CBC page, including a presentation by a nuclear energy representative in Europe, click HERE.

Shouldn’t a new and experimental nuclear reactor for New Brunswick deserve a federal impact assessment?

The Hill Times and the NB Media Co-op published a commentary this week outlining some of the reasons why CRED-NB requested an impact assessment for NB Power’s SMR demonstration project. Federal Environment and Climate Change minister Steven Guilbeault rejected the request in December. You can read the NB Media Co-op article HERE, written by CRED-NB core member Susan O’Donnell (RAVEN project) and M.V. Ramana (University of British Columbia).

The photo with the article is Japan’s Monju demonstration reactor, one of many sodium-cooled reactors shut down because it didn’t work the way it was intended. That project, including cleaning up the radioactive waste it generated, cost upwards of $10 billion. The ARC-100 sodium-cooled reactor is one of two SMR projects planned for the Point Lepreau site on the Bay of Fundy.