Tag: National Conversation

Jan. 19 @ 8pm AT: Webinar – Ban Plutonium Reprocessing in Canada

The new nuclear reactors (SMRs) planned for New Brunswick propose plutonium reprocessing as part of their designs.

Plutonium reprocessing – extracting plutonium from used nuclear fuel – was informally banned in Canada in the 1970s because of concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation.

Plutonium reprocessing is a dirty, dangerous distraction from real climate action, a ridiculously expensive process that creates difficult new radioactive waste problems and nuclear weapons proliferation risks.

Now the nuclear lobby is pushing hard to include plutonium reprocessing in Canada’s new radioactive waste management policy. The industry is claiming that plutonium reprocessing is necessary for SMRs to fight climate change.

The Ban Plutonium Reprocessing in Canada webinar, organized by Nuclear Waste Watch with more than a dozen co-sponsors including CRED-NB, features three expert speakers.

Register HERE for the Ban Plutonium Reprocessing in Canada webinar, Thursday, Jan. 19 at 8pm Atlantic, 7pm Eastern.

Speakers:

Ray Acheson is Director of Reaching Critical Will, the disarmament program of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and a member of the steering group of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.

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, and a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials.

Joshua Frank is an environmental journalist and author of “Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America” (Haymarket Books, October 2022)

Moderator: Theresa McClenaghan, Executive Director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

Register HERE for the Ban Plutonium Reprocessing in Canada webinar, Thursday, Jan. 19 at 7pm Eastern.

Hosted by Nuclear Waste Watch and co-sponsored by: Beyond Nuclear • Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility • Canadian Environmental Law Association • Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick • Conservation Council of New Brunswick • David Suzuki Foundation • Inter-Church Uranium Committee Educational Cooperative • International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War – Canada • Northwatch • Ontario Clean Air Alliance • Regroupement des organismes environnementaux en énergie • Science for Peace • Sierra Club Canada Foundation • Voice of Women for Peace.

Nuclear Waste Watch and partners are leading the Ban Plutonium Reprocessing in Canada campaign launched this month. The campaign website is: reprocessing.ca

Clean Energy or Weapons? What the ‘Breakthrough’ in Nuclear Fusion Really Means

In contrast to the hype about nuclear fusion and its promise of limitless energy, experts have been analyzing the recent ‘breakthrough’ announcement. For example, UBC professor M.V. Ramana wrote this piece in Z Network, HERE. For another perspective, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists interviews Bob Rosner, a physicist at the University of Chicago and a former director of the Argonne National Laboratory, article HERE.

Canada’s new policy on radioactive waste must ban reprocessing

For immediate release 

December 15, 2022 

Canada’s new policy on radioactive waste must ban plutonium reprocessing 

Ottawa – Today, a national alliance of civil society organizations launched a campaign to formally demand that Canada includes a ban on plutonium reprocessing in its radioactive waste policy. 

Canada will release its policy on managing radioactive waste in early 2023. A draft policy for public comment released in February 2022 says that “deployment of reprocessing technology… is subject to policy approval by the Government of Canada” but does not take a clear position opposing this technology. 

Reprocessing is a means of extracting plutonium from nuclear fuel waste. Reprocessing is highly contaminating, practiced in only a few countries, and linked to nuclear weapons proliferation. 

Dozens of public interest groups and Indigenous communities participated in the federal radioactive waste policy consultations, and more than 7,000 Canadians submitted letters including a demand that the policy bans reprocessing. In March 2022, Nuclear Waste Watch’s Radioactive Waste Review Group released An Alternative Policy for Canada on Radioactive Waste Management and Decommissioning that forbids plutonium reprocessing. 

Commercial plutonium reprocessing has never been carried out in Canada. The limited reprocessing at the federal government’s Chalk River Laboratory to supply nuclear weapons material for the American military ended in the 1960s but left a legacy of nuclear contamination in Canada. 

Canada has had an informal ban on reprocessing since the 1970s, following India’s testing of its first nuclear weapon made using plutonium from a “peaceful” nuclear reactor, a gift from Canada. 

However, the informal ban was breached in 2021 when the federal government granted $50.5 million to a New Brunswick company, Moltex Energy, to develop its technology to reprocess fuel waste from existing CANDU reactors with the intent of exporting the technology globally. The government also granted more than $1.2 billion to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) to expand their nuclear research centre at Chalk River to include a laboratory for research that could include plutonium reprocessing. 

Yet a 2016 CNL report found no business case for reprocessing CANDU fuel, in part “due to its low fissile content,” and the associated costs and risks. The CNL report also stated that reprocessing would “increase proliferation risk.”

That finding about reprocessing and nuclear weapons proliferation is replicated in a major report released in November 2022 by a U.S. National Academy of Sciences expert panel. The panel reached consensus that the proposed Moltex reprocessing technology does not provide “significant proliferation resistance.” 

“By reversing its ban on plutonium reprocessing and supporting the development of new reprocessing technology intended for export, Canada seems to be blundering into another dangerous proliferation miscalculation,” says Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition on Nuclear Responsibility. Edwards cited the three letters written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by U.S. nonproliferation experts warning of the dangers of developing reprocessing technology in Canada. 

“Reprocessing intensely radioactive spent fuel presents more opportunities for release of radionuclides than leaving spent fuel in thick metal or concrete casks,” says Brennain Lloyd, spokesperson for Northwatch. “Reprocessing does not reduce the need for radioactive waste storage or long-term management. After reprocessing, the remaining material will be in several different waste forms, and the total volume of nuclear waste will have been increased by a factor of 20 or more.” 

“Are the policy-makers reading the research or only the nuclear industry’s sales and promotional materials?” asks Dr. Susan O’Donnell, spokesperson for the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick. “There is no legitimate reason to support technologies that create the potential for new countries to separate plutonium and develop nuclear weapons. The government should stop supporting this dangerous technology.” 

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For more information: 

The Ban Plutonium Reprocessing campaign website: reprocessing.ca 

Nuclear Waste Watch: nuclearwastewatch@gmail.com 

Gordon Edwards, PhD, President, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
Phone: 514-489-5118 Email: ccnr@web.ca 

Brennain Lloyd, spokesperson, Northwatch 
Phone: 705-493-9650 Email: brennain@northwatch.org 

Susan O’Donnell, PhD, spokesperson, Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick
Phone: 506-261-1727 Email: info@crednb.ca 

Pull the plug on nuclear subsidies

Excellent article by Ole Hendrickson in the latest issue of Rabble:
https://rabble.ca/columnists/pull-the-plug-on-nuclear-subsidies/

Some quotes from the article:

New Brunswick Power, despite being awash in debt, is also promoting two “next generation” SMRs at its Point Lepreau reactor site. Both the provincial and federal governments have provided multi-million-dollar grants, ignoring warnings that these SMR designs, which would be fuelled by plutonium, have been riddled with technical problems in the past and would create serious risks of nuclear weapons proliferation.

The linchpin of nuclear corporate welfare in Canada is Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). Created in 1952 as a federal crown corporation, AECL now has fewer than 50 employees, but receives over a billion dollars of federal money each year.

Why a federal impact assessment for the New Brunswick SMRs?

This morning on CBC radio, Canadian Environmental Law Association counsel Kerrie Blaise explained why the federal government needs to designate the ARC-100 SMR (small modular nuclear reactor) for a federal impact assessment.

Kerrie explained that only the wide scope of a federal IA will give the public an opportunity to have many of their questions answered about this first-of-its-kind SMR, including the feasibility of the project as well as its potential environmental impact.

Listen to Kerrie’s interview on CBC Fredericton, HERE.

Listen to her interview on CBC Saint John, HERE.

HERE is the latest update on CRED-NB’s request to federal minister of Environment and Climate Change to designate the project for an impact assessment, including links to the request in July and the response from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada in October.

Decolonial Solidarity Moncton- Kill the Drill: Rally Nov. 5

Rallies will be held across Canada on Saturday Nov. 5 in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en people and the defense of their land from a proposed gas pipeline. The Coastal Gaslink (CGL) pipeline would transport fracked natural gas across Wet’suwet’en territory to a proposed export terminal in Kitimat, BC.

The Climate Justice Coalition in the Moncton region is joining with other environmental and Indigenous allies and groups such as Decolonial Solidarity, LeadNow, Extinction Rebellion, the Suzuki Foundation, 350.org, and others on November 5th to oppose development of the Coastal Gas Link pipeline. The rally will be focussed on the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC),  the largest funder of the Coastal Gas Link pipeline. Details for the action in Moncton are below:

Decolonial Solidarity Moncton – We Are All One – Kill the Drill
Start: Saturday, November 05, 2022 11:15 AM
Royal Bank of Canada
719 Mountain Rd Moncton, NB E1C 8H9

Nuclear power is not needed for modern medicine!

Did you know that modern medicine does not depend on nuclear power? All electricity producing reactors in Canada and around the world could be shut down permanently with little or no impact on best medical practices.

Hospitals do not need nuclear power, and never have. Any isotopes (radioactive materials) that are considered medically required can be produced by accelerators or small research reactors. These are different reactors than the kind that produce electricity.

For more info, check out the fact sheet produced by the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, HERE. At the end of the one-page fact sheet is a link to more detailed information supporting all the facts.

CRED-NB responds to SMR plan in Saskatchewan

The CBC Saskatchewan radio program Blue Sky invited CRED-NB representative Susan O’Donnell to a call-in show on Sept. 22 on the issue of SMRs in the province. Susan shared her knowledge about SMR development, including New Brunswick’s current experience with nuclear power at the Point Lepreau reactor.

Listen to the portion of the show including Susan, HERE, or the entire Blue Sky segment with all guests on the CBC site, HERE, including David Geary from CRED-NB collaborators Clean Green Saskatchewan.

Experimental nuclear reactors DO need an impact assessment: CRED-NB files request with federal environment minister

The Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB) has sent a formal request to federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault to order an impact assessment for a project which could have profound and lasting impacts on the Bay of Fundy and the coastal communities and marine life it supports.

For more information about why an impact assessment is required, including letters of support from Indigenous groups and civil society groups in New Brunswick and across Canada, read the formal CRED-NB request to federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, HERE. (French version HERE.)

To send a letter to Minister Guilbeault supporting the CRED-NB request, use our action tool, HERE. We’re working in collaboration with the Ontario Clean Air Alliance to gather support across Canada.

The nuclear industry plans to build experimental nuclear reactors, so-called “small modular nuclear reactors” (SMRs) in New Brunswick, with the aim that one day they can be used in different towns and remote communities across Canada.

Pressure from the nuclear industry lobby changed our federal environmental assessment law in 2019, exempting many nuclear projects like SMRs from undergoing a full environmental impact assessment (IA). 

CRED-NB is challenging the exemption for the “SMR Demonstration Project” planned for Point Lepreau on the Bay of Fundy, asking the federal government to step in and order the project undergo a full IA under the Impact Assessment Act.

“As a first of its kind experimental nuclear project, on the traditional territory of the Peskotomuhkati Nation, which opposes the project, with ramifications for the rights of the Wolastoqey and Mi’gmaq Nations, and located in a beautiful, coastal rural region with locally important fishing, tourism and wild blueberry industries, the SMR Demonstration Project ought to attract the most rigorous form of public engagement and planning,” said Gail Wylie, CRED-NB chair.

“The exemption not only erodes public involvement and oversight of the project but also means that there will be no full reckoning of the alternatives to the energy project and its impacts to social, economic, Indigenous and environmental values,” added Ann McAllister, spokesperson for CRED-NB.

Opponents argue that the SMRs do not need an IA, since they have to get a licence from the nuclear regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. This profoundly misses the mark! A nuclear licence is a regulatory proceeding – it does not account for the “big picture” or whether the project has a social licence to operate. 

“There is a pressing need to designate this project for an IA. Impact assessment promotes a ‘look before you leap’ approach to decision-making so that independent reviews of risk and harm, alternatives to the project, the purpose of the project and impacts on social, economic, Indigenous and environmental values can be duly evaluated,” said Kerrie Blaise, legal counsel for the Canadian Environmental Law Association. CELA was among the groups endorsing the designation request to the Minister sent today.

CRED-NB is asking people across Canada to support the campaign. This is not just a New Brunswick issue. If successful, these SMRs could be deployed in hundreds of communities across the country. Their wastes will be added to our existing stockpiles for which no solution currently exists.