Tag: National Conversation

Friday, February 4 @4pm Atlantic. Livestream on YouTube will start at that time:

https://youtu.be/4D9R6l8ThpI

The City Club of Eugene, Oregon is hosting a debate about this important topic.

Arguing against nuclear power in the new energy future are two well-known opponents: Amory B. Lovins and M.V. Ramana.

Arguing for are two nuclear proponents in the US: Janine Bernier and Maury Galbraith.

Speaker details HERE.

The debate starts at 4pm Atlantic time (noon Pacific). We recommend not missing this one!

Our friends at Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive sent a letter to MPs this week outlining concerns about radioactive waste. With their permission, we are publishing the letter here.

(English follows)

Le 26 janvier 2022

Mesdames et Messieurs les député-es,

Au nom du Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive, permettez-nous de vous offrir nos meilleurs vœux de succès en cette nouvelle année. Nous faisons appel à votre vigilance pour contrer le réchauffement climatique sans pour autant risquer d’aggraver la pollution radioactive au Canada; celle-ci affectera la biosphère pendant des milliers d’années.

Un examen par les parlementaires permettrait de mieux comprendre la situation : ainsi, nous voyons d’un très bon œil la récente décision du Comité permanent en environnement et développement durable de la Chambre des Communes d’effectuer une étude visant une révision générale de la gouvernance des déchets radioactifs au Canada et de leurs impacts sur l’environnement.

Nous demandons aux députés canadiens de faire le nécessaire:

• pour cesser de créer de nouveaux déchets radioactifs au Canada ;

• pour interdire toute importation de déchets radioactifs au Canada, même quand ce sont les restes de radio-isotopes médicaux que nous avions fabriqués et exportés à travers le monde ;

• pour trouver une solution sécuritaire à très long terme aux millions de tonnes de déchets radioactifs dont on ne sait quoi faire, loin des plans d’eau et sans polluer les terres des Premières Nations.

La situation est si grave que le receveur général du Canada a entrepris un audit de la gestion des déchets radioactifs. Il devrait publier son rapport cette année, en 2022. Plus encore, l’Agence internationale de l’énergie atomique (AIEA) a demandé que le Canada améliore sa politique et sa stratégie de gestion des déchets radioactifs. La réflexion a débuté mais des projets de gestion des déchets radioactifs, dont plusieurs sont risqués pour l’environnement et la santé humaine, pourraient bien obtenir leur permis avant que l’audit ne soit complété et que la nouvelle politique et la stratégie de gestion ne soient mises en œuvre ! L’énergie nucléaire n’est ni propre, ni verte, ni renouvelable. Le gouvernement canadien doit écarter le puissant lobby nucléaire et ne plus subventionner des projets nucléaires qui nous mèneront à notre perte.

Il serait donc irresponsable de multiplier les réacteurs nucléaires dans les régions isolées du Grand Nord qui n’arrivent même pas à gérer correctement les déchets radioactifs de leurs mines abandonnées. Il est inacceptable que les futurs « petits réacteurs nucléaires modulaires » soient exonérés de toute évaluation environnementale, à la demande de la Commission canadienne de sécurité nucléaire elle-même ! Il est illusoire de croire que les promoteurs de projets nucléaires, à peine rentables, géreront ensuite bénévolement leurs déchets radioactifs pour l’éternité. Ces entreprises parasites cachent toujours les coûts futurs exorbitants de la gestion des déchets radioactifs. Entretemps, ils remettent toute solution durable à plus tard.

L’année 2022 sera critique tant pour la crise climatique que pour la pollution radioactive. Le Canada doit redresser la situation afin d’assurer un avenir viable à nos enfants et petits-enfants.  

Voici quelques témoignages de groupes crédibles qui s’inquiètent de la pollution radioactive : 

Gordon Edwards, scientifique canadien et consultant nucléaire : 
« L’hypocrisie fondamentale des industriels et des gouvernements, c’est de dire que l’énergie nucléaire est « propre » même si elle produit les déchets les plus meurtriers et les plus toxiques qu’on ait jamais autorisés. »

Ginette Charbonneau, physicienne et porte-parole du Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive :
 « Songez-vous vraiment à investir l’argent des contribuables dans de nouveaux projets nucléaires malgré tous leurs dangers, et étant donné que des énergies renouvelables, moins chères et non polluantes, sont déjà disponibles pour contrer le changement climatique ? »

Commentaires d’Équiterre et de 25 autres groupes environnementaux au Canada : 
« Les petits réacteurs nucléaires modulaires de « nouvelle génération » sont une distraction polluante et dangereuse face à la crise climatique. L’énergie nucléaire n’est ni verte, ni propre, ni abordable. Les prétendus « petits » réacteurs nucléaires modulaires futurs, que l’on veut déployer partout au Canada, produiront aussi de nouveaux déchets radioactifs. Certains modèles vont retraiter le combustible irradié pour en récupérer le plutonium, ce qui aggrave le risque de prolifération des armements nucléaires qui ont besoin de ce plutonium. La gestion de ces nouvelles formes de déchets radioactifs de haute activité sera extrêmement dangereuse. »

Patrick Bonin, responsable de la campagne Climat-énergie de Greenpeace Canada : 
« Il ne faut pas remplacer un problème par un autre. Le nucléaire aura toujours des risques d’accidents. Tchernobyl et Fukushima l’ont prouvé. Il faut aussi considérer la gestion des déchets générés qui resteront radioactifs pendant des milliers d’années. »

Sommet mondial des peuples indigènes sur l’uranium, le 2 décembre 2006 :
« Nous les Peuples rassemblés au Sommet Mondial sur l’Uranium, en ce moment critique d’intensification des menaces nucléaires envers la Terre Mère et toute vie, exigeons une interdiction mondiale de l’extraction de l’uranium, de sa transformation, de son enrichissement, de son usage comme combustible et pour des essais et déploiements d’armements et de tout déversement de déchets radioactifs sur les Terres Indigènes. »

Fondation David Suzuki :
« Les énergies renouvelables coûtent moins cher que l’énergie nucléaire. Elles présentent moins de risques pour la santé, l’environnement et la prolifération des armements; en plus, elles ont été déployées avec succès dans le monde entier. »

Commentaires de Nuclear Waste Watch :
« Parmi les déchets de forte radioactivité, il a plus de 250 différents radio-isotopes. Même à faible dose, les radiations de ces déchets peuvent causer le cancer et d’autres maladies. Comme ces déchets peuvent être mortels, ils doivent être bien isolés de l’environnement pour des centaines de milliers d’années. S’ils s’échappent dans l’environnement, les éléments radioactifs vont circuler dans le sol, l’eau et l’air, provoquant une contamination généralisée. »

Don’t Nuke the Climate Coalition, soutenue par 500 ONG du monde entier : 
« Le nucléaire ne peut pas régler la crise climatique. Au contraire, il l’aggrave en empêchant le déploiement des énergies propres. Les réacteurs nucléaires et leur filière de combustible produisent de grandes quantités de déchets radioactifs mortels. Plus on utilise le nucléaire, plus on produit de déchets radioactifs. »

Nous vous remercions d’avoir lu notre lettre et nous espérons que vous ne ménagerez aucun effort pour réduire la pollution radioactive au Canada.

Au nom de l’équipe du Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive,

Ginette Charbonneau et Gilles Provost, porte-paroles

***

January 26, 2022 

Ladies and gentlemen, members of the Parliament of Canada, 

On behalf of the Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive, we offer you our best wishes for success in the New Year. We call on your vigilance to counter global warming without further increasing the radioactive pollution in Canada; thereby deteriorating the biosphere for thousands of years. 

A review by parliamentarians would provide a better understanding of the current situation. We therefore welcome the recent decision of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development to undertake a study for a comprehensive review of radioactive waste governance in Canada and its impacts on the environment.  

We call on Canadian MPs to take action: 

• to stop creating new radioactive waste in Canada; 

• to ban all importation of radioactive waste into Canada, even when it is the remains of medical radioisotopes that we had manufactured and exported around the world; 

• to find a very long-term safe solution to the millions of tons of radioactive waste, far from all fresh water bodies and without polluting the lands of the First Nations. 

The situation is so serious that the office of the Auditor General of Canada has undertaken an audit of the management of radioactive waste. It is expected to release its report in 2022. Even the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called for Canada to improve its radioactive waste management policy and strategy. Discussions have started but radioactive waste management projects may well obtain their permits before the audit is completed and the new policy and strategy are implemented! Many of these projects are lethally risky for the environment and human health. 

Nuclear power is neither clean, nor green, nor renewable. The Canadian government must put aside the powerful lobby from the nuclear industry and stop subsidizing nuclear projects that will bring us to ruin. 

So it would be irresponsible to increase the number of nuclear reactors in the isolated regions of the Far North which cannot manage the current radioactive waste from their abandoned mines properly. It is unacceptable that the future “small modular nuclear reactors” would be exempt from any environmental assessment, at the request of the Canadian Nuclear Security Commission itself! 

It is an illusion to think that the promoters of these nuclear projects, not commercially viable, will then voluntarily manage their radioactive waste for eternity. These parasitic companies always hide the exorbitant future costs of radioactive waste management. In the meantime, they put off any real lasting solutions. 

Year 2022 will be critical for both the climate crisis and radioactive pollution. Canada must turn this situation around in order to ensure a viable future for our children and grandchildren. 

Here are some testimonials from credible groups concerned about radioactive pollution: 

Gordon Edwards, Canadian Scientist and Nuclear Consultant:
“The fundamental hypocrisy of industry and government is to say that nuclear power is ‘clean’ even though it produces the deadliest and most toxic waste that has ever been allowed.” 

Ginette Charbonneau, physicist and spokesperson for the Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive:
“Are you really thinking of investing taxpayers’ money in new nuclear projects despite all their dangers, and even though renewable, cheaper and non-polluting energies are already available to counter climate change?” 

Comments from Équiterre and 25 other environmental groups in Canada:
“The ‘new generation’ small modular nuclear reactors are a polluting and dangerous distraction from the climate crisis. Nuclear power is neither green, clean nor affordable. The future so-called “small” modular nuclear reactors, which we want to deploy across Canada, will also generate new radioactive waste. Some models will reprocess the spent fuel to recover the plutonium, which increases the risk of proliferation of nuclear weapons that need this plutonium. The management of these new forms of high-level radioactive waste will be extremely dangerous.” 

Patrick Bonin, Greenpeace Canada Climate-Energy Campaign Manager:
“You can’t replace one problem with another. Nuclear power will always have risks of accidents; Chernobyl and Fukushima have proven this. We must also consider the management of the waste generated, which will remain radioactive for thousands of years.” 

World Indigenous Peoples Summit on Uranium, December 2, 2006:
We the Peoples gathered at the World Uranium Summit, at this critical moment of intensifying nuclear threats to Mother Earth and all life, demand a global ban on uranium mining, its transformation, its enrichment, its use as fuel and for testing and deployment of nuclear weapons and for any dumping of radioactive waste on Indigenous lands.” 

David Suzuki Foundation:
“Renewable energies cost less than nuclear energy. They pose less risk to health, environment and for proliferation of weapons; they also have been successfully deployed around the world.” 

Nuclear Waste Watch Comments:
“Among the highly radioactive wastes, there are more than 250 different radioisotopes. Even at low doses, radiation from these wastes can cause cancer and other illnesses. As these wastes can be fatal, they must be well isolated from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years. If they escape into the environment, the radioactive elements will circulate in the soil, water and air, causing widespread contamination.” 

Don’t Nuke the Climate Coalition, supported by 500 NGOs around the World:
“Nuclear power cannot solve the climate crisis. On the contrary, it makes it worse by preventing the deployment of clean energies. Nuclear reactors and their fuel pathways produce large amounts of deadly radioactive waste. The more nuclear power is used, the more radioactive waste is produced.” 

We thank you for reading our letter and we hope you will spare no effort to reduce the radioactive pollution in Canada. 

On behalf of the Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive team,

Ginette Charbonneau and Gilles Provost, spokesperson

Former heads of nuclear regulatory agencies and senior government advisors in the US, Germany, France and the UK published a statement outlining why new nuclear reactors – including SMNRs – are not a solution for climate change.

Their statement lists 10 reasons why nuclear is not a solution. The first three are:

• Too costly in absolute terms to make a relevant contribution to global power production

• More expensive than renewable energy in terms of energy production and CO2 mitigation, even taking into account costs of grid management tools like energy storage associated with renewables roll-out.

• Too costly and risky for financial market investment, and therefore dependent on very large public subsidies and loan guarantees.

Read the full statement HERE:

The following article was published on Dec. 9, 2021 by Corporate Knights. Author Angela Bishoff works with the Ontario Clean Air Alliance and has worked with CRED-NB on several national initiatives.

We don’t have time to wait for the emissions-reduction nuclear power could bring

by Angela Bishoff

Nuclear power has become a low-carbon energy choice for some countries looking to lessen their reliance on fossil fuels. France is looking to build on its already massive nuclear program; the U.K. is investing in small modular nuclear reactor technology; and even Japan, which shut down its 54 nuclear reactors after the 2011 disaster in Fukushima, has turned nine of them back on.

Proponents of nuclear power argue that we will need it to meet our greenhouse gas emissions targets. But to paraphrase Australian feminist and activist Irina Dunn, the world needs nuclear energy to address climate change like a fish needs a bicycle. 

It’s a bad fit given our need to dramatically and quickly reduce our greenhouse gas pollution at the lowest possible cost.

Nuclear is no bargain, as the skewed ratio of nuclear shutdowns to start-ups worldwide amply proves. Of 13 nuclear reactors scheduled to come online in 2020, only three actually did. The others were all delayed. In the U.S., we see a growing lineup of nuclear operators looking for bailouts, while in Ontario, only the willingness of our governments to absorb huge cost overruns has kept nuclear afloat.

Nuclear energy’s heavy costs and long timelines matter because we all know we’re at the 11th hour on climate action. If we don’t drastically reduce emissions now, we stand no chance of keeping warming to even an uncomfortable 1.5°C. So what’s Ontario’s plan? Increase gas plant use by 500% or more by 2040 while new and rebuilt reactor projects are underway. This may be just about the most backward approach we could take at a time when Ontario is nowhere near meeting even the Ford government’s unambitious climate targets.

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) recently announced it’s teaming up with U.S.-based GE Hitachi to develop a $3-billion reactor that will not be particularly small (300 megawatts) or in any way modular (this remains a completely custom product). The result is that the projected cost, according to the Canadian nuclear industry itself, of power from this reactor will be an astronomical 16.3 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) – at a time when the global average cost of new solar and wind energy is hovering between 3 and 7 cents per kWh. And the currently unapproved reactor likely won’t be operational until 2030 at the earliest.

Currently, OPG charges 9.6 cents for power from its reactors. That’s after Ontario ratepayers and taxpayers spent years paying off the enormous debt racked up by our nuclear projects, which essentially bankrupted the old Ontario Hydro. This is roughly double what Alberta is now paying for solar energy, and almost double what Quebec has offered to charge Ontario for power from its vast waterpower system. And OPG acknowledges that its price for nuclear power will have to rise to 13.7 cents per kWh to pay for the rebuilding of reactors at the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, east of Toronto. In 1975, Ontario Hydro estimated the cost of building the Darlington station would be $3.2 billion. The actual cost was $14.3 billion.

Nuclear is no bargain, as the skewed ratio of nuclear shutdowns to start-ups worldwide amply proves.

The nuclear industry’s answer to its long and troubled history of massive cost overruns, premature shutdowns and accidents is to promote a new type of “friendlier” nuclear – small modular reactors (SMRs). But to date they’re all in the development or research stage. 

This fall, the U.K. government announced at the UN climate summit in Glasgow that it was handing luxury car manufacturer Rolls-Royce more than £200 million to develop its SMR technology. Given the massively over-budget and years-late Hinkley Point conventional nuclear project, it’s clear why the British government is eager to change horses. But with offshore wind power now costing Brits half of what power from Hinkley will cost, it’s not surprising that there is no big rush by the EU to follow in Britain’s footsteps when it comes to its investments in SMRs. 

Nuclear has already shrunk from 26% to 17% of the European Union’s power supply since 2015. Germany continues to work its way toward a full nuclear phase-out and is integrating ever-higher levels of renewable energy into its grid. Germany, like all countries that have used nuclear power for decades, will have to find a home for millions of tonnes of radioactive waste, but at least they won’t continue to produce it as the British and Canadians seem determined to do.

Ontario’s dedication to nuclear power is unnecessary. Quebec keeps offering to supply its neighbour with power at a third of the cost of juice from OPG’s dream reactor. Ontario has enough transmission capacity right now to triple its electricity imports from Quebec and could also dramatically increase its interprovincial transmission capacity, using Hydro One’s existing transmission corridors, at a very small fraction of OPG’s budget for its various nuclear projects. 

In addition, Hydro-Québec’s hydroelectric reservoirs can act like a giant battery for our wind and solar energy. By integrating our wind and solar energy with Hydro-Québec’s reservoirs, we can convert our intermittent renewable power into a firm 24/7 source of baseload electricity supply for Ontario. The previous Liberal government made two smallish deals with Quebec to purchase their surplus water power and storage. In 2020, Ontario’s net electricity imports from Quebec amounted to just 3% of our total. 

But that’s just one way to store intermittent renewable power. We are seeing rapid advances in battery technology, and costs for battery storage are sliding down the same cost curve that solar and wind already have. We have the potential to use our electric vehicles’ (EV) batteries to store surplus wind and solar energy and to provide this power back to our electricity grid during peak demand hours to help phase out our gas and nuclear plants. After all, our cars sit idle for 95% of the hours of the day and we don’t want our EVs to be an underused resource in the battle against climate change.

With the cost of renewables continuing to drop, we can get far more climate bang for our buck by investing in energy efficiency, wind and solar energy, two-way chargers for our EVs, and by expanding our east–west electricity grid – rather than sticking with high-cost nuclear and polluting gas plants. The last thing we need now are costly and delaying distractions from real action on climate. 

Angela Bischoff is the director of Ontario Clean Air Alliance

Here is the original link: https://www.corporateknights.com/energy/no-time-for-nuclear-power/