Tag: National Conversation

One of the proposed small reactors for New Brunswick plans to reprocess (extract the plutonium from) the used nuclear fuel from the Point Lepreau reactor to make new reactor fuel. CRED-NB core member Susan O’Donnell co-wrote an article with Gordon Edwards about the history of reprocessing in Canada leading up to the Moltex project in New Brunswick. The article, ‘Nuclear industry wants Canada to lift ban on reprocessing plutonium, despite proliferation risks’ was published by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, link HERE.

CRED-NB is a member of the SMR Information Task force that publishes regular bulletins send to federal and provincial legislators. This month the topic is radioactive small modular reactors.

Every nuclear reactor, large or small, runs on neutrons. The core of the reactor is swarming with these subatomic projectiles. Each time a neutron splits a uranium atom, energy is released and radioactive waste is created.

Indeed, the broken fragments of uranium atoms are fiercely radioactive materials called “fission products”, and they accumulate in the fuel. Used nuclear fuel is millions of times more radioactive than unused fuel because of the fission products. This “high-level radioactive waste” must be isolated from the environment for many millennia.

But some neutrons penetrate into the structural materials of the reactor, making them radioactive too. When a stray neutron is absorbed by a non-radioactive atom, that atom is often “activated” –it becomes radioactive.

When a nuclear plant is dismantled, much of the rubble is too radioactive to be reused for other purposes. Such radioactive “decommissioning waste” must be kept out of the food chain and the water for tens of thousands of years.

Read the full bulletin HERE.

The year 2023 saw many developments for nuclear waste policy and governance. For an update on last year and discussion of what we can expect in the year ahead, join this webinar on Thursday, February 29 at 8pm Atlantic. Speakers include Susan O’Donnell from CRED-NB who will talk about policy related to reprocessing radioactive fuel waste in Canada. Other speakers are:

• Theresa McClenaghan, Canadian Environmental Law Association, speaking about Canada’s Radioactive Waste Policy
• Ole Hendrikson, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area and Sierra Club Canada Foundation, speaking about an Integrated Strategy on Radioactive Waste

The event registration is HERE.

This event is part of a series on nuclear waste organized by Northwatch and Nuclear Waste Watch.

SMR Information Task Force bulletin #6

The federal government recently endorsed two similar nuclear fantasies.

This month, Natural Resources Canada published a statement endorsing a plan to work with other countries to “advance a global aspirational goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity from 2020 by 2050.”

The global nuclear declaration attracted endorsements from only 22 countries. In contrast, the official COP28 pledge to triple renewable energy by 2030 was signed by 123 countries and adopted by consensus as the official COP declaration.

Earlier, in 2023, the Canadian energy regulator projected a tripling of Canadian nuclear generation capacity by 2050.

Why is Canada engaged in a nuclear fantasy?

Click HERE to read the rest of the bulletin.

CRED-NB is a member of the SMRs Information Task force, a national coalition of groups that issues regular bulletins about so-called small modular nuclear reactors. These bulletins are sent to all MPs in Ottawa and provincial representatives in several provinces, including New Brunswick.

SMR Information Task Force bulletin #5

Plutonium is the stuff from which nuclear bombs are made. It is created as a byproduct of nuclear fission. Plutonium resides in the fiercely radioactive used fuel assemblies discharged from nuclear reactors. Any method for extracting plutonium from used fuel is called reprocessing.

Moltex Energy, a U.K. start-up, plans to extract plutonium from used fuel produced by the Point Lepreau reactor on the Bay of Fundy. Moltex needs plutonium to fuel its proposed reactor. It hopes to export the technology.

Another company in New Brunswick, ARC Clean Energy, wants to reprocess the used fuel from its proposed reactor, designed to “breed” plutonium.

Ottawa has given the two companies almost $60 million, and New Brunswick more than $30 million, to develop their technology.

Click HERE to read the rest of the bulletin.

CRED-NB is a member of the SMRs Information Task force, a national coalition of groups that issues regular bulletins about so-called small modular nuclear reactors. These bulletins are sent to all MPs in Ottawa and provincial representatives in several provinces, including New Brunswick.

The WNISR annual report is a must-have reference for anyone interested in the nuclear industry. The 2023 report, launched today, includes in-depth analysis of the industry and a section on SMR development written by University of British Columbia professor M.V. Ramana. The chapter Nuclear Power vs. Renewable Energy Deployment provides an overview of the increasing gap between the development patterns of the two electricity generating technologies. As in previous reports, the 2023 WNISR traces the trajectory of a dying industry, despite efforts in Canada and other countries to keep it alive. Read or download the report (free) HERE.

CRED is a member of the SMRs Information Task Force. Here’s our latest bulletin:

Promoters and vendors of new nuclear reactors appear ready to move ahead with the generation of new varieties of long-lived radioactive wastes without having the science or social license to safely manage those wastes for hundreds of thousands of years.

The current $26 billion plan for the long-term management of Canada’s highly radioactive nuclear fuel waste is based solely on the used fuel from CANDU reactors owned by Ontario Power Generation, Hydro Quebec and New Brunswick Power. The plan, 45 years in the making but still at the concept stage, is facing strong and growing opposition by potentially affected Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

The current designs for a deep geological repository would not accommodate the radioactive wastes from SMRs given their very different dimensions, heat generation, burn-up rates, chemistry, and levels of radioactivity compared to the CANDU wastes the industry has spent decades studying. For SMR wastes, the transportation systems, the spacing of the wastes for storage, and the safety case – including the risks of unanticipated chemical reactions and nuclear criticality – will all be fundamentally different.

Read the full bulletin, in both official languages, HERE.

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