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  05 July 2007

A new report published by a team of international energy and economic experts which conclusively proves that nuclear power is neither a practical nor economically viable solution to tackling climate change.

The report, “The Economics of Nuclear Power”, commissioned by Greenpeace International, concludes that nuclear power station construction can run up to 300% over budget and, on average, take four years longer to build than planned.

Download Document

Authors:	A Report Prepared for Greenpeace International by Stephen Thomas, Antony Frogatt, Peter Bradford and David Milborrow
Date published:	02 May 2007
Format:	Adobe PDF
Number of pages:	63
ISBN:
Size:	1 Mb

Found this at: http://www.harperindex.ca/ViewArticle.cfm?Ref=0057

It seems the federal government is on the side of nuclear and big business.... Seems a little suspect.....

Nuclear energy endorsement may be linked to tar sands and climate change pressure

Unresolved questions remain about environmental implications and costs.

function Caption(src) { src.title="Natural resources minister Gary Lunn - a longtime nuclear advocate - and his boss, Stephen Harper"; return; } Ottawa, June 18, 2007 — Why is the minority Conservative government proceeding on nuclear energy at a time when it is fighting to regain public support after a difficult spring?

Canada's Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn announced Friday the Harper government's endorsement of nuclear power and its approval of going ahead with storing high-level radioactive waste underground.

"Really, what this will allow is a permanent storage and a deep geological depository," Lunn said. "This is an important decision for the government of Canada. As you know, the nuclear industry is very, very important."

For years, the lack of long-term disposal plans has hobbled the nuclear industry, which has lobbied heavily for burying waste deep. Canadians, however, have always said no when asked to have nuclear waste disposal sites in their communities. At the news conference, Lunn dismissed concerns raised by environmentalists about the risks of nuclear energy as well as economic concerns about safe storage plans.

"This is just the beginning of a long process but they (the industry) will be able to begin that process today. It will allow the fuel to be retrieved as technology moves forward and, more importantly, allow it to be monitored continuously as it's going through the storage process."

The announcement makes sense for three key corporate sectors: tar sands, nuclear and construction/development. With the government under pressure to do something about greenhouse gas emissions related to the growth of oil extraction in the Alberta tar sands, nuclear seems an ideal option.

In the June 8, 2007 issue of Executive Intelligence Review, Rob Ainsworth, of the arch-right-wing Canadian LaRouche Youth Movement reports, as have others, of "a project in the Alberta tar sands to construct two 1,100-megawatt reactors, providing power to the area, as well as heat and steam for industrial purposes." It takes an enormous amount of energy to extract oil from tar sands, and nuclear is been touted as a way to greatly reduce the amount of oil burned to support the process.

Every aspect of nuclear power development is both enormously expensive for governments and profitable for the corporations involved. "Most of the top engineering and heavy construction firms serve the energy sector in one form or another," writes Vance Cariaga in Investor's Business Daily. "Some go straight to the wellhead by offering design and management services for oil and gas production. Others build hydrocarbon processing plants, liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and nuclear power facilities."

The licensing of more reactors would also be a great boon, at potentially greater public expense, to Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, which has received subsidies of $17.5 billion over 50 years, according to the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout.

The Conservatives' announcement allows existing reactor sites to continue accumulating waste indefinitely, and it initiates a search for an "informed community" willing to host a "deep repository" for burial of wastes. It will also explore moving wastes to a central location for temporary, shallow underground storage and recycling of nuclear fuel.

As Susan Riley writes in today's Ottawa Citizen, "Apart from the experimental nature of the proposed solution, many hurdles remain — notably, finding a community desperate enough to become a nuclear dumping ground. It has been long supposed that some remote northern town would be the lucky winner, given the technological preference for disposing of the waste deep in the Canadian shield. But recent research suggests the sedimentary rock underlying much of southern Ontario would also be suitable. That said, the prospect of a bidding war between Oakville and Rosedale appears unlikely."

With these plans, the Harper government has made an unequivocal commitment to nuclear power and ignores difficult issues of radioactive wastes that have never been resolved by scientists or the Canadian public. Nuclear power remains vulnerable to human carelessness, as well as deliberate acts of terrorism or other sabotage. Even the best-designed radioactive waste repository will leak and expose future generations to radiation. The federal environmental assessment panel concluded in 1998 that from a social perspective, the safety of deep geological disposal has not been adequately demonstrated, has never been officially contradicted or disproved.

"From a technical perspective, safety of the AECL concept has been on balance adequately demonstrated for a conceptual stage of development, but from a social perspective, it has not," the report stated. "As it stands, the AECL concept for deep geological disposal has not been demonstrated to have broad public support."

Nuclear power has left unresolved environmental problems in Canada. Uranium mining has killed Saskatchewan lakes. Processing uranium has created a permanent toxic legacy in the town of Port Hope, Ontario. CANDU reactors routinely release radioactive carbon dioxide and radioactive water contaminated with tritium during their operations, polluting air and water and jeopardizing human health, as confirmed last week in a report commissioned by Greenpeace Canada.

The government announcement reflects recommendations in a report by the government-appointed Nuclear Waste Management Association, which is largely made up of nuclear industry or ex-industry personnel. The Sierra Club of Canada's Emilie Moorhouse said, "Its interests are not public health. Its interests are the promotion of this industry."

Related individuals, organizations and significant events
Intensity-based targets promote oil industry frame

Harper Conservative vs. Public Values Frame
  Long process / Unstoppable expansion
  Green / Unresolved public safety questions
  Economical / Massive subsidies

Links and sources
  Feds back underground disposal of nuclear waste, Canadian Press, June 15, 2007
  Susan Riley, Going nuclear by stealth, The Ottawa Citizen, June 18, 2007
  The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
  Canadian LaRouche Youth Movement.
  Rob Ainsworth, Will Canada Join the Rail and Nuclear Renaissance?, Executive Intelligence Review, June 8, 2007
  Vance Cariaga, Heavy Construction Firms Busy Helping Thriving Energy Sector, Investor's Business Daily, May 22, 2007
  Tyler Hamilton, Hot granite and steam could clean up oil sands, Toronto Star, May 30, 2007
  Environmental Assessment Report on High Level Waste Disposal Concept, 1998
  Chinta Puxley, Radioactive tritium in Great Lakes puts kids at risk: study, London Free Press, June 13, 2007
  Canadian Nuclear Subsidies: Fifty Years of Futile Funding, Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout

Posted: June 18, 2007

Harper Index (HarperIndex.ca) is a project of the Golden Lake Institute and the online publication StraightGoods.ca

Do Albertans really want to go nuclear in order to be the energy "security blanket" of the USA?? We need to think about this....

Iraq's oil boom isn't delayed, it's relocated to Canada

As Baghdad burns, destabilising the entire region and sending the price of oil soaring, Calgary booms

Naomi Klein
Friday June 1, 2007
The Guardian

The invasion of Iraq has set off what could be the largest oil boom in history. All the signs are there: multinationals free to gobble up national firms at will, ship unlimited profits home, enjoy leisurely "tax holidays", and pay a laughable 1% in royalties to the government.

This isn't the boom in Iraq sparked by the proposed new oil law - that will come later. This boom is already in full swing, and it is happening about as far away from the carnage in Baghdad as you can get, in the wilds of northern Alberta. For four years now, Alberta and Iraq have been connected to each other through a kind of invisible seesaw: as Baghdad burns, destabilising the entire region and sending oil prices soaring, Calgary booms.

Here is how chaos in Iraq unleashed what the Financial Times recently called "North America's biggest resources boom since the Klondike gold rush". Albertans have always known that in the northern part of their province there are vast deposits of bitumen - black, tarlike goo that is mixed up with sand, clay, water and oil. There are approximately 2.5 trillion barrels of the stuff, the largest hydrocarbon deposits in the world.

It is possible to turn Alberta's crud into crude, but it's awfully hard. One method is to mine it in vast open pits: first, forests are clear-cut, then topsoil scraped away. Next, huge machines dig out the black goop and load it into the largest dump trucks in the world (two stories high, a single wheel costs $100,000). The tar is diluted with water and solvents in giant vats, which spin it around until the oil rises to the top, while the massive tailings are dumped in ponds larger than the region's natural lakes. Another method is to separate the oil where it is: large drill-pipes push steam deep underground, which melts the tar, while another pipe sucks it out and transports it through several more stages of refining, much of it powered by natural gas.

Both techniques are costly: between $18 and $23 per barrel, just in expenses. Until quite recently, that made no economic sense. In the mid-80s, oil sold for $20 a barrel; in 1998-99, it was down to $12 a barrel. The major international players had no intention of paying more to get the oil than they could sell it for, which is why, when global oil reserves were calculated, the tar sands weren't even factored in. Everyone but a few heavily subsidised Canadian companies knew that the tar was staying put.

Then came the US invasion of Iraq. In March 2003, the price of oil reached $35 a barrel, raising the prospect of making a profit from the tar sands (the industry calls them "oil sands"). That year, the US Energy Information Administration "discovered" oil in the tar sands. It announced that Alberta - previously thought to have only 5bn barrels of oil - was actually sitting on at least 174bn "economically recoverable" barrels. The next year, Canada overtook Saudi Arabia as the leading provider of foreign oil to the US.

All this has meant that Iraq's oil boom has not been delayed; it has been relocated. All the majors, save BP, have rushed to northern Alberta: ExxonMobil, Chevron and Total, which alone plans to spend $9bn-$14bn. In April, Shell paid $8bn to take full control of its Canadian subsidiary. The town of Fort McMurray, ground zero of the boom, has nowhere to house the tens of thousands of new workers, and one company has built its own airstrip so it can fly in the people it needs.

Seventy-five percent of the oil from the tar sands flows directly to the US, prompting Brian Hall, an energy consultant with Colorado-based IHS, to call the tar sands "America's energy security blanket". There is a certain irony there: the US invaded Iraq at least in part to secure access to its oil. Now, thanks partly to economic blowback from that disastrous decision, it has found the "security" it was looking for right next door.

It has become fashionable to predict that high oil prices will spark a free-market response to climate change, setting off an "explosion of innovation in alternatives", as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote recently. Alberta puts the lie to that claim. High prices have indeed led to an R&D extravaganza, but it is squarely focused on figuring out how to get the dirtiest possible oil out of the hardest-to-reach places. Shell, for instance, is working on a "novel thermal recovery process" - embedding large electric heaters in the deposits and literally cooking the earth.

And that's the Alberta tar sands for you: the industry already contributing to climate change more than any other is frantically turning up the heat. The process of refining bitumen emits three to four times the greenhouse gases produced by extracting oil from traditional wells, making the tar sands the largest single contributor to Canada's growth in greenhouse gas emissions. The $100bn in projected investments from the tar sands have also turned Canada into a global climate renegade.

That money is the primary reason why, at next week's G8 summit in Heiligendamm, my country's oil-friendly prime minister, Stephen Harper, will join George Bush in opposing all serious attempts to cap or reduce greenhouse gases. Back at home, his government fully supports the oil industry's plans to more than triple tar sands production by 2020, with no end in sight. If prices stay high, it will soon become profitable to extract an additional 141bn barrels from the tar sands, which would place the largest oil reserves in the world in Alberta.

Developing the sands is devouring trees and wildlife - the Pembina Institute, the leading authority on the tar sands' environmental impact, warns that boreal forests covering "an area as large as the state of Florida" risk being levelled. Now it turns out that the main river feeding the industry the massive quantities of water it needs is in jeopardy. Climate scientists say that dropping water levels are the result - fittingly enough - of climate warming.

Contemplating the collective madness in Alberta - a scene even the Financial Times has labelled "some dystopian fantasy" - it strikes me that Canada has ended up with more than Iraq's displaced oil boom. We have its elusive weapons of mass destruction too. They are out near Fort McMurray, in the jet-black goo beneath the earth's crust. And with the help of trucks, pipes, steam and gas, these weapons are being detonated.

Wednesday July 25, 2007

To the Editor;
Re:Energy Alberta using letters to fuel Propaganda.
My intent in my previous letter was not to correspond with Energy Alberta but to raise community awareness.
Energy Albeta "claims " it is not their intent to mislead. If this was true why are "sales pitches" being promoted as public information sessions?
This completely goes against informed consent whereby people have the opportunity to receive true and unbiased information from professionals in all related fields, and to hear about the associated risks to personal health, environment and livelihood.
There is much vital information being suppressed by Energy Alberta and Woodlands reps.
Although Energy Alberta may welcome my questions I am informed enough to understand it is their goal to further this proposal regardless of facts and evidence available from countless scientists, doctors, environmentalists and politicians across the world.
This was made blatantly obvious in the one-sided, poorly-presented, public "information’ sessions.

Energy Alberta claim they would not knowingly lie to anyone. I find this hard to swallow as I am looking at the handouts from them toting the CANDU ACR-1000 as "tried and true technology" when in truth it is no more than a design on paper, a completely experimental reactor which has never before been licensed.
Does Whitecourt truly want to be the test site for an experimental, untested reactor, twice the size of other CANDUs'?
If it is not their intent to mislead then why are residents not alerted to the fact that once they are in the nuclear program they would also be considered a storage site for nuclear waste from all over Canada?
Energy Alberta stated it is "unfortunate that they were unable to answer all of my questions to my satisfaction."
There were many at the meeting who felt serious concerns were not addressed.
Should it not be up to the developer and council pushing this project to address questions and concerns to the satisfaction of the public? Is it not up to them to "prove" they are sufficiently educated in nuclear energy and the associated risks before they make such serious decisions on our behalf?
If they are such experts on nuclear energy that they feel entitled to approve this proposal, should they not have the ability and education to respond to all concerns?
I contacted sources such as Nobel prize winner Helen Caldicott and the Nuclear Policy Research Foundation , the Pembina Institute and Dr. Gordon Edward of the Canadian Coalition For Nuclear Responsibility, and while Energy Alberta was unable to answer serious concerns these groups of unbiased and acclaimed professionals were more than able to answer all my questions.
If the purpose of public meetings is education and information I would suggest that council invite such specialists in the field of Nuclear Energy to consult with the public.
I have e-mailed council and our MP with contacts for numerous acclaimed spokespeople, (doctors, scientists, Nobel prize winners, environmentalists) many of whom would be willing to present in our area and have received no response.
I would suggest that residents question the motives of council in suppressing this information and demand that all risks be sufficiently addressed before proceeding further.
Melissa Brade
Onoway AB

This is a very interesting program displaying several sustainable energy devices. How empowering to generate your own energy!!! :)

Enjoy!

This is indeed hopeful news for the people of Alberta. Now is the time to become educated on the issue of nuclear. This will involve hearing from ALL sides of the debate, not just the propagandists, "scientists", politicians and business people who have a vested financial interest in selling our community on the technology! It is interesting to note that the PR rep for EAC does not favor a plebisite on this issue. We wonder why???? Alberta community withdraws support for nuclear plant until issue put to voters

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WHITECOURT, Alta. (CP) - An Alberta community has withdrawn its letter of support for a proposed nuclear power plant until after the issue can be put to voters.

Woodlands County council penned a letter last month endorsing a plan by Energy Alberta Corp. to construct two 1,100-megawatt nuclear power generation plants - the first in the province.

Councillor Leann Caron said the municipality has retracted the letter after 300 people signed a petition saying they want more information on the project.

The letter of support will now be put to voters in a plebiscite, she said.

"We want our people to be able to make a decision themselves rather than the seven of us making the decision," Caron said.

"I think it is too important an issue for us (council) to say yes or no to."

Mayor Jim Rennie said retracting the letter doesn't mean the county is against building the plant.

Concern about the proposal prompted people in the area northwest of Edmonton to hold a community meeting earlier this month to get more information about nuclear power.

Alison Jamison of the Pembina Institute told the crowd about the huge amount of fresh water that is needed by nuclear plants and the problem of disposing of nuclear waste.

Guy Huntingford, a spokesman for Energy Alberta, questioned the need for a plebiscite.

"I can't say that that would be our preference," he said.

"A plebiscite tends to create a flashpoint and that doesn't really give you time to educate people."

The company has partnered with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the federal Crown corporation that makes Candu reactors, and says it has lined up financing and clients.

However, Energy Alberta is still working on its site application to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

Last month, the company flew Rennie, Whitecourt mayor Trevor Thain and 14 municipal counsellors to New Brunswick on a private jet to tour a nuclear facility.

Following the trip, the councils of Woodland County and the town of Whitecourt wrote qualified letters of endorsement for the project.

Thain said the county's decision to retract its letter of support could put the project in jeopardy.

He said the backpedalling by Woodlands County sends the wrong message.

Energy Alberta officials have said the plants could be built in eight to 10 years, would provide a stable supply of electricity and would not produce very much greenhouse gas.

The last nuclear plant in Canada was built more than 25 years ago.

A decision on exactly where in Alberta the company wants to build the plants is expected to be announced later this month.

This from Leonardo Dicaprio's 11th Hour POD.....

Easy ways to reduce your impact:

1) Use Compact Fluorescent Bulbs. Replace 3 frequently used light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. Save 300 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $60 per year.

2) Inflate Your Tires. Keep the tires on your car adequately inflated. Check them monthly. Save 250 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $840 per year.

3) Change Your Air Filter. Check your car’s air filter monthly. Save 800 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $130 per year.

4) Fill the Dishwasher. Run your dishwasher only with a full load. Save 100 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $40 per year.

5) Use Recycled Paper. Make sure your printer paper is 100% post consumer recycled paper. Save 5 lbs. of carbon dioxide per ream of paper.

6) Adjust Your Thermostat. Move your heater thermostat down two degrees in winter and up two degrees in the summer. Save 2000 lbs of carbon dioxide and $98 per year.

7) Check Your Waterheater. Keep your water heater thermostat no higher than 120°F. Save 550 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $30 per year.

8) Change the AC Filter. Clean or replace dirty air conditioner filters as recommended. Save 350 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $150 per year.

9) Take Shorter Showers. Showers account for 2/3 of all water heating costs. Save 350 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $99 per year.

10) Install a Low-Flow Showerhead. Using less water in the shower means less energy to heat the water. Save 350 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $150.

11) Buy Products Locally. Buy locally and reduce the amount of energy required to drive your products to your store.

12) Buy Energy Certificates. Help spur the renewable energy market and cut global warming pollution by buying wind certificates and green tags.

13) Buy Minimally Packaged Goods. Less packaging could reduce your garbage by about 10%. Save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide and $1,000 per year.

14) Buy a Hybrid Car. The average driver could save 16,000 lbs. of CO2 and $3,750 per year driving a hybrid.

15) Buy a Fuel Efficient Car. Getting a few extra miles per gallon makes a big difference. Save thousands of lbs. of CO2 and a lot of money per year.

16) Carpool When You Can. Own a big vehicle? Carpooling with friends and co-workers saves fuel. Save 790 lbs. of carbon dioxide and hundreds of dollars per year.

17) Reduce Garbage. Buy products with less packaging and recycle paper, plastic and glass. Save 1,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide per year.

18) Plant a Tree. Trees suck up carbon dioxide and make clean air for us to breathe. Save 2,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide per year.

19) Insulate Your Water Heater. Keep your water heater insulated could save 1,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $40 per year.

20) Replace Old Appliances. Inefficient appliances waste energy. Save hundreds of lbs. of carbon dioxide and hundreds of dollars per year.

21) Weatherize Your Home. Caulk and weather strip your doorways and windows. Save 1,700 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $274 per year.

22) Use a Push Mower. Use your muscles instead of fossil fuels and get some exercise. Save 80 lbs of carbon dioxide per year.

23) Unplug Un-Used Electronics. Even when electronic devices are turned off, they use energy. Save over 1,000 lbs of carbon dioxide and $256 per year.

24) Put on a Sweater. Instead of turning up the heat in your home, wear more clothes Save 1,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $250 per year.

25) Insulate Your Home. Make sure your walls and ceilings are insulated. Save 2,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $245 per year.

26) Air Dry Your Clothes. Line-dry your clothes in the spring and summer instead of using the dryer. Save 700 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $75 per year.

27) Switch to a Tankless Water Heater. Your water will be heated as you use it rather than keeping a tank of hot water. Save 300 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $390 per year.

28) Buy Organic Food. The chemicals used in modern agriculture pollute the water supply, and require energy to produce.

29) Bring Cloth Bags to the Market. Using your own cloth bag instead of plastic or paper bags reduces waste and requires no additional energy.

This from http://www.cnp.ca/resources/nuc-subsidies-at-50-ex-sum.html
Canadian Nuclear Subsidies
Fifty Years of Futile Funding

Executive Summary

The full text in pdf format is available here (320K)

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) is the federal crown corporation that designs and markets CANDU reactors. On AECL’s 50th anniversary President Robert Van Adel ranted in the propaganda style of the 1950s about the “unending promise of nuclear power”. He confuses wishful thinking with fact, and hope with reality. Fact: AECL is a financial basket case that has received $17.5 billion in subsidies already, and they want more. Reality: after a 50 year track record of technical and financial failure, it’s safe to assume this pattern will not change.

In 2001-2002 the federal government increased AECL’s annual subsidy to $211.2 million — the largest amount in 15 years. AECL employment has grown to 4000, the highest level in since 1994. This is a dramatic rejection of the government’s 1996 Budget Plan, which capped AECL subsidies at $100 million per year. Prime Minister Chrétien has evidently made the restoration of nuclear subsidies one of his parting legacies for Canadian taxpayers. No wonder AECL describes Chrétien as “an enthusiastic and long-time supporter of AECL and CANDU”.

AECL President Van Adel is reorganizing the company on an “enterprise model”. But a crown corporation dependent on massive government subsidies cannot really be based on a free enterprise model, or have a truly commercial culture. Van Adel talks about the “sustained investment” needed to turn AECL around. Unfortunately for Canadian taxpayers, “sustained investment” means more public subsidies.

Nuclear industry propaganda has recently focused on the false claim of a “nuclear renaissance”. Following the introduction of electricity competition in the United States, utilities could write off much of their nuclear debt as ‘stranded costs’, allowing older nuclear plants to sell at a fraction of their cost and continue operating. The “nuclear renaissance” was really a nuclear bailout. Ratepayers are still being forced to pay for stranded costs, and there are no firm proposals in the U.S. for any new nuclear plants. The reason is simple: new nuclear plants are twice the cost of natural gas plants.

High cost is not the only argument against nuclear power. Nuclear power is a security nightmare. Terrorists don’t need nuclear bombs if they can cause a meltdown at a nuclear power plant. Nuclear power is not a “clean” technology -- radioactive emissions and radioactive waste cause cancer and birth defects; there is always the risk of a catastrophic accident like Chernobyl; and nuclear weapons proliferation is a constant danger. Nuclear power was also rejected as a solution to climate change at the 2001 Climate Change Conference in Bonn. Nuclear power is in conflict with Canada’s commitment to the Kyoto Protocol -- renewable energy and efficiency technologies are cheaper, cleaner, and safer.

With no public debate, the Cabinet has given AECL over $200 million to design a new reactor prototype called the Advanced CANDU Reactor (ACR). AECL claims it will be cheaper and find a ready market. We’ve heard this before over AECL’s 50-year history of foul-ups... the Organic Cooled Reactor in Manitoba was a technological dead-end; the CANDU-Boiling Light Water Reactor at Gentilly, Québec, used ordinary water as coolant like the ACR -- it was a disaster that operated less than 200 days and cost taxpayers $126 million plus design costs; the Slowpoke Energy System cost $45 million to design, but nobody wanted a small reactor for a furnace; the CANDU 3 design cost $75 million for a ‘smaller and cheaper’ reactor (like the ACR), but nobody wanted to risk an untested design; the CANDU 9 design costs were kept secret, but it was never built after South Korea canned its CANDU program; and the two MAPLE reactors at Chalk River have been another AECL fiasco, with start-up delayed over four years. AECL’s next proposal for a publicly funded nuclear mega-project is the $500 million Canadian Neutron Facility (CNF) reactor to replace the aging NRU reactor in 2005. There is no real need for the CNF reactor because research can be conducted at other international facilities. Given AECL’s unparalleled history of incompetence and failure, it is throwing good money after bad to provide $200 million in public funds for the Advanced CANDU Reactor, or $500 million for the CNF reactor.

CANDU reactors have been breaking down far earlier than their expected 40 year lifetimes. After 20 years or less, major refurbishment is needed that costs as much or more than the original cost of the plant. As a primary consultant, AECL has been blamed for yet another fiasco in the refurbishment of Ontario Power Generation’s Pickering A Nuclear Station. The start-up of the first reactor has been delayed three years, and costs have escalated from $800 million to $2.5 billion for all four reactors.

AECL devised a refurbishment plan for New Brunswick Power’s Point Lepreau nuclear plant. In September 2002 the New Brunswick Public Utilities Board recommended against the $845 million proposal, saying that it was too risky and too expensive. Federal taxpayers carry of the risk if AECL fouls up the project. Yet in order to push the project ahead, AECL is now asking the federal government to accept even more risk or become an equity partner. The Cabinet should just say no to yet another nuclear money pit. The Hydro-Québec Board of Directors is expected to decide in 2003 on whether to refurbish its Gentilly 2 reactor.

AECL has always promised financial salvation through CANDU exports, but only 12 reactors have been sold -- less than 3% of the world total. In 1996, AECL said “our goal is to secure ten CANDU sales over the next ten years”. Since then, only three reactors have been sold -- two to China in 1996, and one to Romania in 2003. Cernavoda-2 was just the completion of a 1980 deal, but it still required a $328 million guarantee through the Canada Account of Export Development Canada -- a direct hit for Canadian taxpayers. The two Qinshan reactors sold to China also received $1.5 billion in Canada Account financing. Reactor sales are too big and too risky for private sector institutions, so why should the government risk public funds? AECL’s recent loss of sales in Turkey, Australia and South Korea underscore that CANDU exports are a dead-end. There is no possibility of further reactor sales in the foreseeable future.

AECL’s deadly legacy for Canada is radioactive waste and contamination. The Province of Manitoba has protested the extended length of AECL’s 60-year clean-up of the Whiteshell Laboratories. AECL won’t even release its clean-up plans for the Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario’s Ottawa valley, and the government refuses to conduct an environmental assessment on the overall decommissioning plan for the site. Radiation contamination from 50 years of sloppy practices has spread to the Ottawa River, source of recreation and drinking water for millions in Québec and Ontario.

AECL celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2002 along with MAD Magazine and Sugar Frosted Flakes. Unlike those two profitable businesses, AECL’s most notable achievement in 50 years has been its ability to suck up huge subsidies from the federal government like a nuclear-powered vacuum cleaner. After fifty years of futile funding, it’s time to pull the plug.

January 2003

 
Comments on the media, nuclear power and the nuclear industry from noble prize nominee, Dr. Helen Caldicott.....

We were passed this article and thought we would share it here...

The Bulletin Online

            Global Security News & Analysis

 

 

NO TO NUCLEAR ENERGY        

By Toshiyuki Toyoda – February 12, 2007

 

Last October, I received a letter from the Bulletin’s Board of Directors inviting me to make a presentation at a conference on the Future of Nuclear Energy in Chicago.  I was a little bit surprised that they offered to cover all travel expenses.  It was hard to imagine the Bulletin with an abundance of funding.  In any case, due to health reasons, I couldn’t attend.  Instead, I sent the following contribution:

 

From the invitation, I understand that the main theme of this conference is the future of nuclear energy during the next 20 years.  What I would like to say is that the next 20 years could cause a disastrous 2,000 years for humankind if we allow a resurgence of the nuclear energy industry worldwide.  If my health permitted -–and if my old friends Bernard T. Feld and David r. Inglis were still alive – I would be at the conference with them, chastening those who harbour a malicious plan to exploit climate change for the benefit of the nuclear industry.

 

When nuclear energy was first introduced, government officials and so-called experts from elite institutions assured its safety and economic success.  Now we know that they lied, or they were totally ignorant.

 

We witnessed nuclear disasters at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and more.  One thing common in these nuclear disasters is that authorities, i.e., governments and nuclear industries, always tried to hide essential information necessary to assess the scale of danger and also the true causes of the disasters. 

 

Remarks make by those pro-nuclear experts always underestimate the possible danger of the nuclear disaster, and they are never shy to deceive people.  I remember one of these experts (perhaps a professor at a prestigious university) said that because the probability of a nuclear accident is much smaller than a jumbo jet crash, it is ridiculous to worry.  I believe he deliberately avoided discussing the expectation value.  For college students who learned probability theory, it should be obvious that the relevant quantity is the expectation value and not the probability itself.  But for common people, it may not be.  I think this example typifies the general attitude of those pro-nuclear experts.

 

Some time ago in Japan, an official institution of a pro-nuclear group circulated hundreds of copies of a promotional video for children.  In the video, it was shown that plutonium was so safe that one could even drink it!  When I heard the story, I couldn’t believe that a human, particularly one who certainly knew the danger of plutonium, could make such a devilish propaganda video.  I suspect that similar deceiving propaganda is distributed worldwide.

 

Even though they are dishonest and shamelessly indifferent to the future welfare of humankind, they are protected to lie under the guard of secrecy for national security, because nuclear technology is inherently connected to nuclear weapons.  The amount of energy released in a single nuclear reaction is on the order of 1,000,000 electron volts, while the typical chemical reaction yields only a few electron volts.  This enormous amount of energy makes a nuclear reaction particularly suitable for destructive purposes and not for peaceful uses.

 

The amount of disastrous energy is also emitted from nuclear waste for hundreds of years.  One can see the risk of nuclear waste vividly in the recent brief prepared by Greenpeace (The Nuclear Waste Crisis in France, Greenpeace Briefing Document, May 20, 2006).  Everywhere else in the world will face this same problem is we allow further nuclear power plants.  We have no right to leave dangerously radioactive high-level nuclear waste for generations for thousands of years.  That would be the ultimate sin to the future of humankind and to the future of this planet.

 

You may ask that if nuclear energy is excluded, what alternatives do we have?  The answer is given in a book written by Inglis in 1978, Wind Power and Other Energy Options.  It seems obvious to me that governments and industries have deliberately undermined such energy options.  Their sin should never be forgiven.