Back in the late 1950's, ideas for the use of small nuclear reactors for various purposes were in vogue. During that period, when I worked for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, I heard speculation over the possible use of atomic energy to run our autos, heat our houses, lift our rockets to the heavens. Many of these ideas were so wild, they were quickly dropped. However, some small reactors were designed and used for university research projects, medical and industrial isotope production and even nuclear submarine propulsion.  

Small nuclear reactors can range in power output from less that one up to several hundred megawatts.

More recently, prospects for a so-called nuclear renaissance have revitalized speculation about the design and use of small reactors in Canada.  For example, in an interview with CBC News, in February, 2009, Premier Brad Wall said  “... he hoped Saskatchewan could play a role developing small reactor technology. He went on to say the provincial government might be able to devote some resources to research and development in that area.”            
A report by Saskatchewan’s Uranium  Development Partnership, (UDP) included an upbeat statement that  “because they require little or no refueling and produce both heat and electricity, small reactors could eventually compete with small-scale diesel, oil and gas generation as a power alternative in remote sites.”  The report went on to state that, “Saskatchewan has the opportunity to participate in this market by partnering with a commercial technology developer on a demonstration project.”

Ah, but–the history of small reactors in Canada includes some very expensive “lemons,” something that should give pause to anyone seriously contemplating getting into that kind of business.

As an example, one of those not so successful small reactor efforts was the SLOWPOKE 3, a brainchild of Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd. (AECL).

The Slowpoke became an issue for me in 1986, when I was a spokesperson for the Concerned Citizens’ of Manitoba  (CCM.), Canada, a nuclear waste watchdog group.  After years of our lobbying, the Manitoba provincial government was poised to pass a bill which would prohibit the burial or long-term storage of high level nuclear waste in the Province.

AECL officials were quite upset over the upcoming legislation, one of their concerns being that the bill contained a clause which prohibited the storage of high-level nuclear waste originating from outside the Province for more than seven days. This, according to the AECL testimony, would result in its inability to store the waste from its new "Safe Low Power Kritical (sic) Experiment," (a.k.a. SLOWPOKE) at its Whiteshell, Manitoba based nuclear research station.

The SLOWPOKE 3 was to be a small (10 Megawatt) heat and isotope producing nuclear reactor that AECL was actively marketing around the world, even though it was still in the early stages of untested design. AECL maintained that the pending legislation would force it to set up waste storage facilities elsewhere at additional cost, and that Manitoba would lose "commercial benefits" from the SLOWPOKE 3 program.

It appeared that AECL planned to retrieve the waste from all the SLOWPOKE 3 reactors that it expected to sell in Canada, and abroad, and bring it to Manitoba for storage!  Nevertheless, the Manitoba legislation was enacted into law.

However, that did not stop AECL from promoting its mini-nuke.

I recalled reading an article in the Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba, Leader of June 15, 1982, headlined "Nuclear Furnaces Could Soon Be Heating Your House." It went on to describe the small, unattended, SLOWPOKE reactor which could heat a building and require refueling only once every five years.

"Safe Low Power Kritical Experiment!"  It was fascinating that AECL chose to use the word "Safe," to describe its new "baby" reactor. It left me with more apprehensions than I already had about its large power reactors, with the acronym, "CANDU," which lacked that vital word “Safe.” Would they now change CANDU to "SCANDU"?

Also, I wondered why the use of the word "experiment." After all, who wants to buy a radioactive "experiment" to heat their community centre or other buildings?

A demonstration 2-megawatt version of the SLOWPOKE 3 reactor began very low-power operation at AECL's Pinawa, Manitoba, Whiteshell research station on July 15, 1987. But well before that small demonstration model was up and running, the Crown Corporation was already actively marketing the non-existent 10 mw version in such places as China, Korea, Europe and Canada's own Northwest Territory.

By January, 1988, AECL had signed a memorandum of agreement with Hungary for a potential SLOWPOKE 3 sale.

A May 29, 1986, Winnipeg Free Press article headlined "Radioactive Waste Repository for Manitoba Planned by Agency," really caught our attention. AECL’s idea was to remove spent fuel from each SLOWPOKE 3 reactor every five to eight years. The thirty or forty fuel bundles would be placed in concrete cylinders at its research facilities at Pinawa, Manitoba and Chalk River, Ontario. Eventually, it was reported, the waste would go into the (still non-existent) permanent underground waste repository.  CCM took the position that the Province should not permit storage of SLOWPOKE 3 waste and that (it should) ". . . block the buildup of anything which tends to take us closer to a nuclear waste repository in Manitoba."

CCM considered that if AECL started bringing its foreign customers' SLOWPOKE 3 excrement back to Canada, it would be well on the road to the full-scale commercial international radioactive waste dump about which CCM had been warning the public for so many years.

According to the article, Provincial Environment Minister Gerard Lecuyer was surprised by this development and indicated that ". . his initial reaction was one of opposition."

CCM's interest in the SLOWPOKE 3 grew further as a result of another article in the Winnipeg Free Press on July 24, 1987, which reported AECL's Metro Dmytriw as saying that the Corporation had received an initial inquiry about the purchase of one from an interested party in Manitoba.

According to that article, Dmytriw also suggested that a SLOWPOKE 3 nuclear reactor might be a replacement for Winnipeg's aging central steam heating plant. The article pointed out that AECL had held no discussions with the city nor did city officials express any interest in the idea at the time.

Other groups had also been criticizing the SLOWPOKE 3. The Montreal Gazette, May 22, 1986, reported Norm Rubin of Energy Probe in Toronto as saying . . .(the idea is) "crazy." Rubin wondered how, in the event of an accident, a hospital or shopping mall could be evacuated, especially since the SLOWPOKE 3 would operate "unattended" for some periods of time.

The same Gazette article included similar concerns expressed by Gordon Edwards, President of the Montreal-based Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. Both Rubin and Edwards pointed to the unsolved nuclear waste problem as a good reason for not proceeding with the development and marketing of the SLOWPOKE 3 nuclear reactor.

Aside from the waste, safety, and economic questions surrounding the SLOWPOKE 3, CCM expressed concern over reactor security. An unattended reactor operating in a small community or a building in a large city could present unparalleled opportunities for anyone who might want to steal high-level nuclear waste. (The design called for spent fuel rods to be stored within each reactor, until removed to some other location.)  

Other possible acts might include sabotaging the untended reactors themselves, or pumping out the water (which becomes more radioactive as the reactor operates), into a municipal system. Unforeseen and unanticipated damage and acts of terrorism are a real possibility when one considers the many unstable political situations around the world.

Even large power reactors have their security problems. According to the October 2, 1987 Critical Mass Energy Project's newsletter, Public Citizen, in the US, "Dozens of security breaches occurred at nuclear plant sites in 1986. These include vandalism and sabotage directed at reactor operations; use of firearms on plant sites by unauthorized persons; and increasing drug use among nuclear workers." Also, some workers have been found, literally, asleep at the switch.

My personal involvement with the SLOWPOKE, became even more intense when my wife, Phyl, and I moved from Manitoba to Québec, in 1988.

We had just arrived at the  home of friends in the town of Beebe, in the Eastern Townships of Québec. It was March 15, 1988, and we were on a house hunting expedition.

Somewhat tired from the day's journey, which included a six-hour long delayed flight from Winnipeg, and a long drive in a rented car through a heavy snow storm from Montréal, we looked forward to some relaxation and good conversation that evening.

Our friends, however, stood by quietly watching, as we stared incredulously at the March 14 edition of the Sherbrooke, Québec, Record, which was propped up on their dining table.

Plastered across the front page was a story about AECL's plan to construct and operate a ten megawatt SLOWPOKE ("Safe Low Energy Critical Experiment") nuclear reactor at the  Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke (CHUS), the large University Medical Centre located in Québec’s Eastern Townships.

I quickly scanned the story, which someone had leaked to the newspaper, revealing AECL's plan to build the reactor for the stated purpose of heating the hospital.

AECL was to own and operate it, and the hospital would pay the heating bill. Most importantly, the reactor, the first of its kind, was planned to serve as a demonstration based on the two megawatt version (which we knew was still nowhere near full power)at the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment at Pinawa, Manitoba.

"I don't believe this," and "You've got to be kidding," were but a few (printable!) comments made by the two of us, as we read the lead article.

Our activities in Manitoba were well known to some of the environmental and peace activists in the Townships area. We had made contact with them during the 1985 controversy over a possible U.S. nuclear waste dump in northern Vermont, very close to the Canadian border.

When some of them heard that we were moving into the area, we were asked to join them in dealing with the new-to-Sherbrooke SLOWPOKE 3 issue.

Thus, a short time after our arrival into what we had hoped would surely be a relaxed new start in retirement life, Phyl and I were involved in strategy meetings with peace and ecology groups, a meeting with AECL and hospital officials, news conferences and media interviews.

It was as if we had never left Winnipeg.

Since my concern about the so-called SLOWPOKE 3 reactor had already started to grow over the past several years in Winnipeg, it seemed somehow appropriate to be involved in this new controversy.

The more I learned about the new mini-nuke, the less I liked it: It would use highly-enriched uranium which must be imported from other countries. It would create high-level radioactive waste, which would contain weapons usable plutonium. It would be marketed anywhere in the world. It would operate unattended for periods of time, leaving it vulnerable to those with malicious intent. Also, it would routinely emit radioactive gasses into the environment.

Yet, the plan now was to place such a machine in, of all places, a large teaching hospital, where, as is true of anything else designed by humans, accidents could, and did happen.

When Phyl and I finally moved from Winnipeg, we had put our belongings in storage as we continued to search for a house in the Eastern Townships. As it turned out, we did not find a house we liked before we sold our place in Winnipeg. So, we rented a furnished mobile home in a farming area near the town of Beebe.

We brought the essentials for living with us in our camper van which pulled our old 1960s'tent trailer from Winnipeg to the Townships.

However, I had packed one box of assorted files on nuclear waste issues in the tent trailer. Now, I am not especially a mystic, but it turned out that one of those files was full of papers on the SLOWPOKE reactor! It contained information which later proved to be very useful in shaping future events.

However, it now seemed as if our dream of "peace, quiet and contemplation" in the rolling hills of the Eastern Townships was not to be. [Our histories showed that we were probably never cut out for that kind of a life anyway!] For us, it would be the "Year of the SLOWPOKE."

The minutes of a February 16, 1988 meeting between AECL and the CHUS Hospital Board of Directors include an AECL quote that ". . . an appropriate strategy produces very little public reaction."

This time, however, AECL's "appropriate strategy" obviously did not take into account that someone(s) high up within the hospital's staff itself might have more than a few misgivings about the venture and would leak the information to the media.

The Townships Peace Group asked us to attend a May 2, 1988 meeting at the CHUS with hospital officials, AECL representatives, and persons concerned about the SLOWPOKE project.

We were already seated at the board room conference table when the AECL contingent arrived. Several AECL officials present from the Pinawa, Manitoba, Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment (WNRE), were visibly shaken when they saw us there. Of course, they did not know that we had very recently moved from Winnipeg to Québec. "What are you doing here?" asked one of them. "We live here." I retorted. I'll never forget the
astonished look on their faces.

The Robbins, former Concerned Citizens of Manitoba stalwarts, were probably the last two people they wanted to see that morning!

They were no doubt unhappy about the presence of others who also were at the meeting, including Gordon Edwards, well known nuclear critic from Montréal, and Max Krell, a local university professor, (and a very concerned nuclear physicist).

The hospital officials and AECL reminded me of a group of kids who had just got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I imagine that they all realized at that moment, that their "appropriate strategy" might have just gone down the tube!

Although good manners were observed throughout, it became quite obvious that the citizens' representatives were not going to buy in on the proposal.

It did not take long for a coalition of peace and environmental groups and other concerned individuals to take shape in the Eastern Townships. The group used the same initials used by the hospital, i.e., the "Coalition CHUS" (Continue Hydro, not Uranium for our Safety, or, in French, Continuer l'Hydro non l'Uranium pour notre Sécurité.)

After the initial flurry of organizational and media activity, Phyl and I settled into a relatively benign role of "behind the scenes" support to the mostly French speaking coalition. But I had one more moment in the spotlight, which Phyl provided for me.

She had carefully reviewed the contents of the SLOWPOKE file that we had brought with us from Winnipeg, and had found an amazingly frank, and startling statement by John Hillborn, the inventor of the SLOWPOKE reactor, concerning the possibility of nuclear accidents.

In a June, 1981 paper he co-authored for the Second Annual Meeting of the Canadian Nuclear Society in Ottawa,(AECL document No. 7438), Hillborn said that, "It is now well known that people will accept frequent, small disasters more readily than rare catastrophes."

Airplane crashes were used as an example. The paper continued,
"Although we may have to endure the legacy of Three Mile Island for many years, a decentralized system of small reactors which effectively eliminates the possibility of a single big accident may have a significant advantage in licensing, insuring, and gaining public acceptance. Eventually the public may accept accidents to small reactors to the same extent that they accept fires, explosions, and airplane crashes, as long as the consequences are not obviously worse. It would be unrealistic however, to expect many communities to welcome nuclear reactors within their boundaries until there are severe regional shortages of gas and electricity."

On June 22, 1988, I read this statement, without comment, at the Coalition's first press conference. The media jumped on it. The following day the quote was used in the lead editorial in the Sherbrooke Record . Hilborn's statement became one of the Coalition's, and the media's favorite items. It was an excellent example of the fact that one of our most powerful weapons against AECL was its own prose.

I was not alone in finding Hilborn's statement to be a chilling one, with its assessment of public reaction to "small" nuclear catastrophes. The 1980s witnessed bitter and protracted conflict and public concern over radioactive spills from discarded medical equipment in scrap yards, radioactive soil in housing developments, radioactive materials dropping from space
satellites, and missing quantities of plutonium.

The fact that there is no safe level of radiation was understood by the public. Increasingly, evidence points to negative health effects from the most negligible levels of radiation. And the public has become aware of the consequences from nuclear radiation in whatever forms and amounts. Even the negative side of natural radiation has become more evident. There is nothing to suggest that the public will, in Hilborn's terms, easily accept "small" nuclear disasters.

Coalition CHUS continued to raise questions about the safety of the reactor. An exchange of correspondence between an official of Canada's Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) and myself, revealed that the so-called "nuclear regulators" had no(!) safety information on the reactor. Their October 5, 1988 letter to me stated that "It is likely that the 10-mw reactor will be significantly different from the (2-mw) SDR." The letter also noted that "At this time the AECB does not have any detailed design information on the proposed 10-mw installation."
Not only was the 10-megawatt SLOWPOKE 3 an "experiment" in the true sense of the word, even its supposed prototype 2-mw version, at the WNRE, was still in its embryonic stages. AECB had reviewed that reactor and requested that AECL take a number of significant steps to improve its safety.

As the SLOWPOKE issue developed and the Coalition CHUS quickly grew during the Summer and Autumn of 1988, Phyl and I continued to provide it with advice, moral support, and assistance in developing letters and fact sheets

I was absolutely astounded at the energy and the effectiveness of the anti-SLOWPOKE coalition. Something was happening all the time. Meetings, mailings, radio and TV coverage, debates, button and t-shirts sales --- just about every legitimate, democratic, non-violent form of protest and expression was taking place.

By October, 1988, the movement had acquired a life of its own. There were so many media events, activities, and speakers' appearances going on that it was difficult just to keep track of them all.

As Coalition CHUS rapidly expanded, Phyl and I continued work in our behind the scenes role to supply information and ideas. For example, in one of her fact sheets Phyl included information about AECL's own stated policy of excluding pregnant women and small children from tours and open houses at the WNRE, which contained the 2 megawatt "prototype" of the SLOWPOKE.

Pregnant women and small children visit the CHUS medical centre every day for medical treatment. Would not a ten megawatt reactor at the hospital provide at least equal, if not greater risk? The point was not lost on the nurses at the hospital. Their union passed a unanimous resolution opposing the reactor, declaring it a public health risk.

By November, 1988, coalition support was estimated at twenty-five thousand, with almost ten organizations a week joining our forces. Much of the opposition came from the hospital staff itself. Politicians were falling over themselves to come onside.

The handwriting on the wall was writ large and clear. On December 20, 1988, we received the best Christmas present of all: the hospital Board of Directors announced its withdrawal from the SLOWPOKE project, a decision taken in spite of AECL's initial offer to absorb the five-to-seven million-dollar capital cost. Coalition CHUS had done its work well.

AECL folded its tents and left Sherbrooke. It had lost another round in its struggle to market its mini-nuke.

AECL's public relations and sales forces had again failed to convince any community that they had invented the perfect nuclear heating machine; one which they promoted as being inherently safe, and which would operate in the midst of a populated area without negative consequences, for at long as 30 years -- - even though the design of the reactor had not yet been finalized or approved!

Undaunted, the federal Crown Corporation continued to seek a location for a full-scale demonstration SLOWPOKE 3 to enhance the reactor's credibility in the eyes of potential foreign customers. But no one was buying. After two more failed attempts (one at a G.E. plant in Peterborough, Ontario, and another lengthy one at the University of Saskatchewan), the marketing project stalled.

A few years later, the two megawatt "prototype" at WNRE (which had never operated at full strength) was shut down. By November 1991, and forty-five million dollars later, the entire SLOWPOKE 3 project was consigned to oblivion.

In a 2007 article on “ Nuclear Smoke and Mirrors,” Jim Harding, a retired University of Regina, professor of environmental and justice studies commented on some of the Canadian reactor designs.

He wrote that “... the list of botched AECL designs is lengthy. There was the Organic Cooled Reactor in Manitoba, which was an expensive dead end. There was the Candu Boiling Light Water Reactor in Québec, which (without even including design costs) was a $126 million disaster. Then there was the Slowpoke Energy System, for which design work cost $45 million, which didn’t work properly. Next came the Candu-3, for which design work cost $75 million, which no one wanted. And the Candu-9, with design costs still secret, which was a no-go in South Korea. More recently AECL built the Maple Reactor at Chalk River, which threatens to become another technological and financial fiasco since the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is refusing to even license it for operation”.    

The moral of this story is that there is no such thing as an inherently safe nuclear reactor.  Those who contemplate going down that road should carefully assess the lessons from the past.  If they do so, they might very well choose other, more preferable alternatives.
                                    
Walt Robbins

The Great Canadian Nuclear Waste Saga
 










































 

HOORAY! We hit water, and lots of it!  At two hundred forty feet the pinkish gray granite rock gave way to a reddish color and at two hundred and eighty feet our well "came in." Water was being pumped from the hole at the rate of forty gallons per minute, and had leveled off at a depth of sixteen feet from the surface.  Our eastern Manitoba household would have plenty of clean, cold water.

Could there be a veritable labyrinth of rivers and streams underground, running cold and deep, through the ancient Pre-Cambrian rock of the Canadian Shield?  The strangest thought of all was that we had tampered with some of the deep secrets of the world below us. Nature was permanently altered and had given to us one of her most valued treasures. For that we were thankful.

While we were well drilling on our property, Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd., (AECL), at its nearby nuclear research station, was conducting test drilling as a prelude for an underground nuclear waste research laboratory (URL) in our municipality. It’s officials initially insisted that the granite rock formation in the area had “remarkably few cracks.”  However, during the major excavation of the URL during the early 1980's, an extensive water-bearing fracture zone was encountered.  Several cracks, including a large fracture resulted in the intake of considerable amounts of ground water. requiring pumps to run continuously.

Probably the most descriptive statement about the wet condition of the URL came from Walter Patterson, when he spoke at a 1986 nuclear waste conference in Winnipeg.  Trained in nuclear physics and residing in the UK, he was involved with many aspects of nuclear technology for decades. He visited the URL underground facility in as an advisor to a Select Environmental Committee of the British Parliament. After the visit, the Parliamentarians asked his opinion of the operation. Patterson told the conferees, that for the first time on the entire Canadian trip, "I had to say I had not the faintest idea.. I do not know why they are doing what they are doing: because if this is supposed to be research for an underground repository for final disposal of spent fuel, everybody in the business knows that the one thing you have to avoid is water -- and the place is soaking! Absolutely soaking! Up to here (gesturing) in water!"

My comment to reporters after I visited the URL excavation was “if you plan to go down into that hole, be sure to take your rain boots, an umbrella and a life raft.  When you think about nuclear waste going into that wet hole, it gives you the chills.” 

Over the ensuing years, our own personal well drilling experience in 1980 has always been in the back of my mind whenever the subject of deep underground “disposal” of irradiated fuel waste comes up.  Common sense informs us that ground water can eventually corrode waste canisters and carry lethal radioactive substances into the environment above. Given the toxic nature and longevity of the irradiated fuel wastes created by the operation of nuclear reactors, few would disagree that the presence of groundwater presents a serious problem for the integrity of an underground nuclear waste repository. 

And, what about these lethal substances? 

According to Wikipedia, “Certain radioactive elements (such as plutonium-239) in ‘spent’ fuel will remain hazardous to humans and other living beings for hundreds of thousands of years. Other radioisotopes remain hazardous for millions of years. Thus, these wastes must be shielded for centuries and isolated from the living environment for millennia. Some elements, such as Iodine-131, have a short half-life (around 8 days in this case) and thus they will cease to be a problem much more quickly than other, longer-lived, decay products but their activity is much greater initially.”  

Hundreds of thousands and millions of years?  It may be easier to wrap your mind around the concept of a billion or trillion dollars!

In the U.S., Yucca Mountain, Nevada was chosen as the preferred site for an irradiated nuclear fuel waste repository.

One of the reasons the Nevada location was originally selected was because of its arid, desert location.  Yucca Mountain (geologically, a tuff formation) would be nice and dry.  Or so it was thought.

The October 15, 1994 issue of the Las Vegas Sun, reported that “. . Radioactive water from past nuclear testing has penetrated to layers below the proposed storage site. Scientists studying Yucca Mountain as a place to store the nation's high-level nuclear waste have found evidence that surface water from the days of atmospheric nuclear testing probably seeped to layers beneath the proposed repository site,”  The Department of Energy spokesman, Greg Cook was reported as saying ". . . the finding is obviously of concern to us because ground water intrusion within the repository would make it more difficult to contain for 10,000 years the 77,000 tons of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors that the government wants to entomb there."

Carl Johnson, a geologist for the State of Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, which monitors the federal Yucca Mountain studies, said that ". . . the finding means 'at least one very fast pathway' exists for ground water to move from the surface to below the repository site." Johnson said that ". . . samples collected from a bore hole on the southeast side of the repository site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, contained tritium and chlorine-36 isotopes, residuals from nuclear weapons testing. That means the water seeped from the surface to a depth of 1,450 feet within the 49 years since the first US nuclear weapons test was conducted in New Mexico and probably since nuclear testing began in Nevada in 1951."

Over the years, billions of dollars have been poured into the Yucca Mountain Project.  In 2009 it experienced major cuts to its budget at the hands of the Obama Administration.  It’s future as a nuclear waste repository lies in doubt.

The latest Canadian proclamation about the suitability of an underground repository (this one for low and intermediate level radioactive waste) comes from Ontario Power Generation (OPG).  Its plan is for a deep geological repository (DGR) at the Bruce nuclear facility near the shore of Lake Huron. 

In media reports, OPG has stated that "There is a consensus in our research that shows the natural barriers will help protect the repository," and that "The limestone bedrock formations that are there have an extremely low rate of permeability. Also, there is a cap of shale 200 meters (about 656 feet) above the repository area that would act as a protective layer." 

That rhetoric is an echo of earlier optimistic  “dry rock” expectations.  What will they find in the limestone excavation?  Based on the URL (granite) experience, and the Yucca Mountain (tuff) one, can we anticipate water logged caverns feeding into Lake Huron?  

But the biggest question of all is what will the industry-dominated Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) turn up in its ongoing search for a willing community to “host” a repository for Canada’s irradiated nuclear fuel waste?  Even if some community in Canada does volunteer for the “undertaking,” any water found within its underground natural barriers would still be a major deterrent.

“Water, water, everywhere.” It’s been nearly 30 years since the Underground Research Laboratory was excavated and over 20 years since the Yucca Mountain project was started.  The time has come to look for other methods  to manage irradiated nuclear fuel waste.  In the absence of an acceptable solution, the most rational and logical first step is to phase out its production.

Walter Robbins
September, 2009
http://www.nukeshaft.ca











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An unbelievable proposal by the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) for a deep underground radioactive waste repository a half mile from the shore of Lake Huron is in the works. If the plan succeeds, all of Ontario's “low and intermediate” level radioactive garbage, will eventually be transported to and permanently buried at the site, which is part of the extensive Bruce nuclear complex.

What is low and intermediate?  Anything radioactive, from mops and clothing, to reactor tubes and components, is included in the categorization. The "intermediate" level waste requires special handling and can pose risks for significant periods of time.

But “low and intermediate” are arbitrary and fuzzy categories based primarily on the types of material and the overall gamma radiation dose rates.  Many observers believe that this is a totally inadequate method for determining the ultimate risks these materials could pose to the environment and especially to human health..  What is needed is a complete inventory of the specific radionuclides and their inherent radio-toxic characteristics and capabilities to do biological harm over specified periods of time.  To the best of my knowledge, no such complete analysis of the elements in so-called low and intermediate waste has been undertaken.  

We are told that nuclear reactor fuel waste will not be placed in this facility.  But this proposed repository could easily be a “Trojan Horse” for a full scale geological dump for “high-level” irradiated reactor fuel bundles, i.e., the really hot, lethal and incredibly nasty, radioactive stuff!  More about that in a moment.

While thinking about this issue, it is important to bear in mind that any amount of ionizing radiation increases cancer risks, as concluded by the U.S. National Academy of Science (NAS)  report on radiation risk, (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation).

When the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA)  issued its draft Environmental Impact Statement guidelines for this project for public comment, I raised several salient points in my response:

Why, I asked, was the deep underground repository option chosen?
    
 The explanation in the proponent’s (Ontario Power Authority’s) original proposal was that "The deep geologic repository is being pursued as the preferred technology because of its greater margin of safety."

 It seemed to me that the proponent must explain exactly why an underground facility of this kind would provide a greater margin of  safety than the alternatives identified in its proposal. I understand that some other countries  such as the Czech Republic and Australia favor near surface engineered facilities for containment and monitoring of low and intermediate level radioactive wastes.

 
Why would anyone want to construct such a site so near to one of the Great Lakes (Lake Huron)? 

Lake Huron is one of the major bodies of  fresh water in North America–part of the Great Lakes System.  I believe that the proponent should be required to demonstrate why such a facility is to be sited on the shores of this lake. It is possible that any leaking radioactive material from the repository could impact both Canadians and U.S. residents.

I requested that the proponent be required to give a detailed explanation as to why it did not seek an alternative inland underground site which would be clearly outside of the geological zone that could affect the Great Lakes, in order to completely avoid the possibility of radioactive contamination of the lakes.  There should be zero tolerance for the permanent geological  emplacement of any radioactive wastes in the Great Lakes basin.  It is simply common sense!
 
But the big question for me is: Could this project be eventually extended to accommodate nuclear fuel waste? 

The guideline must deal more directly with the question of the possible future expansion of the proposed facility to accommodate nuclear fuel waste. Simple verbal assurances from contemporary individuals and organizations are meaningless in view of the lengthy isolation time frames required for much radioactive waste and irradiated nuclear fuel waste..

The main questions I raised in my comments are:

Why did Canada’s (industry dominated) Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), in its final report in 2004, identify the types of rock formations which happen to be present at the proposed Bruce nuclear complex as being suitable for permanent underground storage of irradiated nuclear fuel waste?  Previously, granite rock of the Canadian Shield was considered the preferred host medium. 

Why is the limestone rock at the site considered suitable for any kind or level of radioactive waste, given the well-known connection between limestone and underground water sources?

Why, indeed, is this proposal for a radioactive waste repository on the shores of Lake Huron being contemplated at all?

Get involved!

http://www.nukeshaft.ca

 

 

NUCLEAR EXPANSION: THE ROAD TO OBLIVION?

Like the tobacco companies of yore, the nuclear establishment is currently aggressively marketing its dubious products. Most recently, the industry has been bombarding the public with ads to the effect that nuclear energy is clean, safe and environmentally friendly; depicting it as an important tool in dealing with climate change and global warming. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This paper summarizes the downside of expanding nuclear power, which requires processes which cause noxious emissions as well as highly irradiated toxic fuel waste, uses non-renewable and ever more costly uranium deposits with increasing amounts of energy inputs, emits radioactive tritium into the air and water, contributes greatly to the Canadian national debt, is the basis for nuclear weapons proliferation, and is a desirable target for terrorism. It is a technology that must have an impossible-to-achieve perfect record of zero tolerance for serious accidents over an entire reactor life cycle, as there is no safe level of ionizing radiation.

Yes, nuclear energy does boil water which is converted to electricity, that is when not in a shut- down state for frequent maintenance. Yes, there are much safer, cheaper and environmentally friendly alternatives. Yes, our politicians are idiots if they pursue the nuclear option.

Please feel free to use this commentary and the material below to help prevent nuclear expansion and to promote nuclear phase-out along with a rapid increase in safe renewable energy alternatives, conservation and efficiency.

Walt Robbins

March, 2007 

 

Did you know that the nuclear energy is responsible for the release of large quantities of greenhouse gasses and other noxious emissions?

     According to a December 14, 2006 report by the Pembina Institute, no other energy source combines the generation of as wide a range of conventional pollutants and waste streams-including heavy metals, smog-and acid-rain precursors and greenhouse gases. It notes that “...total greenhouse gas emissions associated with uranium mining, milling, refining, conversion and fuel fabrication in Canada are estimated at between 240,000 and 366,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.”

Did you know that harmful emissions from the nuclear industry will continue to increase as supplies of rich uranium ore decrease?

     According to scientists Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Bartlett Smith, “...at the present rate of use, worldwide supplies of rich uranium ore will soon become exhausted, perhaps within the next decade. Nuclear power stations of the future will have to rely on second-grade ore, which requires huge amounts of conventional energy to refine it. For each ton of poor-quality uranium, some 5000 tons of granite that contain it will have to be mined, milled and then disposed of. This could rise to 10,000 tons if the quality deteriorates further. At some point, and it could happen soon, the nuclear industry will be emitting as much carbon dioxide from mining and treating its ore as it saves from the so-called clean power it produces thanks to nuclear fission.” The researchers estimate that “The use of nuclear power causes, at the end of the road and under the most favourable conditions, approximately one-third as much carbon dioxide emission as gas-fired electricity production.”

Did you know that nuclear power production could well go into energy deficit as rich ore quantities are consumed?

     According to Energy writer David Fleming in Prospect magazine, “...it would be putting more energy into the process than it could extract from it. Its contribution to meeting the world's energy needs would become negative! The so-called reliability of nuclear power, which its proponents enthuse over, would therefore rest on the growing use of fossil fuels rather than their replacement.”

Did you know that nuclear reactors routinely emit other noxious substances, one of the worst of which is radioactive tritium into the environment?

     According to Dr. Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, “Tritium poses an ever-present radiological hazard to CANDU (reactor) workers. It is also an environmental contaminant which pollutes the drinking water of many communities situated near CANDU reactors. In addition, atmospheric emissions of tritium are readily inhaled -- and also absorbed directly through the skin -- by residents living near CANDU reactors.”

 

 Did you know that you, the taxpayer, are footing much of the bill and incurring much of the national debt, for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd’s (AECL’s) nuclear expansion?

     According to a recent Energy Probe study, federal subsidies to AECL since its inception in 1952 amount to $74.9 billion of today’s (2006) Federal Government debt (about 12 per cent of the entire outstanding amount).

Did you know that no acceptable solution for the permanent disposition of irradiated reactor fuel waste as yet exists in Canada?

     According to the Canadian federal environmental assessment panel (Seaborn) report released in March, 1998 after an eight year intensive public process “... the (AECL) concept in its current form for deep geologic disposal does not have broad public support, and does not have the required level of acceptability to be adopted as Canada's approach for managing nuclear fuel wastes."

Did you know that Canada’s nuclear industry-based Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO, in November, 2005, after a three year study, continued to endorse the permanent underground burial of irradiated nuclear fuel wastes?

      According to Elizabeth May, former Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada and currently leader of the Green Party of Canada, “...the NWMO has taken its mandate and skewed it to allow them to make decisions that are industry-biased, and not based on health, safety and security measures.”

Did you know that if all of Canada’s current nuclear waste is transported to a centralized location for storage or permanent burial, shipments by rail, highway and waterway, would be continuous, and over many years, possibly decades?

     According to Nuclear Waste Watch, ( a network of thirty environmental, social and other groups across Canada) "the potential recipient and transport route communities should all have veto power, and should receive funding from proponents for independent research and community education."

Concerns expressed by many groups opposed to nuclear waste transportation include property value losses along the transportation corridor, the routine radiation exposure during handling and transit, worst case scenario radiation exposure, health and environmental costs, and more potential for accidents and terrorist acts resulting from greater shipment frequency and duration of shipments.

 

 

Did you know that no safe level of ionizing radiation exists?

     According to a 2005 report of a US National Academy of Sciences panel (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation--BEIR VII), investigating the dangers of low energy, low-dose ionizing radiation, “..it is unlikely that a threshold exists for the induction of cancers... Further, there are extensive data on radiation-induced transmissible mutations in mice and other organisms. There is therefore no reason to believe that humans would be immune to this sort of harm.”

 

Did you know that terrorists could use nuclear reactors and nuclear waste as weapons of mass destruction?

     According to journalist Jeffrey St. Clair, shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., it was widely reported that al-Qaeda had given serious consideration to crashing commercial aircraft into several nuclear plants on that day. In his September 14, 2002 Counterpunch article (The Fire Next Time), he reports that al-Qaeda operatives Ramzi bin al-Shaibah and Khaled al-Sheikh Mohammad told Al-Jazeera interviewer Yosri Fouda, that future attacks on Western nuclear facilities could not be ruled out.

But the real Achille’s heel at a nuclear plants is the adjacent spent fuel facility, which contains major concentrations of highly radioactive material. They lack the heavy duty containment safeguard provided for the reactor, and could be considered "sitting ducks" for disastrous terror attacks. Large explosions, along with major fire resulting in radioactive release from spent fuel would have serious health, social and economic consequences for people in the surrounding geographical area. It should be noted that many of our nuclear facilities are in close proximity to the Great Lakes. Any ecological disaster resulting from terrorism could affect water quality in both Canada and the United States.

Did you know that more nuclear reactors can lead directly to greater nuclear weapons proliferation?

     According to Dr. Helen Caldicott, as a result of the projected “...renaissance of the nuclear power industry, twenty-five countries and consortia will have access over a period of two decades to Generation IV reactors fueled by plutonium.” In her book, Nuclear Power is Not the Answer, Dr. Caldicott reminds us that “Canada supplied India with a CIRUS heavy water reactor for making nuclear energy. . . It was this reactor that gave India the plutonium it used in its first 1974 nuclear weapons test.”

     

 

This image speaks for itself.  While not blogging about the risks of nuclear energy and especially nuclear waste,
I can play some jigs and reels to get this awful subject off my mind for a little while anyway.