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Proposed reactor tombs would leak radioactive materials into the Winnipeg and Ottawa Rivers for millennia

hendricksonjones Leave a comment

November 5, 2020

The proposed entombment at Rolphton, Ontario

Source document: Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Nuclear Power Demonstration Closure Project

Here is a quote from the document: (emphases in red text added)

Normal Evolution Scenario

In this scenario, the facility is assumed to be closed as planned, with no unforeseen events. Parts of the NPDWF that lie below the water table will gradually resaturate. It is expected that resaturation may take several decades to complete. Once saturated, the soluble contaminants in the facility will begin to be released into the groundwater… The primary point of potential contaminant release into the biosphere is taken to be the riverbed close to the shore of the Ottawa River (pages 9-6 and 9-7)

·        Concrete/grout/cement:It is assumed that the grout will gradually degrade as the cement constituents are slowly leached out upon contact with groundwater… (page 2-24)

·        The cap: It is assumed that the cap starts to degrade 100 years after its emplacement and is assumed to have fully degraded (in terms of hydraulic performance) by 1,000 years after decommissioning is complete…. (page 2-24)

This is table 4.4-1 showing a partial inventory of the radioactive contaminants contained in the old NPD reactor, that will migrate into the Ottawa River in the “Normal Evolution Scenario”:

The proposed entombment at Pinawa, Manitoba

Source document: Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the In Situ Decommissioning of the Whiteshell Reactor #1 Project

Here is a quote from the document: (emphases added)

Following the encapsulation of WR-1 and the cessation of pumping from the sumps, the groundwater elevation will be restored to an equilibrium elevation and the majority of the grout (including the remaining components of the reactor) will be situated below the groundwater table... The assumption is that these materials will experience an increase in hydraulic conductivity as they degrade over time.  Simulations were completed to estimate the groundwater flow through the components of the decommissioned structure and results of these simulations were used as input to the analytical solute transport model.

The solute transport model was defined as a source area (representing the remaining solute mass contained within the decommissioned structure), a barrier for containment (the building foundation), a transport pathway (the bedrock, which receives flow from the decommissioned building via advection and diffusion through the barrier and into the surrounding fill material), and a receptor (the Winnipeg River).  (page 6-148)

The cover, grout, and foundation were assumed to degrade at rates comparable to other projects (i.e., Savannah River), which increased groundwater flow through time, resulting in total failure (degradation) of grout by year 10,000.  (page 6-202)

And here is Table 6.4.2-8 showing the radioactive materials that will migrate into the Winnipeg River after cessation of pumping and failure of the grout:



See also this post on the ways the the giant Chalk River Mound would leak radioactive contaminants into the Ottawa River: https://concernedcitizens.net/2020/11/04/the-proponents-own-study-shows-that-the-chalk-river-mound-will-disintegrate/

AECL is paying the CNEA consortium close to a billion dollars annually

hendricksonjones 1 Comment

November 5, 2020

According to the AECL Annual report for 2019-20
http://www.aecl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/FINAL-AECL-19-20-Annual-Report-.pdf
Contractual amounts paid or payable were:

2020 – $973,838 thousand or 974 million

2019 – $897,657 thousand or 898 million (see pages 59-60)

Previous AECL reports provide the following for contractual amounts:

2018 – $903,527 thousand or 904 million (https://www.aecl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/AECL-Annual-Report-2017-18-FINAL-EN.pdf page 54)

2017 – $864,930 thousand or 865 million (https://www.aecl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/AECL-Annual-Report-2017-18-FINAL-EN.pdf page 54)

2016 – $432,444 thousand or 432 million(https://www.aecl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/AECL-2016-2017-ANNUAL-REPORT.pdf page 49)

The total amount paid to the CNEA consortium to date (November 3, 2020) $4,072,396 thousand – just over $4 billion over five years.

Consortium’s study appears to show the Chalk River mound would disintegrate

hendricksonjones 28 Comments

November 2020

The proponent of the Chalk River Mound, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, was required to produce an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) as part of the very flawed and protracted Environmental Assessment process that is still underway.

The draft EIS was published in March 2017. It is 990 pages long. The full document is posted on the Impact Assessment Agency registry for the project. Here is the link to the full document: https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/documents/p80122/118380E.pdf

The draft EIS includes 25 occurrences of the phrase “liner and cover failure as a result of normal evolution”. The document also includes 11 occurrences of the term “bathtub effect” during which there is a flow of radioactive materials out of the mound. Table 5.8.6-5 lists quantities of radioactive materials, including four isotopes of plutonium, that would flow out of the mound under the “bathtub scenario”.

Here’s a screenshot from page 723 of the pdf document, that describes the liner and cover failure as a result of “normal evolution” followed by two scenarios for disintegration of the mound and migration of contaminants into Perch Creek and the Ottawa River.

Here is a picture of the Bathtub Scenario from page 187 of CNL’s Performance Assessment for NSDF. The blue arrows and the Ottawa River were added by CCRCA researcher Ole Hendrickson when he incorporated Figure 8-5 into a Powerpoint deck.

Performance Assessment-rev-1Download

And here is part of a table showing radionuclide flow out of the mound (including four isotopes of plutonium) as it disintegrates: (page 763 of the draft EIS)

And finally here is a pie chart showing the contribution of various radionuclides (such as Carbon-14, Polonium and Caesium-137 ) to the radiation dose that would be received by an infant downstream in Pembroke, under the “bathtub scenario” of “normal evolution” of the Chalk River Mound: (Page 190 of the Performance Assessment document)

CNL’s Integrated Waste Strategy alarms downstream residents

hendricksonjones 11 Comments

November 5, 2020

Update: In 2021 the City of Ottawa passed a resolution opposing any further imports of radioactive waste into the Ottawa Valley (More info here) See also: High level radioactive waste imports to Chalk River from Manitoba and Quebec will likely begin in 2025
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The CNL Integrated Waste Strategy was first published in January 2017, 15 months after the multinational consortium took over the operation of Canada’s nuclear laboratories. It describes many types of radioactive wastes owned by the federal government in nuclear facilities in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. The document lays out a plan to consolidate as much of these wastes as possible at the Chalk River Laboratories site beside the Ottawa River upstream of Ottawa, Gatineau and  Montreal for permanent disposal in a highly-controversial, yet-to-be-licensed giant radioactive waste mound.

Ottawa Valley residents are alarmed by this strategy to bring all of Canada’s federal nuclear waste to Chalk River. The site already has much radioactive waste in less than optimum storage conditions; wastes are leaking and contaminating the Ottawa River. See Chalk River’s Toxic Legacy by Ian McLeod in the Ottawa Citizen, December 16, 2011.

Radioactive waste shipments are already underway from other federal nuclear facilities in Canada. There are risks involved in transportation as described in our recent fact sheet “Transport of Radioactive Waste on Canadian Roads- a growing public risk”.  Premature transportation of wastes before long-term management facilities are planned, evaluated, and licensed will result in double-transport and double-handling, creating additional unnecessary risks to workers and the public.

There are no approved disposal facilities at the CRL site; shipping containers full of wastes are presently being piled up at a Waste Management Area H as shown in the photograph below. The metal shipping containers are susceptible to corrosion and are exposed to precipitation in the current location.

The Chalk River Laboratories is not a good site for long-term storage of radioactive waste because it is seismically active, tornado prone, and adjacent to the Ottawa River which serves as a source of drinking water for millions of Canadians including citizens of Ottawa-Gatineau and many other communities. The site is also located on unceded Algonquin territory and Algonquin First Nations have not given their free prior and informed consent to the transport and disposal of radioactive wastes in their territory.

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Here is Version 0 of CNL’s integrated waste strategy, (obtained through ATIP in December 2017, 64 pages, contains many redactions)

Plan CNL Integrated Waste Strategy CW-508600-PLA-002 (3)Download

The strategy has gone through a number of revisions. Here is a summary of the revised version that was, for a while, posted publicly on the CNL webiste:

CNL INTEGRATED WASTE STRATEGY excerpts from Version 1Download

See also https://concernedcitizens.net/2024/04/15/geoscientist-raises-concerns-about-storage-of-radioactive-waste-in-the-ottawa-valley-due-to-earthquake-risk/

AECL/CNL/CNEA Contract Excerpt ~ ALL Wastes

hendricksonjones 2 Comments

See also statement from the Draft Environmental Impact Statement about “all wastes” here.

NB. Clause 1.3.5.4 above refers to one specific location, LaPrade heavy water facility in Quebec. Similar clauses in the contract refer to other federal facilities.

This section of the contract refers to all of the federal wastes (key clause highlighted in yellow below):

Contract – Schedule G – Contractor Performance Evaluation and Terms of Payment 

2.2 Award Fee Plan 

      (a) Each Annual PEM Plan will include, as a component thereof, an Award Fee Plan that defines differently weighted, reasonably achievable Performance Objectives and Performance Outcomes that are to be satisfied or achieved by CNL in connection with the performance of the SOC Obligations during the Operating Year (the “Award Fee Criteria”). The Parties agree that the Award Fee Criteria may be comprised, in whole or in part, of performance indicators which will be assessed by AECL. The Award Fee Plan will also specify the Annual Earnable Award Fee for the Operating Year, which will be allocated among the Award Fee Criteria using a scorecard-style rating grid. 

      (b) The Performance Objectives and the Performance Outcomes that are included in the Award Fee Plan for any Operating Year will reflect the following goals (as applicable): 

(i) contain costs associated with the Sites, the Facilities and the Assets (in each case, other than those related to the WL Obligations or the NPD Obligations) by improving efficiency while leveraging their value in delivering on the missions of CNL; 

(ii) implement cost reduction initiatives that result in measurable operating savings at the Sites (other than those related to the WL Obligations or the NPD Obligations); 

(iii) substantially reduce the cost of liabilities in the most cost-effective manner through the optimization of decommissioning and waste management activities; 

Canada’s federal nuclear waste liability is $16 billion

hendricksonjones 2 Comments

November 2, 2020


…estimates of AECL’s nuclear liability are heavily discounted, such that when the discount rate increases, the liability decreases.[1]  Actual clean-up costs are far higher.  AECL’s 2018 Annual Report stated that “The undiscounted future expenditures, adjusted for inflation, for the planned projects comprising the liability are $15,932.9 million.”[2]  

The accounting firm Deloitte recommends discounting for environmental liabilities and asset retirement obligations only if two criteria are met:

·         The “aggregate amount of the liability or component” is “fixed or reliably determinable.”

·         The “amount and timing of cash payments for the liability or component are fixed or reliably determinable.”[3]

Neither condition is met in the case of the Government of Canada’s nuclear liabilities.  Both liability amounts and timing of cash payments are highly uncertain.  The federal government funds AECL’s decommissioning and waste management expenses on an annual basis. 

[1] Atomic Energy of Canada Limited 2016 Annual Report, p. 20.

[2] Atomic Energy of Canada Limited 2018 Annual Report, p. 50.

[3] A Roadmap to Accounting for Environmental Obligations and Asset Retirement Obligations, Deloitte, 2019.
Excerpt from  “The Government of Canada’s Radioactive Wastes:  Costs and Liabilities Growing under Public-Private Partnership”

SMRs are actually DDDs (Dirty Dangerous Distractions)

hendricksonjones Leave a comment

Commentary by Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility

SMRs are really DDDs and should be called such.


A DDD is a Dirty Dangerous Distraction. It is an acronym much more to the point than SMR.


Nuclear proponents are loathe to even use the N in theiracronym (SMR) for Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMNRs)because they want to hide the one aspect – the NUCLEAR aspect – that is the source of all the unmentioned problems with these devices. It is the insidious linages to nuclear waste and to nuclear weapons that are precisely what set these machines apart.But the industry hopes that no one will notice if they leave out the N.It may sound silly or trivial, but it is not silly or trivial. It is deliberate.

SMRs (or SMNRs) are Dirty, Dangerous Distractions. They are DDDs.

They are DIRTY because they produce radioactive waste of all categories – low-level, intermediate-level, and high-level. It is by farthe most deadly waste byproduct that any industry has ever created.

Every SMR is DANGEROUS because it is not just a machine for generating electricity, it is also a warehouse of radioactivepoisons that can do tremendous damage for centuries to comeif anything happens to disperse those poisons into the environment, such as an act of warfare (e.g. aerial bombardment) or sabotage, or a plane crash or a violent earthquake. Once released, these poisons will contaminate the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe, and the damage will last for generations.

Some SMRs – those that are called “fast” or “advanced” reactors,those that talk about “reusing” or “recycling” or “reprocessing” irradiated nuclear fuel – pose an even more serious existential danger. Such reactors are predicated upon the extraction of plutonium and other human-made elements that are heavier than uranium to extend the nuclear fuel supply. But plutonium is also the primary nuclear explosive in the world’s nuclear arsenals, and extracting it from irradiated fuel makes plutonium that much more accessible to militaristic regimes, as well as criminals and terrorists, thereby facilitating the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are the greatest human-made threat to the survival of human civilization (and most advanced forms of life on Earth).

SMNRs are also a DISTRACTION because they prevent us from dealing with climate change right now, rather than waiting 10 or 20 years to see is SMRs are even going to prove worthwhile. So much can be done through prompt investments in energy efficiency and renewables, where benefits are enjoyed in just one orTwo building seasons, using technology that is already proven and inherently safe. Can anyone imagine a catastrophic situation arising from the failure of windmills or solar collectors? Energy efficiency and renewables can be implemented faster and cheaper than nuclear power, creating more jobs and providing more sustainability at the same time. 

SMRs also distract us from realizing that we have no solution to the problem of how to safely keep these radioactive poisons out of the environment of living things for millennia to come, and therefore we should stop creating them. As long as the industry distracts the decision-makers by dangling a charm bracelet of pie-in-the-sky miraculous “clean, safe, cheap nuclear reactors”(All those adjective being demonstrable lies) our political representatives are prevented from focussing on the horrendous radioactive waste problems that we have already accumulated and that will constitute a radioactive legacy forever.

Although we have no cure for the coronavirus, we do have effective methods for limiting its spread and preventing the worsening of the situation. So too we have no way to eliminate or neutralize radioactive wastes or to render them harmless, but we do know how to package them well and repackage them when necessary — as long as we don’t abandon them thereby putting these enormously dangerous materials beyond human control (as some people have abandoned their responsibility to control the spread of the coronavirus). As long as we don’t keep multiplying the sources of radioactive waste (by building a whole new fleet of nuclear reactors called SMRs) we would have a chance of addressing the radioactive waste legacy with some degree of responsibility and maturity.

Nuclear power is the ONLY technology that actually creates hundreds of new toxic elements, most of which were never found in nature prior to 1939. Those elements, once created, cannot be destroyed or rendered harmless. There isno non-nuclear method known to science – heat, pressure, combustion, chemical reactions, NOTHING – that can slow down or stop the rate of atomic disintegration, and those disintegrating atoms will give off the subatomic shrapnel that we call‘“atomic radiation” at a predetermined rate defined by the so-called “half-life”.

I have discovered that every category of radioactive waste associated with theNuclear fuel chain (from uranium mining to reactor operation to decommissioning to waste management) has a significant number of radioactive poisons that will remain a hazard for hundreds of thousands of years. That is true of uranium tailings, of low and intermediate level wastes from reactor operations, of the thousands of truckloads of radioactive rubble from decommissioning a reactor, of the so-called “depleted uranium” stored in the back yards of uranium enrichment plants, and of the irradiated nuclear fuel itself.

Keeping radioactive waste out of the environment of living things for hundreds of thousands of years is an unsolved problem of the human race. We should not be adding to this dreadful legacy, or allowing our attention to be distracted away from dealing with the problem properly (i.e. as best we can!).

The Government of Canada’s Radioactive Wastes: Costs and Liabilities Growing under Public-Private Partnership

hendricksonjones 4 Comments

October 6, 2020

This discussion paper was prepared by Dr. Ole Hendrickson with input from many colleagues including former senior scientists and managers at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.

June 2020 version Nuclear-liabilities-discussion-paper4Download
November 2020 version Nuclear-liabilities-discussion-paper5Download

The November version incorporates new information on contractor fees and nuclear waste liabilities from the 2020 AECL Annual Report.