Five good reasons to support the City of Ottawa’s call for an assessment of Ottawa Valley radioactive disposal projects

June 27, 2021July 6, 2021hendricksonjones Leave a comment

On April 14, 2021 the City of Ottawa council passed a resolution of concern about the Chalk River and Rolphton radioactive waste disposal projects, joining more than 140 municipalities, the Anishinabek Nation and Iroquois Caucus, and the Assembly of First Nations.

Prior to being passed by the full Ottawa City Council, the resolution was studied and passed unanimously by the City’s environment committee after an eight hour meeting on March 30, 2021 which can be viewed here. Among other things, the resolution calls on the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to initiate a regional assessment of Ottawa Valley radioactive disposal projects under the Impact Assessment Act of 2019. (See Mayor Jim Watson’s letter to Minister Wilkinson here.)

Here are five reasons to support the City of Ottawa’s call to Minister Jonathan Wilkinson:

1. Radioactive waste in the Ottawa Valley is a very large and complex problem. It makes up the lion’s share of federally-owned “legacy” radioactive wastes, an $8 billion liability for the citizens of Canada.

The radioactive wastes currently on site at the Chalk River Laboratories, upstream of Ottawa-Gatineau, make up most of the Government of Canada’s eight billion dollar nuclear liability. This federal radioactive cleanup liability exceeds the sum total of 2000 other federal environmental liabilities . As Canada’s largest and most complex federal environmental liability, this challenge is worthy of the best and most thorough assessment available under the new Impact Assessment Act.

2. Proposed Ottawa Valley radioactive disposal projects are substandard, highly controversial, and would NOT address many parts of the needed cleanup.

The proposed Chalk River Mound (“Near Surface Disposal Facility”) and Rolphton Reactor Tomb (“NPD Closure Project”) are low budget, inadequate proposals meant to quickly and cheaply reduce Canada’s federal nuclear liabilities. The two projects were proposed five years ago by a consortium of private companies contracted by the Harper government in 2015. The proposals ignore safety standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency and have been found wanting in thousands of critical comments submitted by Indigenous communities, municipalities, former AECL scientists and managers, NGOs, citizens’ groups and individuals.

The projects are expected to leak radioactive contaminants into the Ottawa River for millennia, according to Environmental Impact Statements produced by the proponent. The giant Chalk River Mound is expected to disintegrate as part of a process of “normal evolution” according to the proponent’s “performance assessment” study.

The vast majority of radioactive wastes in the Ottawa Valley would NOT be addressed by these two projects.

3. Environmental assessments of the giant mound and reactor tomb are being badly fumbled.

The environmental assessments of the NSDF and NPD closure projects were initiated in 2016 by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Numerous problems with the CNSC’s handling of the EAs were identified in Environmental Petition 413 to the Auditor General of Canada in January 2018. Problems have continued to arise including lack of opportunity for public input, lack of transparency, and lack of firm deadlines for completion of the assessments. The EAs have been ongoing for far longer than is normal or reasonable for such assessments.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has been identified as a captured regulator that promotes the projects it is supposed to regulate. The CNSC is therefore not an ideal agency to be overseeing assessments of radioactive disposal projects in the Ottawa Valley.

4. The complex challenge of nuclear waste in the Ottawa Valley is NOT addressed by the assessments that are currently ongoing.

Again, the eight billion dollar federal radioactive cleanup liability is the biggest and most expensive federal environmental challenge by far. The vast majority of the wastes comprising this liability are already in the Ottawa Valley at the Chalk River Laboratories. For an indication of the complexity of this challenge at Chalk River see the Ottawa Citizen article by Ian McLeod, Chalk River’s Toxic Legacy. Radioactive wastes not addressed by the mound and the tomb proposals include the three reactor cores dumped in the sand at Chalk River (including one from the 1952 NRX partial meltdown), the highly radioactive solidified medical isotope production wastes (including weapons-grade uranium-235), the tanks of intermediate- and high-activity liquid wastes at the ‘Waste Tank Farm”, the spent fuel from the NRX, NRU and NPD reactors, and the NRX and NRU reactors themselves.

The private sector consortium running Canadian Nuclear Laboratories plans to consolidate the federal governments’s radioactive waste from across Canada in the Ottawa Valley and is already shipping radioactive wastes from Manitoba, Quebec and elsewhere in Ontario to Chalk River. There are serious concerns about consolidating federal nuclear wastes at the Chalk River site, in a seismically-active area, beside a major river (The Kitchissippi/ Ottawa) that provides drinking water for millions of Canadians. Serious concerns about long term storage of radioactive waste in close proximity to water bodies are noted in the Joint Declaration of the Anishinabek Nation Iroquois Caucus on transport and abandonment of radioactive waste. Consolidation of federal government nuclear wastes in the Ottawa Valley and First Nations’ guidance to store waste away from major water bodies are not addressed by the current NSDF and NPD environmental assessments.

CCRCA recently learned that the consortium is going ahead with radioactive waste projects such as a new cask facility to receive shipments of highly-radioactive spent fuel from the Whiteshell (MB) and Gentilly-1 (QC) reactors, and a new intermediate-level waste storage facility that would likely contain dangerous commercial wastes. The consortium is making determinations about the significance of the impacts of these projects on behalf of Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL) with no transparency or public input. Assessment of the risks and implications of these projects should be done through a transparent public process. AECL, which has been reduced from thousands of employees to around 40, appears to be shirking its role of overseeing its contract with the consortium.

The cumulative impacts of all wastes and all current and future projects need to be considered together. A regional assessment could do this.

5. A regional assessment of radioactive waste disposal in the Ottawa Valley could address all problems noted above.

A regional assessment could:

make existing baseline data publicly accessible and produce a broad-based analysis of the problem
look at cumulative impacts of all the current and proposed management strategies for Ottawa Valley radioactive wastes, and transport of wastes from Manitoba, southern Ontario and Quebec to Chalk River.
address leaking waste management areas at the Chalk River Labs, radioactive waste imports to the Ottawa Valley and the potential creation of new wastes associated with the proposed new “small modular” reactor research and development
incorporate Indigenous knowledge and priorities
look at the big picture including the need to protect drinking water, property values and tourism and provide secure long-term employment opportunities for Ottawa Valley communities.
provide assurance to the federal government and other levels of government that the largest federal environmental cleanup liability is being properly addressed.

To support the City of Ottawa’s call, please consider writing to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada For your reference, Mayor Jim Watson’s letter to Minister Wilkinson is available for download here.

Letters should be sent to The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson <Jonathan.Wilkinson@parl.gc.ca>

with cc to: OttawaValley-ValleeOutaouais (IAAC/AEIC) <iaac.ottawavalley-valleeoutaouais.aeic@canada.ca> Please be sure to state that you letter is Re: Canadian Impact Assessment Registry reference number 81624, “Potential regional assessment of radioactive waste disposal in the Ottawa Valley”

and: your member of parliament. Please forward a copy of your letter to us at <concernedcitizensofrca@gmail.com>

The Minister is required to respond to Ottawa’s request by July 31, 2021, so send your letters as soon as possible. But don’t hesitate to send them after July 31st too, as this issue is not going away any time soon.

Civilian nuclear and military nuclear members of a “mutual admiration society” ~ Dr. Gordon Edwards

December 19, 2020December 20, 2020hendricksonjones Leave a comment

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

December 19, 2020

Civilian nuclear and military nuclear have always been friendly room-mates, members of a “mutual admiration” society. In today’s announcement of an SMR Action Plan, Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan said that nuclear power in Canada is a “home-grown” technology and referred to C. D. Howe’s role in this connection. In fact C.D. Howe arranged for all Canadian uranium extracted from Canadian mines to be sold to the US military for use in tens of thousands of nuclear weapons from 1945 to 1965. C D Howe was also on the Committee that met in Washington DC in 1944 to approve the first nuclear reactors to be built in Canada (at Chalk River) as part of the ongoing effort to produce plutonium for use as a nuclear explosive. Mr. Howe approved of the policy of selling plutonium produced at Chalk River to the US military for weapons use, a practice that continued until 1975 and beyond. Plutonium from Chalk River was sent to Britain (it was the first sample of plutonium that Britain had ever obtained) just a few months before Britain detonated its first A-Bomb in the Monte Bello Islands off Australia.

To the best of my knowledge, no civilian nuclear power agency – not the Canadian Nuclear Association, nor the Canadian Nuclear Society, nor the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, nor Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, nor Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, NOBODY – has ever issued a clear statement denouncing nuclear weapons or even calling for a nuclear weapons free world. Most nuclear scientists and engineers feel a strong kinship and camaraderie with those who are in the nuclear weapons business. The same goes for those in the nuclear division of Natural Resources Canada. I remember on one occasion (prior to the exchange of nuclear tests between India and Pakistan) I expressed alarm at the fact that both neighbours are developing a nuclear war-fighting capability and a couple of senior civil servants said “Would that be so bad? Maybe that’s just what the world needs. More deterrence. Creates stability”

Despite regular denials from our puppet masters that civilian nuclear has nothing to do with military nuclear, it is clear that civilian nuclear (including the frankly discriminatory provisions of the NPT) has adopted an appeasement policy that will never succeed in bringing about a nuclear weapons free world. Why does Canada continue to sell uranium to countries that are in the process of investing hundreds of billions to improve and modernize the nuclear arsenals in utter defiance of the NPT, knowing that the vast bulk of Canadian uranium that is rejected from enrichment plants as DU end up as the raw material for producing plutonium for Bombs, and that the lion’s share of the explosive power – and the overwhelming share of the radioactive fallout – of every H-bomb comes from the fissioning of DU atoms that are freely accessed by the military even if they are the leftovers of “peaceful” fuel production for nuclear power plants?

“See ‘The Nuclear Fudge’ at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lK65S5eHRQ&feature=youtu.be“. This 16-minute W5 segment from the Regan era is very informative. The photo below is a screen shot from the video.

How investment in SMRs supports “defense nuclear programs”

December 19, 2020hendricksonjones 3 Comments

1. Rolls-Royce, 2017, ‘UK SMR: A National Endeavour’, https://www.uknuclearsmr.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/V2088-Rolls-Royc…

“The indigenous UK supply chain that supports defence nuclear programmes requires significant ongoing support to retain talent and develop and maintain capability between major programmes. Opportunities for the supply chain to invest in new capability are restricted by the limited size and scope of the defence nuclear programme. A UK SMR programme would increase the security, size and scope of opportunities for the UK supply chain significantly, enabling long-term sustainable investment in people, technology and capability.

“Expanding the talent pool from which defence nuclear programmes can draw from would bring a double benefit. First, additional talent means more competition for senior technical and managerial positions, driving excellence and performance. Second, the expansion of a nuclear-capable skilled workforce through a civil nuclear UK SMR programme would relieve the Ministry of Defence of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability. This would free up valuable resources for other investments.”

Both SMRs AND the high-level nuclear fuel waste they produce are EXEMPT from environmental assessment in Canada

December 10, 2020December 10, 2020hendricksonjones 1 Comment

As noted in the recent Hill Times op-ed by Eva Schacherl, Political Opposition Growing to New Reactors, both small modular nuclear reactors AND the high-level fuel waste they produce are EXEMPT from environmental assessment in Canada

From the op-ed:

“The Impact Assessment Act was intended to create “greater public trust in impact assessment and decision-making.” But there will be no federal assessment of nuclear reactors up to 200 thermal MW in size, nor of new reactors built at existing nuclear plants (up to 900 MWth). Yet new tidal power projects, as well as offshore wind farms with 10 or more turbines, need an assessment under the regulations, as do many new fossil fuel projects.”
“Also exempted from federal assessment is the “on-site storage of irradiated nuclear fuel or nuclear waste” associated with small modular reactors. This will make it easier for SMRs’ radioactive waste to be potentially left in the northern, remote, and First Nations communities, where they are proposed to be built.”

This SMR fuel waste exemption was a last-minute insertion in the Impact Assessment Act regulations. It is found in section 28 of the Physical Activities Regulations (the so-called ‘project list’ for the new Impact Assessment Act and reads as follows:

28 The construction and operation of either of the following:(a) a new facility for the storage of irradiated nuclear fuel or nuclear waste, outside the licensed boundaries of an existing nuclear facility, as defined in section 2 of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, other than a facility for the on-site storage of irradiated nuclear fuel or nuclear waste associated with one or more new fission or fusion reactors that have a combined thermal capacity of less than 200 MWth;

As far the fuel waste from the proposed SMR (the “MMR Project“) at Chalk River is concerned, there is another exemption in section 28 – the phrase “outside the licensed boundaries of an existing nuclear facility” allows it to be kept on site at Chalk River, a licensed nuclear facility.

Canada will make dozens of small modular nuclear reactors | NextBigFuture.com — Artist’s rendering of a prototype small nuclear reactor plant. Under Canadian legislation, the whole plant along with the irradiated nuclear fuel it produced could become a radioactive exclusion zone, permanently off limits to humans

Hill Times Op-Ed: Political opposition growing to new nuclear reactors

December 9, 2020hendricksonjones Leave a comment

By EVA SCHACHERL DECEMBER 9, 2020

The nuclear industry and Liberals have not only been laying the groundwork for government funding. It appears they have been ensuring that the framework for nuclear energy in Canada gets even more accommodating.

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan has been hyping so-called next-generation reactors for months, portraying the industry as a future utopia. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Mead.

Many Canadians are anxious to see what our energy future will be. Politically, it’s a question that stirs passions from Alberta’s oil patch to Ontario’s cancelled wind farms.

But political debate is picking up around our nuclear energy future. And with good reason. Government-funded expansion of the nuclear industry, and a simultaneous watering-down of regulations, could be the Liberal government’s toxic legacy.

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan has been hyping so-called next-generation reactors for months. A recent nuclear industry summit—hosted with federal funding—portrayed nuclear energy expansion in Canada as a future utopia.

The Green Party caucus, the NDP’s natural resources critic Richard Cannings, and the Bloc Québécois’s environment critic Monique Pauzé have all slammed O’Regan’s expected small modular reactor (SMR) “action plan.” They say it does not belong in a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Energy efficiency, wind, solar, and storage technologies are ready to build, and much cheaper, according to Lazard, a financial advisory and asset management firm. The prototype reactors will take years, if not decades, to develop, and could absorb hundreds of millions, even billions, in taxpayer subsidies, according to Greenpeace Canada.

That would mean opportunities lost for those dollars to build many times the amount of zero-emission energy with renewables and energy-efficiency projects. The latter would not create toxic radioactive waste for future generations to contend with.

Independent research says that a nuclear solution for remote communities (as proposed by the government) is likely to cost 10 times more to build and operate than the alternatives.

It seems inevitable that the Liberal action plan will soon be launched with generous handouts for the nuclear industry, whose aspiring players in Canada today include SNC-Lavalin and U.S. corporations like Westinghouse and GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy. Few Canadians are aware that “Canadian” Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is owned by a consortium of SNC-Lavalin and two U.S. firms, Fluor and Jacobs.

In recent years, the nuclear industry and Liberals have not only been laying the groundwork for government funding. It appears they’ve also been ensuring that the framework for nuclear energy in Canada gets even more accommodating.

The biggest step was exempting most new reactors from the Impact Assessment Act, which, in 2019, replaced the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. This was deemed so important to the nuclear industry’s future that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) lobbied the Liberal government to exempt small reactors—and won. So much for the CNSC, the regulator that’s supposed to oversee the industry, being seen as objective and “world class.”

The Impact Assessment Act was intended to create “greater public trust in impact assessment and decision-making.” But there will be no federal assessment of nuclear reactors up to 200 thermal MW in size, nor of new reactors built at existing nuclear plants (up to 900 MWth). Yet new tidal power projects, as well as offshore wind farms with 10 or more turbines, need an assessment under the regulations, as do many new fossil fuel projects.

Also exempted from federal assessment is the “on-site storage of irradiated nuclear fuel or nuclear waste” associated with small modular reactors. This will make it easier for SMRs’ radioactive waste to be potentially left in the northern, remote, and First Nations communities, where they are proposed to be built.

The nuclear regulator has also been responsible for introducing a suite of “regulatory documents” on reactor decommissioning and radioactive waste that environmental groups have called “sham regulation.”

Meanwhile, the bureaucrats at the CNSC have been busy signing a memorandum of cooperation with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Small Modular Reactors. This agreement means that Canada can recognize U.S. reviews of reactor designs in order to “streamline the review process.”

CNSC has also outlined its plan in a document called Strategy for Readiness to Regulate Advanced Reactor Technologies. In a nutshell, the document says that regulations for new reactor designs will have to be flexible. It notes that CNSC regulated the earlier generation of water-cooled reactors (such as CANDUs) at first based on “objectives” in the 1950s and ‘60s. Then, as experience with these reactors evolved, regulations became more detailed and prescriptive. It says the same may have to happen with the new next-gen reactor designs.

In the 1950s, there were indeed few “prescriptive requirements” for the newfangled reactors. In 1952, the NRX reactor at Chalk River, Ont., had a meltdown. It was the first large-scale nuclear reactor accident in the world and took two years to clean up—which, by 1950s standards, included pumping 10,000 curies of long-lived fission products into a nearby sandy area. Then in 1958, the NRU reactor at Chalk River—a test bed for developing fuels and materials for the CANDU reactor—had a major accident, a fuel-rod fire that contaminated the building and areas downwind. It took 600 workers and military personnel to do the top-secret clean-up.

Let’s hope today’s regulators and lawmakers can learn from history. Does Canada really need or want to be the “leading-edge” testing ground for new experimental nuclear reactors? Canadians should have their say in a referendum—or at the ballot box.

Eva Schacherl is an Ottawa-based environmentalist.

OPEN LETTER ~ Federal funding for new nuclear reactors is a serious mistake that blocks swift action on climate change

December 7, 2020July 13, 2021hendricksonjones 1 Comment

La version française ici

Note: this letter was also published in English as a full page ad in the Hill Times on December 7, 2020.

December 6, 2020

The Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos, President

The Hon. Joyce Murray, Vice-Chair

The Hon. Bardish Chagger, Member

The Hon. Catherine McKenna, Member

The Hon. Chrystia Freeland, Member

The Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, Member

Treasury Board of Canada

Dear Mr. Duclos and Members of the Treasury Board:

On September 21, 2020 we wrote to you as women who are Indigenous and non-Indigenous community leaders in science, medicine, law and environmental protection to ask you to stop funding new nuclear reactors. Canada is a member of an international nuclear waste treaty and has a legal obligation to minimize generation of radioactive waste. Federal funding for new nuclear reactors would be an abnegation of this treaty obligation.

Today we are joined by women colleagues from all provinces and territories in Canada and several Indigenous communities. We strongly urge you to reject new nuclear reactors, called “SMRs.” They are being promoted to your government as a silver bullet to address the climate emergency. This is a false notion.

We strongly urge you to reject new nuclear reactors, called “SMRs.” They are being promoted to your government as a silver bullet to address the climate emergency. This is a false notion.

In fact, SMRs prevent swift, effective action to address the climate emergency. SMRs are many years away from production. They would take far too long to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They suck money and attention away from inexpensive low-carbon technologies that are ready to deploy now.

Solar and wind power are already the cheapest and fastest-growing electricity sources in the world. A 2018 Deloitte report, “Global Renewable Energy Trends: Solar and Wind Move from Mainstream to Preferred” concluded: “Solar and wind power recently crossed a new threshold, moving from mainstream to preferred energy sourcesacross much of the globe”. The report noted that solar and wind power enhance electrical grids. It also pointed out that intermittency is no longer a concern owing to rapid advances in storage technology. Canada should fund much wider deployment of solar and wind power.

More funding for energy efficiency and energy conservation would also be a much better use of tax dollars than handouts to the nuclear industry. The 2018 report presented by the Generation Energy Council to Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources found that: “Canada’s greatest opportunities to save money, cut greenhouse gas emissions and create jobs can be found in slashing energy waste. Fully one-third of our Paris emissions commitment could be achieved by improving energy efficiency.”

We urge you to say “no” to the nuclear industry that is asking for billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to subsidize a dangerous, highly-polluting and expensive technology that we don’t need. Instead, put more money into renewables, energy efficiency and energy conservation. This will create many thousands of jobs and quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We must never forget that the main product of nuclear reactors — in terms of planetary impact — is deadly radioactive poisons that remain hazardous to all life on earth for hundreds of thousands of years. The electricity they produce for a few short decades is but a minor by-product.

We must never forget that the main product of nuclear reactors — in terms of planetary impact — is deadly radioactive poisons that remain hazardous to all life on earth for hundreds of thousands of years. The electricity they produce for a few short decades is but a minor by-product. There is no proven safe method for keeping radioactive waste out of the environment of living things for hundreds of thousands of years.

Please see Environmental Petition 419, submitted to the Auditor General of Canada in November 2018, for more detail on why Canada should refuse multibillion dollar handouts to subsidize the nuclear industry.

We urge you to bring this matter to the attention of your Cabinet colleagues, and stop all government support and taxpayer funding for so-called small modular nuclear reactors.

Yours sincerely,

Alma H. Brooks, Wolastoqew and Eastern Wabanaki (New Brunswick)

Chief April Adams-Phillips, Mohawk Council of Akwesasne (Quebec)

Candyce Paul, English River First Nation (Saskatchewan)

Ellen Gabriel, Mohawks of Kanehsatà:ke (Quebec)

Eriel Deranger, Member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Treaty 8 (Alberta)

Hilu Tagoona, BA, Qairnimiut Inuk, (Nunavut)

Dr. Imelda Perley Opolahsomuwehs, Neqotkuk First Nation (New Brunswick)

Joan Scottie, Inuk, Nunavut Makitagunarngningit, Baker Lake, Nunavut

Lorraine Rekmans, member of the Serpent River First Nation (Ontario)

Dr. Lynn Gehl, PhD, Algonquin – Pikwakanagan First Nation (Ontario)

Mary Alice Smith, BA, Metis Cree, Robinson-Superior Treaty area, Longbow Lake (Ontario)

Mary Lou Smoke, Anishinawbe Kwe, Bear Clan

Neecha Dupuis, Ojibway Nation of SAUGEEN Indian Tribe No. 258 Savant Lake (Ontario)

Renee Abram, Oneida First Nation of the Thames (Ontario)

Serena Kenny, Lac Seul First Nation (Ontario)

Stefanie Bryant, BA, Lac Seul First Nation (Ontario)

Alexandra Hayward, BSc, JD Candidate, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador

Angela Bischoff, Toronto, Ontario

Anna Tilman, BA Physics, MA Medical Biophysics, Aurora, Ontario

Ann Coxworth, MSc, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Ann Pohl, MEd, Killaloe, Ontario

Anne Lindsey, Order of Manitoba, MA, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Dr. Auréa Cormier, PhD, Order of Canada, Moncton, New Brunswick

Dr. Barbara Birkett, MDCM, FRCPC, Oakville, Ontario

Beatrice Olivastri, Ottawa, Ontario

Betty L. E. Wilcox, BA, BEd, Stanhope, Prince Edward Island

Brenda Brochu, BA, BEd, Peace River, Alberta

Brennain Lloyd, North Bay, Ontario

Carole Dupuis, Saint-Antoine-de-Tilly, Québec

Carolyn Wagner, MEd, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Catherine Cameron, BSc., MBA, Perth Ontario

Dr. Cathy Vakil, MD, Kingston, Ontario

Dr. Cecily Mills, PhD Microbiology, Edmonton, Alberta

Chantal Levert, Montréal, Québec

Dr. Charlotte Rigby, PhD, Gatineau, Quebec

Chris Cavan, BEd, Almonte, Ontario

Dr. Dale Dewar, MD, Wynyard, Saskatchewan

Dr. Darlene Hammell, MD, Victoria, British Columbia

Deborah Powell, BA, BEd, Bristol, Quebec

Diane Beckett, BES, MA, Churchill, Manitoba

Diane Fortin, Gatineau, Québec

Dr. Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, PhD, Toronto, Ontario

Elizabeth Logue, Wakefield, Quebec

Elssa Martinez, MSW, Montreal, Quebec

Emma March, MA, JD candidate, Kingston, Ontario

Dr. Erica Frank, MD, MPH, FACPM; Nanoose Bay, British Columbia

Eva Schacherl, MA, Ottawa, Ontario

Evelyn Gigantes, BA, former MPP, Ottawa, Ontario

Gail Wylie, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Gini Dickie, BA, Toronto, Ontario

Ginette Charbonneau, Physicist, Oka, Quebec

Gracia Janes, Ontario Medal for Citizenship, Niagara-on-the-Lake Ontario

Gretchen Fitzgerald, BSc, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Janet Graham, MA, Ottawa, Ontario

Dr. Janet Ray MD, Victoria, British Columbia

Dr. Janice Harvey, PhD, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Jean Brereton, Golden Lake, Ontario

Jean Swanson, Order of Canada, BA, City Councillor, Vancouver, British Columbia

Dr. Jeannie Rosenberg, MD, Huntingdon, Quebec

Jessica Spencer, Moncton, New Brunswick

Joann McCann-Magill, MA, Sheenboro, Quebec

Joanne Mantha, MA, Gatineau, Quebec

Jocelyne Lachapelle, Framton, Québec

Johanna Echlin, MEd, Westmount, Quebec

Julie Reimer, MMM, Kingston, Ontario

Dr. Judith Miller, PhD, Ottawa, Ontario

Kathrin Winkler, BA, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Dr. Kathryn Lindsay, PhD, Renfrew, Ontario

Kay Rogers, BA, MA, MSc, Perth Ontario

Kerrie Blaise, MSc, JD, North Bay, Ontario

Kim Reeder, MEM (Environmental Management), Saint Andrews, New Brunswick

Dr. Kringen Henein, PhD, Ottawa Ontario

Larissa Holman, BSc, MREM, Gatineau, Quebec

Dr. Laure Waridel, PhD, Order of Canada, Montréal, Québec

Lenore Morris, BA, MBA, JD, Whitehorse, Yukon

Liette Parent-Leduc, B.A.A., D. Fisc, Saint-Robert, Québec

Lisa Aitken, MEd, HRM, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Dr. Louise Comeau, PhD, Keswick Ridge, New Brunswick

Louise Morand, l’Assomption, Québec

Dr. Louise Vandelac, PhD, Montreal, Quebec

Lorraine Hewlett, BA, MA, BEd, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

Lucie Massé, Oka, Québec

Dr. Lucie Sauvé, PhD, Montréal, Québec

Lynn Jones, MHSc, Ottawa, Ontario

Margo Sheppard, BES (Environmental Studies), Fredericton, New Brunswick

Maria Varvarikos, BA, MLS, NDG, Montreal, Quebec

Dr. Marianne Rev, MD, Vancouver, British Columbia

Marion Copleston, BA, BEd, Past Mayor of Bonshaw, Prince Edward Island

Dr. Martha Ruben, MD, PhD, Ottawa, Ontario

Martine Chatelain, Montréal, Québec

Dr. Mary-Wynne Ashford, MD, PhD, Victoria, British Columbia

Dr. Meg Sears, PhD, Dunrobin, Ontario

Megan McCann, RMT, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Megan Mitton, MLA, Sackville, New Brunswick

Dr. Melissa Lem, MD, Vancouver, British Columbia

Meredith Brown, BSc (Engineering) MRM, Wakefield, Quebec

Michele Kaulbach, Westmount, Quebec

Nadia Alexan, Montréal, Québec

Dr. Nancy Covington, MD, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Nira Dookeran, MA, Ottawa, Ontario

Odette Sarrazin, St-Gabriel-de-Brandon, Québec

Dr. Paula Tippett, BSc, MD, MPH, Saint John, New Brunswick

Pippa Feinstein, JD, LLM, Toronto, Ontario

Dr. Rashmi Chadha MBChB, MScCH, Vancouver, British Columbia

Roberta Frampton Benefiel, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador

Roma De Robertis, MA, Saint John, New Brunswick

Dr. Sarah Colwell BSc, MD, FRCPC, Moncton, New Brunswick

Dr. Silvia Schriever, MD, Victoria, British Columbia

Dr. Susan O’Donnell, PhD, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Dr. Sylvia Hale, PhD, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Sylvia Oljemark, Montréal , Québec

Theresa McClenaghan, BSc, LL.B., LL.M., Paris, Ontario

Valerie Needham, MA, Ottawa, Ontario

Venetia Crawford, BA, Shawville, Quebec

Willi Nolan-Campbell, New Brunswick

Hon. Erin O’Toole, Leader of the Official Opposition

Yves-François Blanchet, Leader of the Bloc Québécois

Jagmeet Singh, Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada

Annamie Paul, Leader of the Green Party of Canada

Greg Fergus, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board

~~~~~~~

Canada re-engages in the Nuclear Weapons Business with SMRs

December 4, 2020December 8, 2020hendricksonjones Leave a comment

December 3, 2020

Published as an Op Ed by the Hill Times at this link: WWW.HILLTIMES.COM/2020/12/03/CANADA-RE-ENTERS-NUCLEAR-WEAPONS-BUSINESS-WITH-SMALL-MODULAR-REACTORS/274591

Canada Re-enters the Nuclear Weapons Business with SMRs

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan is expected to announce within weeks his government’s action plan for development of “small modular” nuclear reactors (SMRs).

O'Regan putting nuclear 'front and centre' raises eyebrows, industry hopes - The Hill Times — Minister of Natural Resources delivering a keynote speech to the Canadian Nuclear Association. *The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade*

SMR developers already control the federally-subsidized Chalk River Laboratories and other facilities owned by the crown corporation, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). Canada is now poised to play a supporting role in the global nuclear weapons business, much as it did during World War II.

Canada was part of the Manhattan project with the U.S. and U.K. to produce atomic bombs. In 1943 the three countries agreed to build a facility in Canada to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. Researchers who trained at the Chalk River Laboratories went on to launch weapons programs in the U.K. and France. Chalk River provided plutonium for U.S. weapons until the 1960s.

Canada’s Nuclear Schizophrenia describes a long tradition of nuclear cooperation with the United States: “For example, in the early 1950s, the U.S. Navy used Canadian technology to design a small reactor for powering its nuclear submarines.” C.D. Howe, after creating AECL in 1952 to develop nuclear reactors and sell weapons plutonium, remarked that “we in Canada are not engaged in military development, but the work that we are doing at Chalk River is of importance to military developments.”

The uranium used in the 1945 Hiroshima bomb may have been mined and refined in Canada. According to Jim Harding’s book Canada’s Deadly Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System, from 1953 to 1969, all the uranium mined in Saskatchewan went to make U.S. nuclear weapons. Canada remains the world’s second-largest producer of uranium. North America’s only currently operating uranium processing facility is owned by Cameco in Port Hope, Ontario.

Canada built India’s CIRUS reactor, which started up in 1960 and produced the plutonium for India’s first nuclear explosion in 1974. Canada also built Pakistan’s first nuclear reactor, which started up in 1972. Although this reactor was not used to make weapons plutonium, it helped train the engineers who eventually exploded Pakistan’s first nuclear weapons in 1998.

In 2015 the Harper Government contracted a multi-national consortium called Canadian National Energy Alliance – now comprised of two U.S. companies, Fluor and Jacobs, along with Canada’s SNC-Lavalin – to operate AECL’s nuclear sites, the main one being at Chalk River. Fluor operates the Savannah River Site, a South Carolina nuclear weapons facility, under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Jacobs also has contracts at DOE weapons facilities and is part of a consortium that operates the U.K. Atomic Weapons Establishment.

Joe McBrearty, the president of the consortium’s subsidiary that operates Chalk River and other federal nuclear sites, was a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine commander and then chief operating officer for the DOE’s nuclear laboratories between 2010 and 2019.

All three consortium partners have investments in SMRs and are ramping up research and development at AECL’s Chalk River facility. Some SMR designs would use uranium enriched to levels well beyond those in current reactors; others would use plutonium fuel; others would use fuel dissolved in molten salt. All of these pose new and problematic weapons proliferation risks.

Rolls Royce, an original consortium partner that makes reactors for the U.K.’s nuclear submarines, is lead partner in a U.K. consortium (including SNC-Lavalin) that was recently funded by the U.K. government to advance that country’s SMR program.

A military bromance: SMRs to support and cross-subsidize the UK nuclear weapons program, says “Industry and government in the UK openly promote SMRs on the grounds that an SMR industry would support the nuclear weapons program (in particular the submarine program) by providing a pool of trained nuclear experts, and that in so doing an SMR industry will cross-subsidize the weapons program.”

The article quotes a 2017 Rolls Royce study as follows: “expansion of a nuclear-capable skilled workforce through a civil nuclear UK SMR programme would relieve the Ministry of Defence of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability.”

The SMR connection to weapons and submarines could hardly be clearer – without SMRs, the U.S. and U.K. will experience a shortage of trained engineers to maintain their nuclear weapons programs.

With the takeover of AECL’s Chalk River Laboratories by SMR developers, and growing federal government support for SMRs, Canada has become part of a global regime linking nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

Opinion: A new global treaty bans nuclear weapons. But why didn't Canada sign? - The Globe and Mail

CNSC says climate change is not relevant to environmental assessment of SMRs

November 16, 2020June 13, 2022hendricksonjones Leave a comment

Canada’s first formal license application for an SMR is the “Micro Modular Reactor” in Chalk River.

CCRCA, and many others provided written interventions to the CNSC on “the scope of an environmental assessment for the proposed Micro Modular Reactor Project at the Chalk River Laboratories” prior to the one-person “Panel of Commission: R. Velshi, President” that rendered its decision on July 26th.

The CCRCA submission noted, in particular, that under the Impact Assessment Act, the proponent would be required to include as a “factor” in the EA ““the extent to which the effects of the designated project hinder or contribute to the Government of Canada’s ability to meet its environmental obligations and its commitments in respect of climate change.”

We added, “the CNSC has proposed that proponents assess the total GHG production as part of CNSC-led environmental assessments” in its fact sheet entitled “Greenhouse gas emission assessments for the Canadian nuclear fuel cycle,”

The full CCRCA submission is available here.

Somehow, the Record of Decision on the project scope omits any mention of climate change.

The CNSC’s decision on the scope of the MMR project indicates that climate change is not a relevant factor in the consideration of environmental impact of SMRs.

Here’s our take-away:

Reducing GHG emissions is a government priority. This is reflected in the Impact Assessment Act. The Minister of Natural Resources says nuclear power is essential to reduce GHGs (no path to net zero without nuclear)
The CNSC did not include GHG emissions as a factor in assessing its first SMR license application – even when requested to do so – and even when its own “interim strategy for environmental assessments” calls for this.
The CNSC should not lead environmental assessments of nuclear reactors, including SMRs.
The Physical Activities Regulations under the Impact Assessment Act should be changed to remove exemptions for new nuclear reactors.

Global Warming vs. Climate Change | Resources – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

SMRs are actually DDDs (Dirty Dangerous Distractions)

October 22, 2020October 23, 2020hendricksonjones 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!).

Letter to Treasury Board from women leaders across Canada re small nuclear reactors

September 21, 2020July 13, 2021hendricksonjones 2 Comments

la version française ici

September 21, 2020

The Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos, President

The Hon. Joyce Murray, Vice-Chair

The Hon. Bardish Chagger, Member

The Hon. Catherine McKenna, Member

The Hon. Chrystia Freeland, Member

The Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, Member

Dear Mr. Duclos and Members of the Treasury Board:

We write to you as women community and Aboriginal leaders in science, medicine, law and environmental protection to request your urgent attention to the need for Canada to uphold its legal obligation, as a party to the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, to minimize generation of radioactive waste.

Radioactive waste is dangerous, poses risks to all living things and must be kept out of the biosphere for as long as it poses a radioactive hazard (many tens of thousands of years). Article 11 of the Joint Convention states that parties shall “ensure that the generation of radioactive waste is kept to the minimum practicable”.

Small modular nuclear reactors, currently under consideration for taxpayer-funded development in Canada, would produce long-lived hazardous nuclear waste as part of normal operations. These reactors are proposed for Northern, remote and First Nations communities in some of Canada’s most fragile and globally important ecosystems. UNDRIP principles of free prior, and informed consent with indigenous communities have not been respected.

Production of plutonium and other fuels for small modular nuclear reactors would create long-lived hazardous nuclear waste. Small modular nuclear reactors would themselves become hazardous, long-lived nuclear waste; too hot to handle after their short lifespan of a few decades, and too costly to transport, they would likely be abandoned in place leaving permanently contaminated, radioactive exclusion zones, a few hectares in size, everywhere they were deployed.

Low-carbon alternatives to nuclear technology for electricity generation are readily available, faster to deploy, much less expensive and do not generate radioactive waste. They also create more jobs. Small nuclear reactors are therefore not a useful or necessary climate change mitigation strategy.Canada can much more easily, cheaply and quickly get to net zero carbon with a combination of energy conservation and renewables. For details please see Environmental Petition 419 to the Auditor General of Canada.

Small nuclear reactor proponents tout the notion that small reactors will use existing nuclear waste for fuel. This is a dangerous fantasy. In reality, “recycling” radioactive waste creates more radioactive waste, passing the buck to future generations. Worse, reactor technologies that use recycled fuel require extraction of plutonium, creating serious national security risks associated with nuclear weapons proliferation.

We submit that federal support and funding for development of small modular nuclear reactors would constitute an abnegation of Canada’s international commitment to minimize generation of radioactive waste.

We urge you to bring this matter to the attention of your Cabinet colleagues, and cease all government support and taxpayer funding for small modular nuclear reactors.