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Plan to Ship Radioactive Parts Over Great Lakes Condemned
OTTAWA—Environmental groups Tuesday condemned plans by Bruce Power to ship radioactive generators across the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River region to Sweden.
“Do we really want the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence to become routine transportation routes for radioactive debris for decrepit nuclear reactors?” said Kevin Kamps, a researcher for Washington-based Beyond Nuclear. (photo by Flickr user by Marcin Wichary) At a news conference they warned that the private power producer’s proposal to ship 16 100-tonne radioactive generators could be harmful both economically and physically for the region.
“Do we really want the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence to become routine transportation routes for radioactive debris for decrepit nuclear reactors?” said Kevin Kamps, a researcher for Washington-based Beyond Nuclear.
The concerns were raised Tuesday as two days of public hearings by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission began in Ottawa.
Environmental groups and the mayors of more than 100 communities in the affected area oppose the plan to transfer the radioactive waste through Great Lakes and Atlantic Ocean, en route to a processing plant in Sweden.
Bruce Power generates about a one-fifth of Ontario’s electricity.
Bruce Power’s original plan involved storing the generators in a cement bunker at its site in Tiverton, Ont., but now it proposes to send the generators to Studsvik, a Swedish company that can reprocess the generators and reduce the amount of waste that would need to be stored.
The remaining waste would then be returned the Western Waste Management Facility at the Bruce Power site.
Gordon Edwards, of the Great Lakes United Task Force on Nuclear Power, said the plan would set a precedent.
Sierra Club Canada says the plan contravenes an environmental assessment approved by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
Among the many non-governmental organizations, concerned citizen groups and organizations to speak at the hearing are Sierra Club Canada, Bruce County Council and the Swedish Environmental Movement’s Nuclear Waste Secretariat.
The commission has previously said there is no safety concern involved in issuing a licence to Bruce Power for the shipment.
NDP MP Nathan Cullen told reporters later the nuclear commission is clearly more interested in helping out the nuclear industry than protecting Canadians.
With files from The Canadian Press
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13 Comments so far
Show All"They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters."
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot
He'd need to update the lyrics slightly, of course, to account for some other strange mutant remains and a faint greenish glow reaching the surface from far below.
Oh, nothing could go wrong...
This is what the engineers at Chernobyl said when they decided to perform their experiments on the plant. They could always just shut it down if something unexpected happened...
Millions killed due to the hubris of managers, engineers, and politicians.
I wonder if there is a reason why no insurance company will insure a nuclear plant?
Sorry if I offended you MEP.
I also am an engineer who takes safety very seriously. Thousands of lives rely directly on my work every day. The engineers at Chernobyl were experimenting to see what they could do. And it WAS the height of irreponsibility and hubris to do what they did. Many paid with their lives.
In regards to insurance, of course there is SOME insurance on nuclear plants, just no REAL protection against radioactive release. There would have been no nuclear plants built at all in the US if the the Price-Anderson Act had not exempted them from liability. That is, no insurance company would be willing to take that enormous risk. Take a look at your own home owner's policy. Note the exception for radioactive contamination. Where would such contamination come from? (War is already excluded.)
I suggest that you do some research on the actual death toll from Chernobyl; the true numbers, however, will never be known. Governments have a way of minimizing the accounting to make them and their irresponsible industries look good.
The nuclear waste problem will be a drain on humanity and whoever comes after humans. The pyramids are only 4,000 years old and they failed in their design. Nuclear waste will have to be protected for millions of years. Do you really expect today's lowest bidder to secure the waste for essentially forever?
The only responsible nuclear power is the Sun, and even with a distance of 93,000,000 miles, it is still very dangerous.
"we would need a repository for about 500 years"
!!! 500 YEARS ???
Let us see. Assume we wanted the radioactivity to decrease by a factor of 1000 before we considered it safe. That means we would need to wait about 10 half-lives (2^10 = 1024). That means the half-life would need to be about 50 years if it was to be safe after 500 years.
What is the half life of some of the nastier waste products?
Methinks your estimate is a tad low.
I know. We could make munitions out of it and spread it out all over Iraq and Afghanistan. That would solve our waste problem.
And I am sorry, but I am not impressed with the US "tight regulatory oversight" of nuclear plants. Just look at the water leaks at Vermont Yankee. There is a much too cozy relationship between the regulators and the plant owners.
I like what Bill said. I think, tho, that the company should be forced to hire the Swedes to come and set up a cleaning facility at the site of these generators. The nuclear industry is notorious for creating hazardous waste with no thought to the future.
Dudes and Dudettes,
I'm left an' all but this is ridiculous. You could bomb these raiilcars with Hi-Ex and nothing would leak. Stop giving a hand to the coal industry and let these things pass. Place a little trust in the hundreds of qualified engineers who act strictly within the Quality Assurance guidelines. They will not, ever leak. The British rammed a rail engine into similar transport units just to prove the point. It's safe.