Does Alberta have a Candu attitude?

Commentary by Patrick Keller
If wind and solar power promise the future of low-maintenance, emission-free power, why is big business pushing plans to build costly, questionable reactors? Do windmills turning lazily in the summer breeze seem just a little too kind? Does solar power still mean CEO’s that wear Birkenstocks? Could it be that renewable energy is such a fantastic dream, no one wants to wake from it? Critics of Canada’s nuclear programs have said that our federal nuclear watchdog has been co-opted by industry, and that closed-door policy decisions are keeping NGO’s and community groups in the dark or worse, ignoring them altogether. Their relationship, its been said, is too “cozy”. No matter how much media coverage you throw at makers of nuclear energy, theirs is such a bizarre and technologically thick subject that they easily bob and weave around critics; the technology involved in smashing atoms is so arcane that its easy for industry to dismiss public concerns. After all, who would doubt a rocket scientist? Jim Harding would. The retired professor of environmental and justice studies and author of ‘Canada’s Deadly Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System’, had this to say about AECL’s spotty track record, “There was the Organic Cooled Reactor in Manitoba, which was an expensive dead end. There was the Candu Boiling Light Water Reactor in Quebec, 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 purveyors of nuclear energy want your vote but they don’t need it. They use atomic energy’s “emission-free” status like dolphin friendly tuna, but what about the tuna? To claim its cleaner to use fission than coal or oil sounds gratuitous if you are using that fission to extract oil. An old saying goes “It’s only illegal if you get caught”. The same could be said for safe nuclear energy. It’s only safe until something goes wrong. Then it’s neither safe, nor clean. And, it’s never cheap. At about $3000 per watt, it’s a multi-billion dollar idea just to get it into production. Reactors may not produce greenhouse gas emissions, but they do create toxic waste that lasts thousands of years. And, they’re not efficient. Without massive government handouts there would not be one single nuclear power plant operating. Its just not cost effective. New designs supposedly prove the worth of using depleted uranium in heavy water (the DU in Candu). If the AECL can convince Canadians that nuclear is the best way to extract sweet crude out of Alberta’s oil sands, then its time to hang our shingle. We sell the reactors. Mine and sell the uranium and store their toxic waste! Canada, the worlds one-stop nuke shop! “Shopping for radioactive waste storage solutions never felt so good!” And don’t foget all those high paying reactor jobs. With a half-life of thousands of years, watching the concrete containment centres for signs of leakage spells job security for millennia! Noted reactor employee Homer Simpson had this to say about the industry, “DOH!”

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