Greenpeace’s initial “response” to the Ontario government’s nuclear development announcement was nothing short of sad, pathetic and ineffectual. Members of that group boldly chained themselves inside Energy Minister Dwight Duncan’s office. Police eventually “freed” them with pneumatic bolt cutters and then charged them with trespassing. Useless and embarrassing. We need more brains and less chains, Greenpeace. The goal of renewable energy will not be won unless it can be shown that it is the only solution we can afford.
Ontario’s 40-year tryst with nuclear energy has been marked by two things: luck and money: We have been lucky enough to avoid the kind of catastrophe that would require the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people. The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station (PNGS) is just a stone’s through from Toronto, after all. It’s also kinda close to the good people of Ajax and Pickering, not to mention the community of Bay Ridges which is situated right at the plant’s doorstep (I lived there as a kid while the plant was being built). We have been lucky, so a point goes to Ontario Power Generation and AECL for not killing us all — yet.
But this kind of luck has not been cheap. We have poured boatloads of taxpayer dollars into Ontario’s nuclear plants. Let’s call it what it is: a corporate subsidy that has made a small number of people quite rich. And now once again the Liberals — and the Conservatives — want us to pony up for 20 years of additional financial servitude to this expensive, dangerous and unsustainable technology. The European Nuclear Society estimates that Canada, Australia, Kazakhstan and 7 other nations possess about 2 million tones of Uranium that can be “economically” extracted for $80 US per kilogram:
With their 2 million tonnes, all 439 world-wide operated nuclear power plants can be supplied for several decades. If mining costs of up to 130 $/kg are taken into consideration the global uranium reserves are increased by further 3 million tonnes.
In other words, by the time Ontario’s 20-year, $46 billion project ends, the real cost of fueling these reactors will increase dramatically. It is easy to blow holes in the arguments for continued nuclear development. The hard work lies in convincing ourselves and our governments that sensible conservation, wind farms, solar arrays, co-generation, and maybe even Sterling engines will allow us to keep the juice flowing.
Update - I’ve been reading Dr. Jeremy Whitlock’s instructive Canadian Nuclear FAQ. In addition to clearly presented (though understandably biased) information on the Candian nuclear scene, Dr. Whitlock is a great communicator and has some excellent advice for would-be anti-nuclear activists.