I will be spending the day with Dr. Whitlock as he visits some local schools I look forward to hearing from him again.

For links to information provided on the show please go to www.nuclearfreealberta.ca. Check out the Resources page of the website for an analysis of the German Study mentioned on the show.

The Pembina Institute's report on renewable energy is available at: http://arctic.pembina.org/pub/1763.

If you still have questions, you may reach me by emailing nuclearfreealberta@gmail.com.

 Hey, Nathan, email me and I'd be pleased to provide you with an alternative perspective to that of the nuclear industry.

Elena... do you really refuse to have x-rays?

I'm having a hard time understanding why a woman your age would say such a thing given the emphasis the medical community places on regular mammograms for early detection of breast cancer.

If you really refuse to have them done until after a problem is detected by other means, then you are dead already.

If I misinterpreted your comments, then I invite you to clarify your position on radiology and nuclear medicine.

You did misunderstand my comments. As an example, I don't have routine mammograms, only if my doctor finds anything that concerns him. My doctor has no problem with this. In fact, there have been concerns with women being put through unnecessary biopsies as a result of routine mammograms. If there were a history of breast cancer in the family, that would certainly warrant more frequent screening. Also to take into consideration is that this repeated, unnecessary exposure to radiation could actually contribute to cancer, as noted in the medical article link provided below.

As you may know, there is no safe dose of exposure to radiation no matter how low. Please see the following sites:

http://www.virginiahopkinstestkits.com/mammogramsdrlee.html

http://www.epa.gov/radon/beirvi.html

As for nuclear power in Alberta, there is no reason to expose Albertans to the risk, not only from the routine radioactive emissions given off by nuclear reactors, but from the risk of much greater contamination if there were a nuclear accident.

Hope this clarifies.

By the way, since this was a radio show, not TV, it mystifies me why you would have any idea of my age?

Elena - we shook hands just after the show. I was accompanying Dr. Whitlock.

The majority of the medical community does not agree with your beliefs on screening and early detection. Furthermore, the risk of unnecessary biopsy has more to do with a misreading of the data by the attending physician and nothing at all to do with radiation.

Your claim of there being no safe dose of radiation is absolutely false. Radiation exists in the environment all around us in everything from naturally occurring radioisotopes to the radioactive echoes of the creation of the universe. A few hours prior to meeting you, I deliberately exposed myself to a radiation source more than a hundred times higher than natural background levels while aiding Dr. Whitlock in demonstrating to high school students the presence of radiation all around us. Just placing my hand between the source (an old camera lens containing Thorium-232) and a gieger counter cut the amount of radiation the geiger counter was detecting more than 90%.

Does that sound dangerous? Well here's the thing, the natural background radiation detected by the geiger counter we were using averaged 7 beta decays every 10 seconds. The thorium camera lens pushed that up to 744 beta decays every ten seconds. In the 20 seconds my hand was in contact with the thorium, it received more than 1400 beta particles. But in the 48+ hours since our demonstration at the last high school we were at, my hand has been exposed to more than 120,000. That's the same amount that any 4 square centimeters of your own skin has been through in the same time period.

Short of confining yourself to a lead box for the rest of your natural life, there is nothing you can do to eliminate even a fraction of that radiation.

As for nuclear power in Alberta... or anywhere else, I am baffled at your comment that radioactive releases are "routine". Radioactive emissions from nuclear power plants are NOT routine. They are in fact almost nonexistant. Nuclear reactors are designed by people who are aware of both the hazards of radiation and the political cost of releasing anything the other side of a warm gust of air. They are designed at every turn to keep everything inside. All western reactors incorporate what is called a containment vessel, it is a six-foot thick wall made of steel reinforced concrete and is impervious to nearly everything short of a battleship shell. And radiation simply does not get out.

Here is a video made by Sandia Labs when testing a section of reactor containment vessel by crashing a 68,000 pound McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II combat jet into it at more than 500 miles per hour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWL1hwPQFoo

As you can see, the inner surface doesn't event show significant spalling from the impact.

As for what little radiation does get out, it is far below background levels and is dwarfed by what comes out of a coal fired plant. The average coal fired powerplant releases hundreds, in some cases thousands of times more radiation than what an average nuclear power plant does. It just goes straight up the smoke stack and into the air.

Since you are an employee of the nuclear industry, I am not going to waste any more of my time arguing with you. You are not looking for information, but rather just looking for an opportunity to spread more nuclear propaganda. And of course you are paid to do it. I would be more than pleased to spend my unpaid time answering questions to anyone in the general public, but I will not be responding to anymore of your comments.

I've already cited a link to the BEIR reports that states unequivocably that there is no threshold of exposure to low level radiation. All exposure to radiation has a risk of causing cancer and gene mutation. These reports are produced by the US National Academies, the major scientific organization in the United States that serve as advisors to the government.

Below there are just a couple of websites confirming that there are routine emissions from nuclear power plants. I have actually never heard this previously disputed.

http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/routineradioactivereleases.htm

http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/getinvolved/item.shtml?x=975

As usual, as a proponent for nuclear you make the false arguement that our only choice is coal or nuclear. There are much better energy options. I encourage you to read the Pembina's Greening the Grid. That link is in my previous comment as well as on my website.

I also encourage Albertans to have a close look at the evidence. Read our alternative report on nuclear in Alberta. Do your own research. Check out Dr. Gordon Edwards website at: http://www.ccnr.org. And remember that the nuclear industry, including AAron's employer, AECL, is desperate to sell nuclear reactors. They have a vested interest in convincing you that nuclear is safe. They are wrong. Nuclear is inherently dangerous. My only interest is in making sure that future generations aren't left with a legacy of toxic nuclear waste or the devastation of another Chernobyl. That our great grandchildren don't have to ask, "Why didn't our ancestors do something to stop this?"

This is funny. Or, rather, sad, that a grown woman would have such an irrational fear of radiation, but it is common in our society today. Nuclear power is a fairly clean and manageable energy source, and has many benefits over fossil fuels. It needs to be considered a part of the green mix of alternative energy sources, to help combat greenhouse warming and ween us off our dependence on foreign oil.

I wrote a post on the irrational fear of radiation just this weekend, linking to a good video from the BBC (Nuclear Nightmares).
http://www.nullsession.net/?p=2948

I am also working on improving a site that I have to help bring the scientific facts on the real harms and the hype surrounding nuclear power and radiation. There is a lot of misunderstanding being passed on by people who have a fear of radiation, and that is harmful to the public. There is even a growing interpretation of some data suggesting the immune system benefits from a low level of background radiation, and that people are in fact healthier than those in areas with much lower exposure. This is also mentioned in the movie, above.

Nuclear is an important option that should be part of the mix until we have fusion and other \green\ technologies advanced enough to keep up with our huge power demands. The West isn't even growing as rapidly as Asia, and they don't really care if the environmentalists or Canadian tree-huggers (no insult to trees intended) want to bury their heads in the sand and prevent new plants from being built in the West. We should all be working together to make the best of this efficient technology, for the benefit of humanity. To think that we would have another Chernobyl is foolish. Ms. Schacherl needs some education and needs to stop the propaganda overstating the negative effects of Chernobyl. I suppose she also believes in homeopathy.

Aaron, thanks for your comments above. I respect everything you said and I'll be sure to watch the videos you've linked and share them on my site.

Elena - You are obviously confused. Allow me to clear a few things up.

I believe in nuclear power. But I am not employed by the nuclear industry.
I believe that Alberta is the best Canadian province. But I am not employed by the Alberta Government.
I believe the Oilers kick the Flames asses. But I have never played for the Edmonton Oilers.
I believe in God. But I am not employed by any church (in fact, I donate time and money to the church).
I believe in a strong national defense. But I am not employed by the military or any defense contractors.
I believe in manned exploration of space. But I am not employed by NASA or the contractors that manufacture the space shuttle.
I believe that gun control is philosophically flawed and ineffective at combating crime. But I am not employed by any gun manufacturers or the Mafia.
I believe in pro-life. But I am not employed by baby food distributors.
I believe that Osama Bin Laden and 19 of his mind-numbed minions are responsible for the destruction of 9/11. But I am not employed by the jews, the CIA, the Bush administration, the Obama administration, the NSA, the FBI, the USAF, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Republican Party or shape-shifting alien reptiles from another planet (I have been seriously accused of all of these and informed of my impending trial and execution after the revolution in my on-line mocking of 9/11 conspiracy nuts, including the last one).

The activities I assisted Dr. Whitlock in were done purely as a volunteer for the CNS, which is a non-profit education and advocacy group.

>>I’ve already cited a link to the BEIR reports that states unequivocably that there is no threshold of exposure to low level radiation.

Really? Are you suggesting a global evacuation to a parallel universe where the physical constants do not allow for the formation of energetic particles then? Cuz that background noise left over from the creation of the universe is totally kicking our asses.

>>All exposure to radiation has a risk of causing cancer and gene mutation.

Yes... yes it does. Cosmic background radiation has been around for 13 billion years. Naturally occurring radioisotopes have been on earth for 4.6 billion years. Carbon based life has existed for 3.5 billion years. Multicellular life has existed for 1 billion years. But the nuclear industry has only exited for 70 years. Out of all the cases of radiation caused cancer and mutation that have existed on Earth, virtually none of it can be traced back to the nuclear industry.

In fact, the overwhelming majority of radiation caused cancer can't be traced to the nuclear industry today.

>>Below there are just a couple of websites confirming that there are routine emissions from nuclear power plants.

Your first link doesn't confirm anything. It merely repeats your claim. The second one references a half dozen incidents but leaves out the normal baselines for natural background radiation as well as what kind of releases it would take to cause direct harm to the general populace. As I pointed out above, you can experience radiation exposure more than 100 times above natural background without any ill effects.

>>As usual, as a proponent for nuclear you make the false arguement that our only choice is coal or nuclear.

I never said any such thing. I only pointed out the fact that coal fired plants release hundreds or possibly thousands of times the radiation that even the leakiest reactors do. In fact, if opposing radiation releases is your thing, why aren't you going after the coal industry first instead of chasing after the least source of industrial releases?

As for your windmills and solar plants, solar doesn't work up here when we need it, wind continues to be so unreliable as to be harmful to the grid and neither of them can produce power in the quantities that our civilization needs.

>>And remember that the nuclear industry, including AAron’s employer, AECL, is desperate to sell nuclear reactors.

Wait... you mean a company that manufactures a product actually wants to sell that product?

I'm SHOCKED! Shocked, I tell you!

>>My only interest is in making sure that future generations aren’t left with a legacy of toxic nuclear waste or the devastation of another Chernobyl.

As I told you above... it's already taken care of. Remember the supersonic fighter jet vs. the concrete containment dome?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWL1hwPQFoo

Chernobyl didn't have one of these, but Three Mile Island did. That's why Harrisburg Pennsylvania still has 50,000 people living there, why Three Mile Island itself is still running and scheduled for license renewal in 2014 but Pripyat in the Ukraine is a militarily enforced exclusion zone.

>>That our great grandchildren don’t have to ask, “Why didn’t our ancestors do something to stop this?”

We did.... here's that video one more time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWL1hwPQFoo

Elena
I am Aaron's father, I was the one at the radio station with a cane. I am not part of the nuclear industry and neither are any of my three sons or two daughters and I love my almost four grandchildren as much as any grandfather could. We have come to believe in nuclear power by personal study. None of us would actively support anything would endanger my grandchildren.

You obviously believe in the linear no threshold LNT approach to radiation dosage. If you were to look at the work of Dr. Doug Boreham or Dr. Jerry Cutler you would read of the hormesis effect. animal cells including human animals have a DNA repair mechanism that will repair damaged DNA, or in some cases cause the individual cell to die rather than mutate into a malignant growth.

If you want to minimize your exposure to background radiation, you can never escape it, move to a lower elevation city such as Medicine Hat, don't fly in commercial aircraft, don't visit Banff, Denver or any high altitude city, don't install granite counter tops in your kitchen as they are slightly more radioactive than normal background, stay out of buildings with a lot of granite. Watches and clocks with luminous radium dials are thing of the past as are cameras with thorium in the lenses. I could carry this on to ridiculous lengths.

One thing that you can do that would help us all is campaign against coal fired power plants. The emissions from these plants not only contain particulate matter that is bad for the lungs but the also contain traces of uranium and other radioactive substances at levels that would would result in a nuclear power plant loosing its license and you can add to the list mercury.

As for the medical use of isotopes and sophisticated X-ray procedures, without them my wife would be a widow and we would have never met.

I have attended a presentation by Dr. Gordon Edwards and various Parkland and Pembina Institute speakers so I am not close minded. Dr. Whitlock's personal website www.nuclearfaq.ca also contains pointers to sources of anti nuclear information. I am concerned that many of the anti-nuclear organizations get all of their information from one or two sources, one of the organizations even publishes instructions on how to take over a meeting and some have been know to do so, thereby preventing the full exchange of information.

As the debate continues there is room for good manners on all sides, I was offended by the sidewalk message in Calgary calling me a nuclear parasite. I think that if you take the time to get to know a few of us a little better you will find that we are as concerned about the environment as the next person.

In my previous post I failed to mention that the Chernobyl reacter never would have been build in most parts of the world. It did not have the approximately 6 foot thick steel reinforced concrete containment building that is require in Western Europe and the rest of the world. That is why it spread nuclear materials all over the place. The explosion was NOT a nuclear explosion but they were conducting a test and had disable some of the safety mechanisms. The reactor power went up and boiled the cooling water causing a steam explosion then the graphite in the reactor started to burn.

Three Mile Island, on the other hand was a success story because the containment building contained all of the radioactive material.

Nuclear reactors can not explode like an atomic bomb because the fuel is not sufficiently rich or tightly packed.

Paul

Hello Elena,

It was nice to meet you the other night on the air. As others have pointed out, I was the only nuclear employee you met that night. (I was there on my
own time, extending a very long trip away from my family for a few more days so I could share my knowledge and help others understand this
important technology. This is a passion of mine and not my day job.)

I believe you misunderstand, or rather you are propagating a misunderstanding that you have read elsewhere (it's quite common), that there is no safe
level of radiation exposure. As I mentioned on the show, there is no evidence of a health effect of low-level radiation exposure, good or bad, below
about 100 mSv of exposure, which is roughly a 100 times your annual background exposure, and many thousands of times greater than anything a
nuclear reactor will expose you to. The only thing we have observed is a strong suggestion that exposures at this level are, in fact, good for you (as many environmental toxins are at low exposures).

To be safe, however, for radiation protection purposes we assume that a risk exists and it is simply a linear extrapolation of the risk that we do observe at high doses (such as the Hiroshima/Nagasaki victims). This administrative assumption is the "risk" that the BEIR and other reports refer to.

Regardless of whether there is a risk however, it does not make sense to highlight the negligible amount of radiation emitted by an operating nuclear plant,
while ingoring the context of the much greater levels of radiation that exist around us. If we are endangered by the almost nonexistent levels associated
with nuclear power, then life itself should not be able to exist on this planet. Greenpeace, Pembina, Caldicott, Edwards and others like to scare people on this point, which I find reprehensible, particularly when they target young parents or mothers of unborn children, telling them that they are killing their kids by making them live near a nuclear plant. This is exploiting fear for political gain, and a widely-condoned form of terrorism.

Moreover, I must say I find your insinuation a bit insulting that a nuclear worker would lie to the public and willingly endanger his/her own life, plus that of his/her family and the rest of the population that live near nuclear sites. Would you do this sort of thing? What makes you think I would?

Jeremy.

Hello Dr. Whitlock,
You should be commended for your social conscience and your willingness to sacrifice your family time to spread the nuclear gospel. I assume you have more time to do so now that you are no longer employed as a reactor physicist on the commissioning team for the Maple reactors since they were cancelled in May 2008.

As you were so intimately involved with the Maple project, could you explain why AECL and its resident experts were unable to complete this project despite spending four times the original estimate?

During his visit to Peace River on March 26, 2009, I spoke with Doug Boreham over a jug of beer during Bruce Power's information session about radiation hormesis. His explanation of the beneficial effects of radiation differed from yours. He said it wasn't so much a beneficial effect as it was a case of delaying the onset of a disease. Further, his testing has only occurred on rats, not people.

Elena's comment about the dangers of low level radiation are derived from the BEIR 7 report. As "lay people", we have little choice but to trust respected organizations. As we delve into the intricacies of nuclear energy we are constantly confronted by opposing opinions by "reputable scientists". Who should we believe, a national scientific body or the proponent of a nuclear project? Are you saying that the U.S. National Academy of Sciences is lying to us?

Are you saying that the tritium contamination of groundwater under nuclear plants in Canada is negligible? Do we have anything to worry about from the radiation and radioactive particulate matter exuded from mine tailings, conversion facilities and radioactive waste?

On your final point concerning whether a nuclear worker would ever lie to the public, I will offer the following information that was recorded by the news editor of the radio station in Cobourg Ontario and witnessed by about forty people in the council chamber. In October 2004, Lloyd Jones, the president of Zircatec Precision Industries which manufactures fuel rods in Port Hope Ontario appeared in front of Port Hope council. Mr. Jones told council and the audience that the community's fears of uranium were exagerated. He told the audience that: "it would be perfectly safe for a person to eat five pounds of uranium without suffering any ill effects. But if a person ate five pounds of sugar, they would probably die." This is a direct quote. Perhaps you could comment on the merits and effects of eating five pounds of uranium.

I read the previous discussion about the effects of radiation from nuclear reactors, but there was no mention of radiological effects from any other part of the nuclear fuel cycle nor was anything said about the higher risks from internal emitters. Perhaps you could expound on these issues for the readers. After all, it isn't often we can ask questions of someone of your stature.

[...] This post was Twitted by nullsession - Real-url.org [...]

Mr. Macnamara -

Do you know anyone who has eaten 5 pounds of uranium?

Second, as I pointed out at least twice before, coal fired plants release hundreds of times more radiation into the atmosphere than do nuclear plants. If we were to replace all coal fired plants with nuclear facilities, the overall release of radioactive elements into the atmosphere would drop to a fraction of a percent of current levels.

Do you really want to reduce the publics radiation risk or not?

Here's that information on coal plant radiation releases in case you're interested:

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

\Total U.S. releases in 1982 (from 154 typical plants) amounted to 801 tons of uranium (containing 11,371 pounds of uranium-235) and 1971 tons of thorium. These figures account for only 74% of releases from combustion of coal from all sources. Releases in 1982 from worldwide combustion of 2800 million tons of coal totaled 3640 tons of uranium (containing 51,700 pounds of uranium-235) and 8960 tons of thorium.\

Those are staggering figures when you realize that was 27 years agao and now the situation is much, MUCH worse.

I challenge anyone who is opposed to large scale releases of radioactive waste into the environment to stand with me in calling for the replacement of all coal with clean, carbon free, low radiation nuclear power.

Yes, it would be a challenge to stand with the nuclear supporters, every day it would be a moral, ethical and intellectual challenge.

Certainly not something I have the stomach for...

Lets avoid radioactive emmissions and radioactive waste all together and instead invest in renewable energy like wind, solar and geothermal. Its renewables that will make what small difference humanity can make to climate change. Clearly with the costs associated with nuclear power - relative to all other sources of energy - and the time it takes to build a nuclear plant the world can and should make better choices.

What are we supposed to do while we wait the twenty plus years it takes to propose, plan and finally build a nuclear power plant...burn heaps more coal?!?

And what if we did allow the build of the proposed ACR-1000 Candu nuclear reactor from Atomic Energy of Canada? What are the chances it would even work properly? If we go by the recent history of AECL's Maple reactors, chances are it won't work at all!!

Marble - The problem with wind and solar is that there will never be enough of it.

Maple Ridge in New York is one of Americas largest windfarms. It has 195 wind turbines, covers an area of more than 12,000 acres while generating a piddling 300 megawatts at peak efficiency and on a calm day, it generates nothing.

For one of the "sunbelt" (eg Nevada and Arizona) states in the US, a 1000 megawatt solar facility will cover more than 14 square miles. For an "average" US state, this figure jumps to over 18 square miles.

By comparison, the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station on the shores of Lake Huron, which is the largest operating nuclear facility in the world, occupies roughly 2 or 3 square miles (rough estimate) and has a maximum capacity of more than 6,200 megawatts. To match the capacity of the Bruce Station with solar power, you would need to clear 108 square miles of land and devote it all to solar panels. And this doesn't even include space for batteries or capacitors you'd need for nighttime or cloudy day use. To replace all of Canadas nuclear reactors with solar you would need almost 300 square miles of solar panels.

And if you tried to put all that into wind power, you would have to assemble the worlds largest poultry grinder and be will to accept the loss of possibly entire species of migrating birds.

Good luck convincing the anti-nuclear lobby to let you pave 300 square miles of wilderness.

"What are we supposed to do while we wait the twenty plus years it takes to propose"

The government could pass a law cutting that to 10 years or even 5 if the political will was there. A law depriving the anti-nuclear lobby of the power to file court injunctions alone would significantly speed up the process.

And again, you will run up against the same roadblocks from the same people as are in the anti-nucllear lobby if you tried to bring enough wind an solar on-line to fill our needs.

"And what if we did allow the build of the proposed ACR-1000 Candu nuclear reactor from Atomic Energy of Canada? What are the chances it would even work properly? If we go by the recent history of AECL’s Maple reactors, chances are it won’t work at all!!"

Why do you make such an illogical statement? Why do you choose to use the MAPLE reactor to judge the probable success of a CANDU design instead of past CANDU designs?

There are 29 active CANDU reactors in 7 countries around the world and 13 "Clone-DUs" (unlicensed copies of the CANDU design) in India. There are 3 more being refurbished, 3 more under construction and another 3 Indian Clone-DUs also under construction. That's more than 50 CANDU series reactors in operation or being brought on-line.

The ACR-1000 will likely be even more succesful than it's big brothers.

AAron, if it is "illogical" for me to compare one reactor with another, why then is it more logical for you to do the same thing?

I don't want to get in to a debate with you about what is going on in NY state or anywhere else other than in my own backyard. Where I live we have excellent potential for wind, solar and especially geothermal and biomass energy development. In my backyard we have years and years of drilling experience and technology development that could be used very effectively in the development of geothermal energy production. I would much rather develop this potential before nuclear.

The whole wind energy foot print is a red herring. We don't need 300 sq .miles of wilderness to develop wind or solar power. I am for the development of widely distributed micro power instead of concentrated mega developments of any kind.

You didn't answer my question of what are we supposed to do while we wait for nuclear build in a democracy like Canada? This isn't Communist China. You can't make the anti-nuke crowd just go away, it doesn't work like that. Deal with the reality of a free democracy not with the idea that you can turn Canada into some kind of fascist dictatorship where nuclear power gets fast tracked over the outcry of those who are against. It is the Canadian taxpayer that is asked to pay for the inevitable cost overruns you know. Don't forget that fact...

The coal is burning...

Hello Pat,

I appreciate your concern. It is difficult for a layperson to wade through the scientific literature and make sense of complicated issues that affect our everyday lives. Most people, thankfully, don't resort to rudeness but I recognize that everyone responds to fear and uncertainty differently. In this case, however, you can rest assured that BEIR, NAS, and myself are all saying the same thing: there is no observable effect of exposures to low-level radiation.

Regarding emissions from nuclear plants, these are typically less than 1% of the regulatory limit, which itself is thousands of times less than what might be remotely considered dangerous. This goes for all stages of the fuel cycle, all types of radiation (alpha, beta, gamma), and all types of exposure (internal, external). All of this is taken into account in the modelling.

regards,
Jeremy.

AAronH writes: "As for your windmills and solar plants, solar doesn’t work up here when we need it, wind continues to be so unreliable as to be harmful to the grid and neither of them can produce power in the quantities that our civilization needs."

Hi Aaron,

Wind and solar power have made immense strides in efficiency and cost over the past 30 years; far greater strides than nuclear. Do you presume those improvements have come to an end? Regardless, I haven't seen you yet recognize that these technologies are only part of the suite of options coming under the heading of renewable energy. Germany has farmers burning methane gas off of their manure, supplying their own electricity and sending enough onto the grid for 300 homes. Is there any reason why your Province and mine should not facilitate the same for our own farmers? Here in Alberta we have vast expertise in drilling; why should we not take advantage of geothermal power? Coincidentally, both of these technologies could nicely fill in the gaps when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. And they could be in place feeding the grid before ground were broken for building any new nuclear. Add cogeneration into the mix and then large new power plants, whether coal or nuclear, start to look pretty slow, sluggish, and unnecessary.

One last point. You spoke about the "needs" of our civilization; does that include Moxie's Restaurant on 7th Ave. in downtown Calgary, where I see their south facing patio lights burning all day long, every day, under bright sunshine? Or my neighbors doing the same with their porch lights? Is it a "need" for my co-workers to leave their computers, monitors, printers and speakers turned on all weekend when they leave their offices? Is it a "need" for an electronics store to have 60 TV screens and monitors lit up all day, every business day?

We have had decades of easy access to cheap, abundant energy, but those days are coming to an end. As we assess what sources of power are our best options, the lowest hanging fruit are conservation and efficiency.

>>AAron, if it is “illogical” for me to compare one reactor with another, why then is it more logical for you to do the same thing?

Because "reactor" is apparently all you saw. It's like comparing a Boeing 747-400 with a Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle because they are both "airplanes". But the are nothing alike. The 747-400 is a four engine subsonic high capacity long distance passenger hauler while the F-15E is a twin engine supersonic air superiority-interdictor/strike aircraft.

It's the same with the ACR-1000 and the MAPLE. One is an evolutionary development of an existing design with 50 examples in operation with the purpose of civilian power production, the other is new design for an experimental research and medical isotope production facility.

I compared CANDUS with CANDUS, you compared apples to oranges.

>>I don’t want to get in to a debate with you about what is going on in NY state or anywhere else other than in my own backyard.

First you want to compare two reactors that are completely different. But now you want to head off any comparison between one civil power generation wind turbine and another civil power generation wind turbine.

Why is that?

>>The whole wind energy foot print is a red herring.

A red herring that you don't want to talk about. You don't sound terribly confident.

>>We don’t need 300 sq .miles of wilderness to develop wind or solar power.

Technically true for the Peace River region in Alberta where Bruce Power is hoping to build a reactor. Similar solar capacity up here, with our long winters, short days and long nights would be more like 500 square miles.

>>I am for the development of widely distributed micro power instead of concentrated mega developments of any kind.

Wow... so flush efficiency levels completely down the toilet and expand it to 2,000 square miles then?

Let's say we put solar panels on every roof in the city. Now walk around your neighborhood and look closely at each house that looks dirty, or the grass is too long, there is weeds in the yard or there is a rusting dead car in the driveway. The solar panels on those houses you're gonna lose in 5 years because the people in them don't take care of their stuff. Any house with people in it that are 60 years or older are going to take an efficiency hit because they won't be in good enough shape to climb onto their roofs and clean dust and leaves off the panels. And trees... take a close look at the trees. I have a 50 foot tree outside my house right now casting a big ass shadow right where the solar panels would be, right when the sun is in a perfect position to hit them. You'd have to go around the neighborhood cutting down every tree that's high enough to block the panels. And cutting down trees isn't very carbon neutral, is it?

The only way to garantee that each panel is producing at optimum efficiency is to pave over a wide swath of ground, put them all in the same place and have trained maintenance crews going about cleaning them regularly and oiling the necessary parts (assuming you have them on motorized mounts that follow the sun for maximum efficiency).

>>You didn’t answer my question of what are we supposed to do while we wait for nuclear build in a democracy like Canada?

Well, since wind and solar won't work, we will have to keep releasing massive amounts of radiation into the air with coal plants.

>>This isn’t Communist China.

So suggesting changes in legislation makes me communist china now?

>>You can’t make the anti-nuke crowd just go away,

Yes we can. We made the 9/11 truthers go away. The anti-nuclear lobby is just like the 9/11 conspiracy crowd. Their claims are devoid of scientific merit, they prey on the fears of the gullible and when they run out of pseudo-reasonable arguments (which happens quite quickly) they start up with accusations and name calling because they can't back their #$%& up. Just like Elena did up near the top of this page.

>>Deal with the reality of a free democracy not with the idea that you can turn Canada into some kind of fascist dictatorship where nuclear power gets fast tracked over the outcry of those who are against.

No...YOU deal with the idea of a free democracy. If we find ourselves in the midst or at the onset of another energy crisis, the current "nuclear renaissance" we are in now will accelerate. Today, nuclear power is experiencing a resurgence in popularity. Tomorrow, fast-tracking nuclear will become the big thing. I've always said that the nuclear power debate is already over. The anti-nuclear lobby simply won't be able to compete with the idea of turning off our xboxes, plasma TVs, microwaves, blackberries, cordless phones, MP3 players, personal computers, MRI scanners, x-rays, pacemakers, defibrillators and all the advances in health and comfort that we now enjoy. Given the choice of losing all that we have or going nuclear, the choice will be clear. It will be relatively quick and easy (compared to the last 50 years) and it will be final.

Unless... that is... you'd rather turn Canada into an impoverished eco-fascist dictatorship?

>>The coal is burning…

Yep... and there's a whole lot of it to burn yet.

I've got time... do you?

Aaron H,
Your first question is inane. It was the president and part owner of a nuclear fuel cycle company that said it would be safe to eat five pounds of uranium, not me. I can assure you that I thought the mere notion of it as idiotic as you do, given the radioactive and chemical toxicity of uranium.

This was not Lloyd Jones’ only instance of lying to people about the dangers we faced from the nuclear industry. During the 2005 mid-term licensing hearings held in Port Hope, a CNSC commissioner asked Lloyd Jones if the Port Hope Fire Department was capable of fighting radiological fires at his facility. He responded that they were able to do so. A Port Hope councillor who was intervening on the issue stood and gave the CNSC copies of two letters Lloyd Jones was sent two months before. One was from the Port Hope Fire Department and the other was from the CNSC advising Mr. Jones that the fire department did not have the equipment, training or personnel to fight radiological fires at Zircatec. Mr. Jones had ignored the letters which put his nuclear employees and members of the public at risk. Don’t believe me; read it in the CNSC transcript.

If you would like another example of a nuclear company lying which endangered their employees, read the CNSC transcript of the flooding of the MacArthur Mine where Cameco knowingly exposed their employees to elevated levels of radiation to try to save the mine.

Regarding your second point, where do you see me arguing the relative benefits of coal and nuclear. They are both dirty technologies which should be phased out. Unfortunately, we are stuck with coal for quite a while as the currently operating facilities are being grand-fathered until they rust into the ground. Your comparison of the relative amounts of radioactivity released from the two power sources has little credibility unless you do a full life cycle analysis on the two energy sources.

Your final question is self-evident and doesn’t merit a response.

Pat McNamara

Hello Jeremy,
I never said I had any trouble understanding any of the scientific literature. I said I have trouble figuring out which expert/scientist is telling the truth and which one is lying to us. In many ways, the nuclear debate mirrors the smoking debate from forty years ago. You had health experts saying it was dangerous and tobacco industry experts telling us it was safe.
We must not have read the same BEIR report. The BEIR 7 report emphatically states that there is no safe level of radiation. It does not differentiate between levels. The BEIR 7 report was also clear in stating that there was no scientific foundation for the industry’s belief in radiation hormesis.
I would appreciate answers to the questions in my previous correspondence.
Why couldn’t AECL get the Maple reactors producing isotopes?
Do you consider the tritium contamination under Canada’s nuclear plants to be negligible?
Two further questions given your previous answer on emissions;
Why is the allowable level of gamma radiation at the fenceline of Cameco’s site in Port Hope six times higher than at the fenceline of a nuclear reactor?
If the regulatory levels are set to protect people and the environment, why did the mine tailings at Elliot Lake kill ten lakes and 55 miles of the Serpent River?
You'll see in my response to Aaron, that I've given a couple of examples of nuclear executive lying which put their employees and the public at risk. No industry is free from the frailties of humanity.
Pat

"No industry is free from the frailties of humanity."

Really, Mr. McNamara?

Does rule also apply to the anti-nuclear lobby or are their members not human?

This is an interesting conversation, so let's not have it deteriorate into ad hominem attacks.

This applies to everyone commenting: Stick to evidence-based arguments, please.

Aaron,

Heed your father's words from his post:
As the debate continues there is room for good manners on all sides, I was offended by the sidewalk message in Calgary calling me a nuclear parasite. I think that if you take the time to get to know a few of us a little better you will find that we are as concerned about the environment as the next person.

I signed on to this page for intelligent debate and conversation. I did not sign on to be accosted by a flippant little smart-ass who resorts to personal attacks when he can't come up with anything intelligent and relevant to the discussion at hand. Go spend some time with your father. Maybe some of his dignity will rub off on you.

Pat McNamara

Mr. McNamara, if you will look up the page, you will see the first personal attack here was laid down by a member of the anti-nuclear lobby. I was accused of being a paid propagandist of the nuclear industry. An provably false accusation which Ms. Schacherl has yet to apologize for. You will have to forgive me if I have been a tad snarky since then.

My response to was indeed flippant, but it was also somewhat serious. So I will repeat my question in plain english. You claim that there are people in the nuclear industry who are dishonest. Do you believe that there is no one in the anti-nuclear lobby is is similarly afllicted by such human frailties?

>>Wind and solar power have made immense strides in efficiency and cost over the past 30 years;
Really? Because if it takes 28,000 wind turbines, 85,000 acres and a cost of 80 BILLION dollars just to replace Pickering station with 1 MW wind turbines, I shudder to think what it would have taken 30 years ago.

>> far greater strides than nuclear.

There are no greater strides that we have made that are greater than harnessing the fury of an ancient star and putting it in a can. Everything after that is just details.

>> Do you presume those improvements have come to an end?

Yes. It's called "The Law of Diminishing Returns". And you seem to feel that way about nuclear energy. Have you read anything about the differences between the various generations of reactors? Are you aware of the ideas going into the design of the next generation? Have you read anything about neutron transmutation or any of the cutting edge thinking in waste elimination (that's "elimination", not "waste management", yes... it's possible)?

>> Regardless, I haven’t seen you yet recognize that these technologies are only part of the suite of options coming under the heading of renewable energy.

I haven't seen you recognize that nuclear is renewable.

>> Germany has farmers burning methane gas off of their manure, supplying their own electricity and sending enough onto the grid for 300 homes.

300 homes? I am definitely detecting a flaming mass of bovine fecal matter in that claim.

>>Is there any reason why your Province and mine should not facilitate the same for our own farmers?

The conversion of valuable grains into biofuels has been a disaster for global food prices. Now you want to burn off a major source of natural fertilizer? That's just crazy.

>>Here in Alberta we have vast expertise in drilling; why should we not take advantage of geothermal power?

Because a geothermal project in geologically stable Switzerland recorded 10,000 seismic shocks in it's first 6 days of operation, some as high as 3.4 on the richter scale, and building an earthquake factory near our new reactor would be stupid.

Geothermal plants also have problems weakening the ground around them and causing ground collapses.

>>And they could be in place feeding the grid before ground were broken for building any new nuclear.

As I've described elsewhere, most of the obstacles to the construction of new nuclear plants are without physical substance. They are nearly all political. And most of those are put in place to placate noisy anti-nuclear lobbyists. You may choose to leave this fact out of your argument, but I am still aware of it. You are, in effect, saying to me "Nuclear plants take too long to build because of my and my firends raising a stink over it". To which I would say "Well then, sit down and shut up".

Most of the reason nuclear is finally back on the table after so long is because of last years 147-dollar-a-barrel oil shock. Now here we are in the middle of a deep recession and oil is creeping back up over 70 dollars a barrel. Smart money says nuclear power is going to lurch forward again and we will start to accumulate the political will to tear down some of those barriers, and perhaps our shouting may be able to drown out a few of the nuclear naysayers.

At any rate, the "nuclear takes to long to build" is an argument with a shelf life that's soon to run out.

"One last point. You spoke about the “needs” of our civilization; does that include Moxie’s Restaurant on 7th Ave. in downtown Calgary, where I see their south facing patio lights burning all day long, every day, under bright sunshine? Or my neighbors doing the same with their porch lights? Is it a “need” for my co-workers to leave their computers, monitors, printers and speakers turned on all weekend when they leave their offices? Is it a “need” for an electronics store to have 60 TV screens and monitors lit up all day, every business day?"

I'm going to answer all of the above with a resounding "HELL YEAH!"

A mans needs are what he himself determines, no one else. In the last century, the people of this planet experimented with systems of government based on the idea of "To each according to need". And what resulted was greater human bloodshed, tyranny, oppression, poverty and privation and even environmental damage than anyone imagined was possible before. Here in Edmonton, by the southwest corner of city hall is a monument to tens of millions of victims of that destructive philosophy. When someone starts talking about limiting other people to what they think their needs are, it's time to start getting nervous.

>>We have had decades of easy access to cheap, abundant energy, but those days are coming to an end.

No they aren't. They are just beginning.

The splitting of a single atom of Uranium 235 releases 20 MILLION times the energy of combining a methane molecule with oxygen. Our nuclear reactors today are putting aside fuel bundles and declaring them "spent" when their contents are 90% unburned fertile material. We could easily take that nuclear fuel, recycle and burn it again and again, pulling more and more energy and even eliminating the long lived waste that worries so many. But we're not doing this right now because it's cheaper to mine fresh uranium and run a "once through fuel cycle".

>>As we assess what sources of power are our best options, the lowest hanging fruit are conservation and efficiency.

So you would have us huddle around the dying embers of civilization and wait... for what?

That's a pessimistic and unnecessary point of view. Conservation, simply put, is wrong. We don't need to conserve. We need an energy source with room to grow in it. Conservation is contraction. It's the opposite of growth. We need an energy source with juice to spare for whatever comes down the line in the future. My grandparents started the last century with little more than electric lights. In their lifetimes came radios, TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, dryers, electric ovens, telephones, VCRs, home steroes, record players, compact discs, personal computers, x-boxes, microwaves, DVD players, and the internet. And most of all of that came in the 50 years between the end of WW2 and the end of the century.

We don't know what's coming next anymore than Grandma and Grandpa did (hopefully, the robot maids, flying cars and Moon cities we were promised ten years ago are on the list). But it's not going to come if there isn't a socket on the wall to plug it in. We've got a great party going on here. But it doesn't need to throw off natures balance. It doesn't need to belch carbon into the atmosphere. And most importantly... it doesn't need to end! We have so much abundance. We have not only the benefit of thousands of years of human progress and discover which led us to the inner secrets of the universe and has allowed the exploitation of this tremendous power source. We have enough fuel to keep our civilization going literally for thousands of years. There is so much uranium and thorium in the earths crust that with the technologies of reprocessing, recycling and transmutation for the elimination of wastes that by the time we burn it all out, geological processes will have brought up new supplies from the depths of the mantle and deposited them in the earths crust. Nuclear power is a RENEWABLE resource! We've come so far as a people. We have within our grasp the means to create a future of wealth, health and abundance for all mankind. We must not allow fear, uncertainty and doubt to rob our inheritors of all we and our ancestors sacrificed to build.

As an old song from the 80's said "The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades". =D

Hello Pat,

In answer to your questions:

> In many ways, the nuclear debate mirrors the smoking debate from forty years ago. You had health experts saying it was
> dangerous and tobacco industry experts telling us it was safe.

This is nothing like the tobacco "debate" Pat. In this case the health experts are saying the same thing as the nuclear industry, which is not a surprise since the nuclear industry is bound by law to follow the guidelines laid down by the health experts, and compliance with this code is strictly regulated.

When I think of the nuclear debate, I'm more put in mind of the Salem witch hunts.

> We must not have read the same BEIR report. The BEIR 7 report emphatically states that there is no safe level of radiation.
> It does not differentiate between levels.

"No safe level" is definitely the assumption of BEIR VII, and the assumption of every radiation protection policy on the planet. However you should be careful not to confuse a conservative assumption in the absence of data, with observation.

BEIR VII most definitely differentiates between high and low levels of radiation. Firstly, it recommends, like other expert bodies, a "Dose and Dose Rate Effectiveness Factor" (DDREF), which recognizes that low doses and low dose-rates are theoretically less effective at causing cancer ("theoretically", because little hard data exists in this region). The linear extrapolation changes slope for low doses, so it's not really a straight line drawn from high doses, as you often hear described. The health detriment per unit dose in the low-dose region is half what it is at high doses.

Secondly, BEIR VII acknowledges, like other expert bodies, that statistical uncertainty prevents any conclusion about radiation effects below about 100 mSv, or roughly 100 times background; e.g.: "At doses of 10 rem or less, statistical limitations make it difficult to evaluate cancer risk in humans." - BEIR VII, 2006; "Studies of populations, chronically exposed to low level radiation, such as those residing in regions of elevated natural background radiation (10 - 100 times average U.S. levels), have not shown consistent or conclusive evidence of an associated increase in the risk of cancer.” - BEIR V, 1990; "Below 5–10 rem (which includes occupational and environmental exposures), risks of health effects are either too small to be observed or are nonexistent.” - Health Physics Society, 2004.

Nevertheless BEIR VII does strongly reiterate its conclusion that insufficient evidence exists to declare radiation to be safe in this region, which is possibly the source of your confusion.

> Why couldn’t AECL get the Maple reactors producing isotopes?

Many reasons Pat, but the main reason was the positive power coefficient issue, which I'm sure you know about, so it's not clear to me why you're asking.

> Do you consider the tritium contamination under Canada’s nuclear plants to be negligible?

I've addressed emissions from nuclear plants. I wish that all industries emitted as much as nuclear plants -- this would be a much cleaner planet.

> Why is the allowable level of gamma radiation at the fenceline of Cameco’s site in Port Hope six times higher than
> at the fenceline of a nuclear reactor?

This is odd since in Canada the allowable dose to the public is 1 mSv/year (about a third of background), regardless of the type of nuclear facility. This does not apply to coal plants of course, which aren't regulated by the CNSC.

> If the regulatory levels are set to protect people and the environment, why did the mine tailings at Elliot
> Lake kill ten lakes and 55 miles of the Serpent River?

I'm not going to comment on legacy mining practices Pat, which as you know were much less strict across the board, not just for uranium, than today. Modern uranium mining, such as at McArthur River in northern Saskatchewan, complies with modern regulations for environmental impact. Having been to McArthur River, I can attest to this.

regards,
Jeremy.

Aaron,

Why do you continue to ask self-evident questions? There is good and bad in EVERY sector of society regardless of how you subdivide it.

No, I don't forgive you for being a "tad snarky". I didn't "crap on your corn flakes" junior, so don't take it out on me. If you can't stick to a nuclear discussion, don't waste my time any more with your juvenile hyperbole. Take a cue from your father and Jeremy. Though we disagree completely on the merits of nuclear energy, we treat each other with civility.

Pat

Hi AAron,

I just got home from a 10 hour night shift, and I won't reply to every response you took the time to make, but I'll clarify those things I have time and mental energy for.

>>"Wind and solar power have made immense strides in efficiency and cost over the past 30 years"
In the case of solar, from $120 per watt of generating capacity in the early 70's, down to about $3 per watt now. A Massachusetts startup called 1366 Technologies has created solar cells in its lab that company scientists are saying still more efficient, bringing down the cost to $1.30 a watt. Wind turbine manufacturers, meanwhile, are vying for bragging rights of $1 per watt. With all the private investment pouring into renewables while ignoring nuclear, there are apparently a lot of people who think that sun and wind are a sure bet.

>>"nuclear is renewable."
With steadily declining concentrations of uranium in mined ore and increasing amounts of fossil fuel required to extract it all, I don't see your point.

>> "Germany has farmers burning methane gas off of their manure, supplying their own electricity and sending enough onto the grid for 300 homes.
300 homes? I am definitely detecting a flaming mass of bovine fecal matter in that claim.
>>Is there any reason why your Province and mine should not facilitate the same for our own farmers?
The conversion of valuable grains into biofuels has been a disaster for global food prices. Now you want to burn off a major source of natural fertilizer? That’s just crazy."

The Fifth Estate did a program on Germany's great strides and Canada's heel-dragging on renewables, and you can find it here, with video footage of a couple of the aforementioned German farmers: http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2008-2009/the_gospel_of_green/
I am not a chemist, but what I understand of the process is that it burns off the methane and leaves a readily usable fertilizer, not requiring the usual aging periods of several months, and minus the offensive smell.

To your resounding “HELL YEAH!”, I will only answer with the words of Mahatma Gandhi, who said, "The world has enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed." It would appear you and I hold a profound difference of opinion on the subject of "needs".

>>"We have had decades of easy access to cheap, abundant energy, but those days are coming to an end.">>>No they aren’t. They are just beginning."

You can take that argument up with Jeff Rubin, if you like. For 20 years, he was the chief economist for CIBC World Markets, but recently left the bank to promote his book called "Why Your World is About to Get A Whole Lot Smaller", based on his prediction that we are approaching a stable era of triple-digit oil. On nuclear power as an alternate source, he states, "While nuclear power plants are actually safer than they are usually given credit for, they are expensive to build and insure, unreliable and generate toxic waste that we still have no idea what to do with (though terrorists have very clear ideas about what they would like to do with it)."

>>"Conservation, simply put, is wrong. We don’t need to conserve. We need an energy source with room to grow in it. Conservation is contraction. It’s the opposite of growth."

Once again, it would appear that you and I have profound difference of opinion. Thoughtless waste, senseless use of energy and resources, saddens and disgusts and sometimes angers me. I value mindfulness and consideration in all our actions, recognizing that every action has consequences and that we ought to be accountable for these as far as humanly possible. Since we have never applied full-cost accounting to our energy supplies, coal and oil and nuclear have long held sway over wind and sun and efficient technologies, dumping their pollution costs into the abundance that Mother Nature held in store. Now that we number over 6 billion, however, with all our powerful machines and tools, we have maxxed out the Earth's buffering capacities and we have little choice but to face up to the consequences of our choices. This is a good thing, a natural consequence, and long overdue.

Ok then, so how about we deal with just the facts?

By the way, Aaron, you and I agree completely on this point: "The conversion of valuable grains into biofuels has been a disaster for global food prices."

>>In the case of solar, from $120 per watt of generating capacity in the early 70’s, down to about $3 per watt now. A Massachusetts startup called 1366 Technologies has created solar cells in its lab that company scientists are saying still more efficient, bringing down the cost to $1.30 a watt. Wind turbine manufacturers, meanwhile, are vying for bragging rights of $1 per watt.

And when you get dramatic improvements like that, that's where diminishing returns starts to kick in. That and it's real easy to make something cheap when no one wants it. Solar power accounts for .04% of global energy consumption right now wind is at 3%. When more people start relying on it, the prices will skyrocket. Supply and demand, baby.

>>With all the private investment pouring into renewables while ignoring nuclear, there are apparently a lot of people who think that sun and wind are a sure bet.

They said the same thing at the beginning of the dot-com bubble in the 90s too. And the fact remains that you don't have a lot of confidence in renewables as evidenced by your belief that we are going to have to swallow your bitter pill even with maximum utilization.

>>The Fifth Estate did a program on Germany’s great strides...

Ah, right... Germany. First, I doubt that these farms that are pumping out enough bull$#!+ to power 300 homes are \mom and pop\ operations. Second... Germany. The German government offers more in green energy subsidies than any body. If you cut out the Obamaesque government payola going to projects like that and made them compete in the real world, they'd fall flat on their faces.

>>With steadily declining concentrations of uranium in mined ore and increasing amounts of fossil fuel required to extract it all, I don’t see your point.

Most REALISTIC estimates of the longevity of global uranium and thorium supplies are in the range of thirty thousand to fifty thousand years or more. I've seen some admittedly optimistic estimates of two million years, but those are just plain silly.

Your estimates are based on assumptions that we'll basically choose to suffocate ourselves. That we will never recycle or reprocess, that here at the dawn of the true nuclear age, we will never explore or prospect or develop new unconventional means of extraction. Your estimates also assume a "once through" fuel cycle. And perhaps most importantly, they completely ignore thorium.

Most of the oil we've used in earths history has come from that we didn't know existed a hundred years ago. Back then we didn't even dream of steam-blasting bitumen out of the dirt here in Alberta either. We are in a state right now that mirrors the dawn of the oil age. Most of our uranium supplies are as yet undiscovered. There are hidden pockets of centuries worth of power waiting to be discovered. And they will be once it becomes worth it for mining companies to go look for it. Uranium is too inexpensive right now though. And then there is the last great terrestrial frontier, the sea. The oceans of earth contain an estimated 4.6 BILLION tonnes of dissolved Uranium, which, according to studies carried out in the 80s is economically recoverable.

And then there's reprocessing and recycling. Anti-nuclear lobby propaganda routinely claims something like 20 years of life left in the worlds uranium supplies. I imagine some of them actually believe it and look forward to the day when it runs out and they'll be able to go back to stroking their windmills.... HAHA, fat chance. What comes out of a reactors poop-chute that you call "waste" is actually more than 90% unburned fertile fuel. The average modern reactor uses only 1% of the capacity of its fuel before spitting it out for a fresh load. So multiply that 20 years by the remaining potential energy in so-called "spent" fuel, 20x100= TWO THOUSAND YEARS. Reprocessing and recycling will also get rid of most of the waste your guys worry so much about. Right now, there isn't much if any reprocessing and recycling going on because it's still cheaper to mine and burn fresh uranium. But that will change in time. As reprocessing and recycling become more viable, it too will undergo the same burst in R&D that your wind and solar are making. And the longevity of Uranium will be extended even further.

And then there's thorium... sweet, delicious thorium. There is several times more thorium in the earths crust than there is uranium. No one knows for sure because there isn't any exploration for it just like with uranium. So yeah, feel free to pile on a few tens of thousands of years worth of thorium supply onto that 2,000 years of uranium.

It truly is as I said. The age of cheap, clean, abundant energy is only just beginning.

>>You can take that argument up with Jeff Rubin, if you like. For 20 years, he was the chief economist for CIBC World Markets, but recently left the bank to promote his book called “Why Your World is About to Get A Whole Lot Smaller”, based on his prediction that we are approaching a stable era of triple-digit oil. On nuclear power as an alternate source, he states, “While nuclear power plants are actually safer than they are usually given credit for, they are expensive to build and insure, unreliable and generate toxic waste that we still have no idea what to do with (though terrorists have very clear ideas about what they would like to do with it).”

I routinely "debate" what happened on September 11th, 2001 with tinfoil hat wearing loons who think that a PhD in Theology is sufficient to provide expert analysis of major structural collapses. I'm gonna tell you you what I tell them: your boy should have never quit his day job. I spent 4 days last week with the brightest minds in Canadas nuclear industry, hearing presentations on the state of the art in nuclear engineering. Actual nuclear physicists and engineers, not bank managers. Jeff Rubin is full of crap. He's not a nuclear scientist and his utter lack of knowledge about how reactors work shows it. I described to you above what we can do with so-called "waste" products and as for the expense and insurance issues, those will dissipate as the nuclear renaissance gains steam.

>Once again, it would appear that you and I have profound difference of opinion. Thoughtless waste, senseless use of energy and >resources, saddens and disgusts and sometimes angers me. I value mindfulness and consideration in all our actions, recognizing that >every action has consequences and that we ought to be accountable for these as far as humanly possible. Since we have never applied >full-cost accounting to our energy supplies, coal and oil and nuclear have long held sway over wind and sun and efficient technologies, >dumping their pollution costs into the abundance that Mother Nature held in store. Now that we number over 6 billion, however, with all our
>powerful machines and tools, we have maxxed out the Earth’s buffering capacities and we have little choice but to face up to the >consequences of our choices. This is a good thing, a natural consequence, and long overdue.

Do you want to know how to cut back on the population without opening up death camps mass gassing people by the millions? It's easy, just give them Halo and Hockey Night in Canada. Haven't you noticed how it's the first world nations like us that have the lowest birth rates while the poorest nations have the highest? If you take away our creature comforts, tell us we have to start living on less, do you think were going to go back to our homes at night and compose folk music by candlelight? Hell no... we're gonna start bangin like bunny rabbits they do in the third world. Seriously... are you TRYING to get to 20 billion people by 2100? Now... if you go down to Zimbabwe and start handing out free air conditioners, personal computers, free copies of \World of Warcraft\ and... and this is the important part... a power supply to make it all go, then their birth rates will plummet till they meet our sub-replacement levels cuz they'll be too busy yelling at each other over who got the Spear of Poking +1 to worry about cranking out another 20 kids.

You have the right to your philosophy and to express it to others. But frankly... mine is more seductive, flashy and it just plain sells better.
Let's imagine that after you've built as many wind turbines and solar panels as you will allow to be built (I imagine you won't allow to many migratory flight paths to be windmilled or habitats to be solar paneled), then you go on and preach to the people about how they now have to live with less. That the golden age of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is gone forever. Then I roll up in my nuclear powered limousine, sitting in the hot tub in back, playing \Zombie Slaughter\ on my X-Station 1440 with a 72 inch flat screen and a rib-rattling 2400 watt sound system and I tell the people how they can have all this. That they will never have to worry about using up their weekly energy rations, that they can take hot showers that last an hour, that they can flush twice when it really stinks, that they can have all the ice their freezers can make on a hot day, that they don't need to fear going to jail if they leave the lights on, that they can crank the thermostat all the way up and run around the house naked in December and pretend they're in Hawaii and much much more if they just build one (or a couple thousand) of the powerplants I have the blue prints for... who do you think they are going to follow?

You talk about us having to face consequences. Except there's no need to. All we really need is a power source... a really, really big one. And our civilization will be able to go on forever. In physics, energy is the ability to do work. On the scale of provinces and nations, wealth is directly tied to energy production. The more you make, the more you have. With nuclear power, we have what we need to ensure our way of life.

That, my friend, is why people like me are going to win.

Hi Aaron,

You speak about expecting abysmal performance from wind and solar, should they ever have to compete in "the real world". Funny idea, since they've been competing for decades against technologies (ie: oil, gas, coal, and nuclear) with far greater long-term consequences, which have never been factored into their market prices. And while we're on the subject of competing in the real world, have you tallied up the federal and provincial subsidies for nuclear, lately? Pickering, Darlington, Maple, Chalk River, and Gentilly 1 being the most infamous in Canada. Oh, but maybe these Canadian examples are just rare aberrations, right? So let's check out the new construction in Finland and France; oh, once again, we're over budget and behind schedule. Oh, wait a minute; weren't these the same reasons, along with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, for the slowdown in nuclear construction 20 years ago anyway, as seen from reactors built in the US and Europe and around the globe?

As for 9/11, I'm delighted to hear that you question and apparently deride this ridiculous conspiracy theory that 18 or 20 terrorists operating out of caves in Afghanistan somehow managed to deke out the most powerful air force in the world and then cause the two towers to collapse into their own footprints. Back on topic, however...

You are obviously fascinated and entranced with the might of nuclear energy, such that the before and after picture that so concern some of the rest of us don't seem to bother you much. And it's really nice that you got together with a group of other really smart guys who share your delight. Cool. But what Jeff Rubin and a whole lot of guys on Wall Street and Bay Street and corridors of discussion have noticed is that your cabal doesn't actually have a great track record of translating dreams and equations to reality; refer back to my earlier list of locales and reactors which either never worked or else didn't work up to specs, and which consistently sucked up far more money than originally promised.

As to the rest of your essay, I can only say that I must have made a terrible mistake, some 20 years ago, to have allowed myself to be inspired by a poem which ended with the line, "I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life; I was given life, that I might enjoy all things." On the other hand, when you and I are lying on our respective death beds in a couple or few decades, will we be saying "Damn! I wish I'd played another game of World of Warcraft!"?

For myself, I hardly think so.

I will chat with Aaron and make sure that he understands the importance that his late grandmother placed on politeness even though I think that he has done pretty well. Yhe anti-nuclear organizations have a record of disrupting pro-duclear presemtations and one of the organizations has published a document on how to take over a meeting, hardly good manners.

The other day I saw a documentary on a chip factory that had two football fields of solar power that had motorized reflectors that focused the sun on a pipe. The liquid in the pipe was heated to about 500 degrees, then piped to the factory where it went through heat exchangers to head the oil used to cook the chips, the now cooled fluid was then pumped back to the solar collectors to be reheated. This was in the southern US, not around Edmonton but it was a neat idea even though it required a lot of real estate.

I have read about cattle and hog operations that digested the manure to generate methane which provided electricity and heat for their operations, a neat trick which I would like to see more off because it reduces the possibility of pollution of both surface and ground water.

There is an interesting paper on radiation dosage at

http://www.auntminnie.com/print/print.asp?sec=sup&sub=xra&pag=dis&ItemId=57709&

An interesting comment describes the amount of radiation present in the human body, about 8,000 Bequerels. This means that a worker in a nuclear power plant would receive a larger dose by sleeping with his wife than he/she would get during an eight hour shift at work.

There is much talk about government subsidies for the construction of nuclear plants. government subsidies for the plants in Ontario were meant to be paid back after the plants went into production. Cost over runs in Ontario, particularly the Darlington site were due to government intervention and changes in schedule which resulted in large increases in interest charges. Candu Construction in China and Romania has typically been on or ahead of schedule and on or under budget.

To repeat what has already been said, there is no fuel shortage. Recycling of "spent" fuel will get more useable fuel. The large quantities of depleted uranium at the enrichment plants will make excellent feedstock for fast breeder reactors which produce more fuel than they consume, and thorium 232 is very plentiful and can be bred into fissile Uranium 233 in CANDU reactors, a process that is being actively pursued in India as they are uranium poor but thorium rich.

As for the honesty of people in the nuclear industry I have come to know Dr. Whitlock quite well. He has a young family with which he enjoys canoing, sailing and a variety of other activities. He would not do anything that would endanger these favourite people in his life.

Just a thought, radioactive materials have a half life and after one half life, one half of the material will have decayed into the next element in the decay series, eventually ending with something that is a stable element. What if we turned the clock backwards, then instead of a half life we would have a doubling life and over the thousands of years that humans and other animals have been on the earth they would have been subjected to much higher levels of radiation yet we seem to have turned out allright.

As for the concern over abandoned uranium mines in Saskatchewan, visit the sight www.saskcleans.ca

Paul

>You speak about expecting abysmal performance from wind and solar, should they ever have to compete in “the real world”. Funny idea, >since they’ve been competing for decades against technologies (ie: oil, gas, coal, and nuclear) with far greater long-term consequences, >which have never been factored into their market prices.

It's not that I alone keep speaking abysmally about these power sources. It's that YOU AGREE WITH ME that they simply aren't up to the job of keeping our society going. You've said several times that our society will have to give up a measure of its prosperity and start to conserve. This simply won't happen if the people become aware of a source of cheap energy that they can spend freely and wastefully for no other reason than to get our collective rocks off and not have to feel guilty about it.

>And while we’re on the subject of competing in the real world, have you tallied up the federal and provincial subsidies for nuclear, lately? >Pickering, Darlington, Maple, Chalk River, and Gentilly 1 being the most infamous in Canada. Oh, but maybe these Canadian examples >are just rare aberrations, right? So let’s check out the new construction in Finland and France; oh, once again, we’re over budget and >behind schedule.

Not aberrations, per se. But the things that get in the way here in Canada don't exist in other countries. Look at Dr. Whitlocks chart of CANDUs constructed outside of Canada.

http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionC.htm#CANDU6_record

That's 7 out of 7 CANDUs all built outside Canada that came in on budget, on schedule or better. The problems with nuclear power in Canada are all political. Not technical. The anti-nuclear lobby has grown too big for its britches in this country, they wield power far beyond their numbers and they need to be cut down to size. The people want cheap and abundant energy. We're are in a nuclear renaissance now because of a 147-dollar-a-barrel oil shock and a major economic crash. The case for nuclear is only going to get stronger as oil dwindles and alternatives become more expensive as demand rises.

>Oh, wait a minute; weren’t these the same reasons, along with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, for the slowdown in nuclear construction >20 years ago anyway, as seen from reactors built in the US and Europe and around the globe?

Before oil hit 147$ a barrel, there were zero license applications before the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Today, there are 35. Stop living in the 70s and 80s. Live in the now.

>As for 9/11, I’m delighted to hear that you question and apparently deride this ridiculous conspiracy theory that 18 or 20 terrorists >operating out of caves in Afghanistan somehow managed to deke out the most powerful air force in the world and then cause the two >towers to collapse into their own footprints. Back on topic, however…

You totally and completely missed the point I was making (you even missed the "tinfoil hat wearing loons" part). David Ray Griffin has a PhD in Theology (meaning he's read the bible a lot). He's written nearly a dozen books about 9/11 which all repeat the same bloody thing over and over again. Griffin thinks that he is a better engineer than staff of the NIST or any of the experts interviewed by Popular Mechanics when they intellectually handed his ass to him. But he is just a theologian, not an engineer, in the exact same way that Jeff Rubin isn't a nuclear engineer. He is qualified to speak on some of the economic aspects of nuclear power (most of which are, as I pointed out are artificially imposed), but not its operation, reliability or other technical aspects.

(BTW, the towers didn't collapse into their footprints, numerous other buildings took billions in damage and two 40+ story buildings, Deutsch Bank and World Trade Center Seven, were destroyed or damaged beyond repair by debris that fell well outside the twin towers footprints)

>You are obviously fascinated and entranced with the might of nuclear energy, such that the before and after picture that so concern some >of the rest of us don’t seem to bother you much. And it’s really nice that you got together with a group of other really smart guys who >share your delight.

These people were nuclear scientists and engineers. They know nuclear power. Their expertise on the subject is superior to that of anyone who is not a nuclear scientist. You don't ask Theologians what makes buildings fall down, or sociologists if they can perform brain surgery, do you?

>But what Jeff Rubin and a whole lot of guys on Wall Street and Bay Street and corridors of discussion have noticed is that your cabal >doesn’t actually have a great track record of translating dreams and equations to reality;

Great, have them explain why CANDU projects inside Canada get delayed but all the CANDUs outside Canada come in on budget and on schedule. This will tell us what we need to do to make all the Canadian based CANDUs come in on time and on budget.

>As to the rest of your essay, I can only say that I must have made a terrible mistake, some 20 years ago, to have allowed myself to be >inspired by a poem which ended with the line, “I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life; I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.” >On the other hand, when you and I are lying on our respective death beds in a couple or few decades, will we be saying “Damn! I wish I’d >played another game of World of Warcraft!”?

For one thing, it appears you missed the point I was making about population control. Second, Playing World of Warcraft is not incompatible with seeking spiritual fulfillment, but that's another issue.

Third, what if someone says to you "That's nice that you want to seek fulfillment, but I really want to play World of Warcraft"? Who are you to tell him he can't live his life as he chooses?

That's all I really want. A world where people have the freedom to make that choice for themselves. And for those who don't want to live like tibetan monks, they are going to need a power source. A really big fat one that will never run out. That's where the burning embers of an ancient star trapped in a can come in.

AAron H. says:
"It’s not that I alone keep speaking abysmally about these power sources. It’s that YOU AGREE WITH ME that they simply aren’t up to the job of keeping our society going. You’ve said several times that our society will have to give up a measure of its prosperity and start to conserve. This simply won’t happen if the people become aware of a source of cheap energy that they can spend freely and wastefully for no other reason than to get our collective rocks off and not have to feel guilty about it."

>> Germany created 250, 000 jobs in about 5 years with renewables, now providing some 14% of the country's energy supply, second only to the auto sector in contributing to the nation's economy, and set to pass it by 2020. But maybe you're right and Germany is simply showing the results of a sick and temporary socialist experiment. Here's an article by a Calgarian author who visited the place: http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.01-environment-solar-panel-energy-chris-turner/

>>As I've suggested before, however, I don't believe that our thoughtless waste and senseless devouring of energy and resources on a finite and crowded planet is desirable, defensible, just, or sustainable. But since you seem to be so passionately devoted to the idea, I'll make two responses to it. I doubt I'll change your mind on the subject, but it may at least clarify my own position.

>>First of all, you may have seen reports of research in the last couple of years where sociologists and psychologists have found that, once our basic needs are met and we have a little bit left over to provide for our personal comforts, then higher and higher amounts of money and stuff do not have any statistical impact on happiness. Here's an article on the most recent study I've heard of: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/does-money-make-you-happy/article1172868/

>>Secondly, I've come to believe over time that we humans and our home planet are constructed such that our greatest happiness and lasting prosperity are to be found by living in harmony with all the Earth's inhabitants and in a fabric of social justice with each other. I see it as a matter of priorities and first things first. It's possible that this may even be in the ballpark of what Jesus meant when he said, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you." He didn't say, "Seek ye first your own comfort and ironclad security", nor did he say "Seek ye first to pat yourselves on the back for mastering 'the burning embers of an ancient star trapped in a can'".

>>It does bother me that some birds are killed by wind turbines and I certainly hope that we can find a solution to this, but this negative impact pales in comparison to the potential damage if any reactor or waste storage site anywhere in the world were to slip off diligent maintenance for hundreds and thousands of years. Can you or anyone guarantee that in Argentina, Canada, China, India, Korea, Pakistan and Romania, the CANDU reactors will be properly maintained and decommissioned over hundreds of years, regardless of any social upheaval or economic disaster that may come at any point in the future?

"Before oil hit 147$ a barrel, there were zero license applications before the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Today, there are 35. Stop living in the 70s and 80s. Live in the now."

>> Right; live in the now... so that would include today's prices for concrete which nuclear reactors use in massive quantities, and for the fossil fuels used in mining and processing uranium, and for renewables that are now passing fossil fuels in monies invested, while nuclear lags far, far behind.

"You totally and completely missed the point I was making (you even missed the “tinfoil hat wearing loons” part). David Ray Griffin has a PhD in Theology (meaning he’s read the bible a lot)...."
 
>> I totally and deliberately misrepresented your point about 9/11 because I think it's ludicrous to think that Osama bin Laden and Co. could have paralyzed the most powerful air force in the world, and I was quite happy to take the buzzword phrase "conspiracy theory" and apply it back where I believe it belongs, as a theory blaming the 18 odd terrorists who were, at best, pawns in a much larger game.

"That’s all I really want. A world where people have the freedom to make that choice for themselves."

>> Like in Alberta, where our government created a "neutral" and "expert" panel to assess the issue and inform the public, with 2 of the 4 members being strong nuclear supporters? Shying away from open town hall meetings, our Tories then created an online survey, and held it open for 35 days. In contrast, they held a survey on the weighty issue of whether we should change the look of our provincial license plate, and kept it open for 75 days.

"And for those who don’t want to live like tibetan monks, they are going to need a power source. A really big fat one that will never run out. That’s where the burning embers of an ancient star trapped in a can come in."

>>You obviously place great value, Aaron, on human intelligence and technology; so much so that to me, it seems to work to the detriment of seeing a broader picture. I leave you with a quote from an unknown author: "Humans - despite their artistic pretensions, their sophistication, and their many accomplishments - owe their existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains."

Hello Jeremy,
My apologies for being absent for a couple of days but I’m quite busy in Northern Alberta.

I asked about the Maple reactors for two reasons. First, when we debated at U of A last year, you said the reactors were inoperable because of a shortage of money and political interference. You made no mention of the positive power co-efficient issue.

Secondly: Is the power co-efficient issue with the Maple reactors a design flaw similar to the problems identified with the ACR-700 during the pre-application review in the United States?

 In a 2004 NRC weekly information report, the following was posted concerning the ACR-700: “Regarding Focus Topic 9, "Confirmation of Negative Void Reactivity," RES completed best-estimate neutronic calculations that predict the coolant void reactivity to be substantially positive in large-break loss-of-coolant accidents (LOCAs).”

Is any work ongoing to solve the problem with the ACR-700 or has it been discontinued?

Is the ACR-1000 a completely new design or is it based on the ACR-700?

Who will test the ACR-1000 to ensure it doesn’t have the same problems as the ACR- 700?

Regarding tritium: You addressed ongoing emissions but you did not speak to cumulative contamination of the groundwater under the reactor sites. Are the levels under Pickering, Bruce Power and Darlington negligible?

I agree there’s little point rehashing past mining practices. However, the contamination of watersheds is still ongoing from these past mining practices and virtually nothing is being done about them. This isn’t like golfing with your buddy when you get a “mulligan” and go on to the next hole (mine). Those who are responsible for these wastes should be cleaning them up or at least trying to minimize the damage they are causing. As they stand, Elliot Lake, Bancroft, Lorado, Gunnar and 40 other mines in northern Saskatchewan, etc... are testament to the incompetence and corruption endemic to Canada’s nuclear regulatory bodies, past and present.

Wikipedias list of worst oil spills: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills
(note that the notoriuos Exxon Valdez is only #31)

If we are not going to put a stop to the oil industry for all the havoc their mistakes have caused, than I don't see any reason to put a stop to the exploitation of the greatest energy source man has ever known.

Stay on topic Aaron. This is a nuclear discussion. There are other people and groups working to hold the oil and coal industries accountable. If you want to discuss oil and coal, debate those people.

The points I make above, if you wish to debate is that:

1) AECL has not designed a reactor that worked since they started working on the Maple X-10 reactor in 1989. The Candu 6 they built internationally in the 1990s was designed more than thirty years ago. The ACR-700 design was submitted to the NRC in the United States for certifiction because we simply do not have the expertise in Canada to do the analysis. The CNSC estimates it will cost them $29 million to hire scientists who are qualified to review light water reactors if they are chosen by Bruce Power and the government of Ontario. The situation with the ACR reactors is exascerbated by the fact they are a hybrid reactor. None have ever been built anywhere. I will not belabour AECL's incompetence as it is on public display in the media almost every day for the past month. Yesterday's papers included an admission that AECL expects large cost overruns for the reactors they plan on building in Ontario. This information came from the files leaked from the Minister of Natural Resources.

2) There is massive tritium contamination under the Pickering and Bruce Power reactors in Ontario which greatly exceeds the regulatory and action levels. When these levels were exceeded at Bruce Power in 2000, the CNSC raised the allowable levels 500% to facilitate Bruce Power's license renewal. Within 16 months, Bruce Power had exceeded even these new levels. The situation at Darlington isn't nearly as bad.

3) The decommissioning of uranium mines and their tailings have been an unmitigated disaster in Canada. This is due to the incompetence and corruption of the nuclear regulatory bodies in Canada.

Hello Pat,

In answer to your questions:

> I asked about the Maple reactors for two reasons. First, when
> we debated at U of A last year, you said the reactors were
> inoperable because of a shortage of money and political interference.
> You made no mention of the positive power co-efficient issue.

I believe you're mistaken Pat. Everything I said on this matter probably concerned the power co-efficient issue, and the effort needed to resolve it. If I mentioned "political interference" that was likely in reference to Darlington's cost over-runs at another point in the show.

I probably didn't describe the MAPLEs as inoperable either, given that they have operated fine at high power (see photo at http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionH.htm#g2).

> Secondly: Is the power co-efficient issue with the Maple reactors a
> design flaw similar to the problems identified with the ACR-700 during
> the pre-application review in the United States?

No.

> Is any work ongoing to solve the problem with the ACR-700 or has it been discontinued?

The "checkerboard voiding" issue raised during pre-application review in the U.S. was solved soon afterward.

> Is the ACR-1000 a completely new design or is it based on the ACR-700?

It's basically the same design, with more fuel channels and a new fuel design (partly to address the negative void reactivity requirement). In CANDU you can tailor the void reactivity to suit the requirement. In terms of safety by the way, a positive void reactivity does not imply a decrease in safety, as demonstrated recently in two papers given at the Canadian Nuclear Society conference in Calgary. The reason is related to the longer time it takes for neutron multiplication to respond to an increase in reactivity in CANDU, versus an LWR, plus the finite time it takes for voiding to occur.

> Who will test the ACR-1000 to ensure it doesn’t have the same problems as the ACR- 700?

AECL, plus anyone who wants to.

> Regarding tritium: You addressed ongoing emissions but you did not speak
> to cumulative contamination of the groundwater under the reactor sites. Are
> the levels under Pickering, Bruce Power and Darlington negligible?

There is much that is not negligible on a reactor site Pat. The issue is what gets off the site, which is either by water effluent or atmospheric emissions. These are strictly monitored and maintained at a fraction of the regulatory limit.

To drive this point home, I assume you drive a car. Your tailpipe emits toxins that would kill a healthy person in seconds, and your gas tank contains fluids that could kill everyone on the planet, if appropriately distributed. Moreover your vehicle is a mobile bomb, with similarities to weapons used in acts of terrorism and warfare for over a century. Obviously, identifying nasties in the machine is not the end of the story.

To re-make a point I made earlier: tritium is probably one of the least-dangerous man-made emissions I would worry about in my environment (and as an employee of a nuclear laboratory with two operating heavy-water reactors, I'm not just being academic). If all industries -- or automobiles -- were as dirty as CANDU nuclear plants, this would be a much cleaner planet.

regards,
Jeremy.

>I totally and deliberately misrepresented your point about 9/11...

That's not surprising. Truthers totally and deliberately misrepresent things a lot. I'm going to recommend that we break off the 9/11 discussion because this isn't the place for it and due to the recent killings of police or security officers by 9/11 truthers (A security officer was killed by a 9/11 truther in Washington DC on wednesday bringing the total to 4 police/security personnel killed by 9/11 truthers in two months), emotions are running high at the moment.

If you want to present your evidence that 9/11 was orchestrated by jews/Men In Black/CIA/FBI/NSA/SPCA/lizards from space or the Hannah Montana fan club, then I reccomend you go to http://forums.randi.org/forumindex.php

They have an entire forum devoted exclusively to batcrap crazy theories about 9/11.

I will respond to the rest of your post later when I have time.

A new article by Gordon Edwards explaining the health risks of tritium and reporting on an Ontario expert panel's recommendations to lower tritium levels in Canadian drinking water.

Expert Panel Recommends a Radical Reduction
in Permissible Levels of Tritium in Drinking Water

Gordon Edwards, June 12, 2009.

Proposed New Standard

At the request of the Ontario Minister of the Environment, an expert panel
has concluded a 25-month study of the health dangers of radioactive tritium
in drinking water. It has concluded that the current "permissible levels" in
Ontario are hundreds of times too high – 350 times too high, in fact.

The final report of the Ontario Drinking Water Advisory Council (ODWAC), is entitled
Report and Advice on the Ontario Drinking Water Quality Standard for Tritium.
It recommends that the current permissible limit of 7,000 becquerels per litre be
reduced to 20 becquerels per litre. This is regarded as a compromise between
the needs of the Ontario nuclear industry -- since man-made tritium is a byproduct
of nuclear reactors -- and the need to protect human health.

The report, dated May 21, 2009, was made public on June 9. It can now be
downloaded: http://www.odwac.gov.on.ca/reports/052109_ODWAC_Tritium_Report.pdf

ODWAC's proposed numerical standard of 20 becquerels per litre is identical
with a recommendation made 15 years ago by another Ontario expert group, the
Advisory Committee on Environmental Standards (ACES). Back then, in 1994,
the Government of Ontario did not accept the ACES recommendation, and
there is no assurance that the present Ontario Government will accept ODWAC's
recommendation either. Political considerations now become paramount.

What is a becquerel?

A "becquerel" is a unit of radioactivity. One becquerel indicates that there is one
radioactive disintegration happening every second. Thus a standard of 7,000
becquerels per litre means that in one litre of drinking water, it is permissible to
have 7,000 radioactive disintegrations happening every second, or 420,000
disintegrations each minute, or 25.2 million disintegrations each hour, all
within that single litre of water. If someone drinks from that litre of water, the
disintegrations will continue to take place inside his or her body.

How does radioactivity cause cancer?

Like all radioactive materials, tritium is a cancer-causing agent. When a tritium atom
disintegrates, it gives off a tiny electrically charged particle called a beta particle,
moving at an enormous speed. Inside the body, the beta particle will damage any
organic molecules in its path, including DNA molecules, killing and/or crippling
one or more cells in the vicinity. Some of these crippled cells can develop into
cancers many years later. There is no absolutely safe dose of atomic radiation
since a single radioactive disintegration can cause the kind of damage that
ultimately results in a cancer.

What is tritium?

Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. It is an essential ingredient
in all organic molecules. About half of the atoms in the human body are hydrogen
atoms. Every water molecule is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.

An atom of tritium is three times heavier than a normal hydrogen atom, and it is
unstable -- a tritium atom will spontaneously and suddenly disintegrate, giving off
a high-velocity beta particle. Beta radiation (as it is called) is dangerous to living
things because of the damage it can do at the cellular level.

When tritium atoms are combined with oxygen, the resulting water molecules are
radioactive. This radioactive water (also called "tritiated water") is indistinguishable
from ordinary water except for the fact that it is radioactive. The tritium cannot be
filtered out or otherwise removed from drinking water by any available technology --
you can't filter water from water!

What is the "natural background" of tritium?

Cosmic radiation from outer space bombards nitrogen atoms in the upper atmosphere
and produces radioactive tritium as a byproduct. As a result, there exists a "natural
background" of tritium in lakes and rivers around the world; the background level is
between one and two becquerels per litre of water. (ODWAC, page 12)

What is "fallout tritium" from nuclear explosions?

When nuclear weapons are exploded, radioactive materials -- including tritium -- are
released. Following the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, global levels of tritium
in surface waters increased dramatically to about 25 bequerels per litre; however, since
the atmospheric test ban treaty (ATBT), levels of this "fallout tritium" have dropped to
about one becquerel per litre. (ODWAC, page 12)

Where else does tritium come from?

The combination of "natural tritium" and "fallout tritium" has resulted in a tritium level of
about 2 to 3 becquerels of tritium per litre of surface water in the northern hemisphere.
"Any levels above this range imply [other] man-made sources." (ODWAC, page 3)

The only other major source of tritium is nuclear reactors. Every nuclear power plant
produces large amounts of tritium and releases some of it into the environment. Since
tritium has a 12 year half-life, it builds up in the environment year after year. Most of
the tritium released from reactors is in the form of radioactive water -- water molecules
that incorporate radioactive tritium atoms instead of ordinary non-radioactive hydrogen
atoms. This radioactive water is also called "tritiated water".

The Canadian-designed CANDU reactors produce and release far more tritium than
other designs of nuclear reactors, because of it uses large volumes of "heavy water".
Heavy water is not radioactive, but the hydrogen atoms in the water molecules are
twice as heavy as ordinary hydrogen atoms. When the reactor is running, these
heavy hydrogen atoms are gradually transmuted into radioactive tritium atoms. Year
after year, more and more tritium is created in this way, and it is notoriously difficult to
contain, so a lot of it ends up in the effluent water or in the atmospheric emissions
from the nuclear reactor.

Ontario is also home to two manufacturing plants in Peterborough and Pembroke
that mass-produce tritium-filled glow-in-the-dark signs. These plants release large
quantities of tritium to the environment, but the tritium originates in Ontario's CANDU
reactors. There is a Tritium Removal Facility at Darlington Ontario that periodically
extracts tritium from the contaminated heavy water in Ontario's nuclear reactors, in
order to make the working environment safer for atomic workers in those nuclear
power plants. Once extracted, some of this tritium is then sent to the tritium light
factories in Peterborough and Pembroke, causing extensive local contamination to
occur at sites far removed from the CANDU reactors.

What is ODWAC's rationale for the proposed standard?

ODWAC's proposed standard for tritium in drinking water is based on how many
extra cancers develop if people drink tritium-contaminated water for 70 years.
By applying the same logic that is used for other cancer-causing substances,
ODWAC reasoned that the standard for an acceptable level of tritium in drinking
water should not allow more than one additional cancer per million persons exposed.

Using this cancer rate as a goal, ODWAC calculated the permissible level of tritium in
drinking water seven different times, using a variety of assumptions, ending up with
answers ranging from 109 becquerels per litre to 7 becquerels per litre. Any one of
these figures could be correct -- but there is too much uncertainty to know which one
is most accurate. ODWAC selected the figure of 20 becquerels per litre from this range
of possibilities, in part because they received indications that the nuclear industry could
meet this standard as long as the figure could be averaged out over the period of a year.
Accordingly, ODWAC recommends that the proposed standard be based on annual
averages.

So ODWAC concluded that if a million people are drinking water containing 20 becquerels
per litre for 70 years, one would expect about one extra cancer in the population as
a result. If 7 becquerels per litre is a more correct figure, then a lifetime exposure
to 20 becquerels of tritium per litre would actually produce about 3 extra cancers in a
population of a million.

How did the ODWAC process get started?

The ODWAC process was precipitated by a unanimous resolution from Toronto City
Council asking the Province of Ontario to re-examine the standard for permissible
levels of tritium in drinking water and urging the province to adopt a standard more
protective of human health than the current standard of 7,000 becquerels per litre.
It made a pointed suggestion that the ACES proposal of 1994 be reconsidered.

There is a population of about 5.5 million in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
The city's drinking water comes from Lake Ontario, which already has levels of
tritium of about 7 becquerels per litre. Most of this tritium comes from nuclear
reactors -- especially the CANDU reactors at Pickering and Darlington. So if ODWAC's
lower calculation is the correct one, about 5 or 6 extra cancers in the GTA population
are being caused by tritium in drinking water taken from the Lake.

Reasons for an even more stringent standard

ODWAC's proposed standard is based on limiting the number of cancers caused by
drinking tritium-contaminated water. However, ODWAC lists a number of other health
concerns that might be used to argue for an even more stringent standard. They are
listed on pages 37 and 38:

o There is no safe dose of or level to exposure of radiation, and even the smallest doses
(e.g., background) can cause cancer and other heath effects. Tritium can also promote
and accelerate cancer;

o Women are more vulnerable to tritium and are affected differently than men, particularly
with respect to their reproductive systems (research has shown that a woman is likely to
store twice as much "organically bound tritium" in her body as a man of comparable weight);

o Rapidly growing cells such as fetal tissue and young girls’ developing breasts, genetic
materials and blood forming organs are especially sensitive to tritium;

o Tritium can damage DNA, causing a mutagenic effect resulting in cancers, but also
miscarriages, birth defects, sterility, and hypothyroidism, among others. The effects from
exposure to tritium can harm offspring and last for generations;

o Female human infants are at risk from elevated tritium levels due to genetic damage to
ova exposed to tritiated hydrogen (a woman's eggs are laid down early in infancy and stay
with her throughout her life);

o Certain groups are especially vulnerable to environmental carcinogens, such as women
(especially when pregnant), the unborn, and the elderly, those with compromised immune
systems, children, teenagers and Aboriginal people;

o How risk and dose measurements are calculated, particularly in that the current models
use the “standard man”, which may not reflect dosages experienced by women and children;

o Exposure studies based on animal testing are not accurate because of the lower body fat
levels found in animals;

o Many of the non-lethal cancer effects of tritium are not currently considered in the model
upon which the current (7000 becquerels per litre) standard is based. These effects include
non-fatal cancers, miscarriages, still births, birth defects, sterility, hypothyroidism, genetic
mutation, respiratory failure, kidney failure, nervous system disorders, cardiovascular disease,
among others;

o The current standard does not consider organically-bound tritium (tritium atoms that are
incorporated into organic molecules within the body), thus under-estimating the true dose;

o Cumulative exposure and combined effects are not being considered;

o The current standard considers 340 excess fatal cancers per million as an
“acceptable risk”, which is equivalent to 1 in 3,000;

o Anthropogenic emissions of tritium directly impact the drinking water supplies of
approximately one-quarter of the Canadian population, thereby resulting in a large
population being exposed involuntarily;

o Levels of tritium are 2 to 5 times higher in Lake Ontario than in other water bodies
in the Great Lakes and across Canada, and Lake Ontario is a major source of drinking
water for Ontarians;

o It was felt that the precautionary approach is not being applied with respect to tritium
in drinking water and that because there is still uncertainty over the impacts of tritium
(such as synergistic effects with other substances), the precautionary principle should
be applied and the standard should be lowered.

Conclusion

Progress on health and environmental matters often depends upon a well-informed and
politically active citizenry. Leadership on such issues generally comes from the bottom up,
rather than from the top down.

When Irene Koch alerted the citizens of Pickering to the fact that their drinking water was
a dumping ground for the tritium from Ontario Hydro's nearby reactors, the standard for
permissible levels of tritium in drinking water was 40,000 becquerels per litre. Her
courageous leadership and persistence led to an Ontario Environmental Assessment Panel
recommending to the Government of Ontario that the tritium standard for drinking water
be re-examined. By the time the ACES report was submitted, the tritium standard had
already been tightened to 7,000 becquerels per litre.

Fifteen years later, a small group of citizen advocates worked with the Toronto Public
Health Department to get the tritium issue onto the city council agenda. This led to
the ODWAC investigation. It is now the job of citizens in Ontario and throughout Canada
to carry this fight to their provincial legislatures and get the permissible levels for tritium
in drinking water tightened across Canada.

Change happens where the political will exists to make it happen. Collective awareness
is the beginning; it must be followed by collective will to bring about real change.

I believe that the permissible level for any known carcinogen should be zero. This was
the formal conclusion of a task force report entitled "Poisons and Policies" published
in the 1980's by the Science Council of Canada. I was a consultant to this task force,
which was chaired by David Bates, M.D., then Chairman of the McGill Medical School
and one of Canada's foremost experts on lung diseases.

If we must accept some degree of tritium pollution, I believe that no more man-made tritium
should be allowed into drinking water than what nature already provides: that is, 1-2
becquerels per litre in addition to the background levels already there. This would bring the
standard down to about 3-5 becquerels per litre -- a level already surpassed by the waters
in Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, and the Ottawa River as a result of activities from the
Canadian nuclear industry.

The Sequel: Tritium in Air

Once the drinking water standard has been accepted and implemented, it will be time to
concentrate on reducing atmospheric emissions of tritium. There is no standard for tritium
in air, and the release limits are exceedingly permissive. Yet more tritium is given off
by our nuclear reactors as radioactive steam, than as liquid radioactive water. This steam
comes back to earth as rain, snow, and dew, depositing tritium fallout over a wide area. It
is readily incorporated into fruits, vegetables, fish, and animals, including humans.

Edwards provides a characteristically inflammatory report designed to scare citizens into hating nuclear power - more white collar terrorism. In terms of known effects on health there is no difference between 3 Bq/L and 80,000 Bq/L (the current limit in Finland).

The ODWAC report was not by an "expert panel", but an advisory council that received submissions, some from experts, some not. It selectively chose what it needed to back its notion about tritium's effects, and hopefully this report will meet an appropriate fate for the waste of taxpayers' money that it is.

Tritium happens to be a convenient target for anti-nuclear groups who prey on a largely unscientific public that is easily frightened by mushroom-cloud images and green-glow rhetoric. This ODWAC report, like the anti-nuclear literature it has swallowed and regurgitated, ignores the health risk and opts for the Salem witch-hunt version of the precautionary principle: "She don't look right; burn her!"

Choosing to single out tritium, while ignoring both its health risks and the health risks of every other radionuclide in our environment, is simply an opportunistic grab at a cheap fear-mongering. The victims are innocent families living near nuclear plants, lead to believe that these lies comes from experts.

To highlight one example of the lunacy of this ODWAC report, consider: this non-expert panel has decided that it wants to see tritium limited to a lifetime incremental cancer risk of 1 in a million. If you were to simply move to Denver from New York, following the same math as the ODWAC report you would increase your cancer risk by about 25,000 in a milllion. In either case this is a nonsensical misuse of the linear non-threshold theory for radiation's effects in a range where no health effects have ever been observed (to wit, the cancer rate in Denver is actually lower than New York), but the hyprocrisy (or perhaps just the blind innumeracy) of the ODWAC recommendation is clear.

I've said it before but it bears repeating: If all industries were as dirty as CANDU plants, we'd have a much cleaner planet.

It's also worth pointing out that the fear and trauma inflicted unnecessarily upon innocent citizens by anti-nuclear activists probably causes more health impact than anything emitted by the reactors.

regards,
Jeremy.

P.S. The ODWAC report does reference (but otherwise ignore) two excellent summaries of the technical situation by one of Canada's leading international experts on tritium, Dr. Richard Osborne, which he prepared a few years ago for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission:

1. "Tritium in the Canadian Environment: Levels and Health Effects", http://www.odwac.gov.on.ca/standards_review/tritium/Osborne_CNSC-RSP-0153-1.pdf

2. "Tritium in the Canadian Environment: Questions and Answers", http://www.odwac.gov.on.ca/standards_review/tritium/Osborne_CNSC-RSP-0153-2.pdf

regards,
Jeremy.

Mr. Whitlock:

The Ontario Drinking Water Advisory Council (ODWAC) who prepared this report was formed as follows:

Formation of the Council was "Recommended by Justice O'Connor in the Part Two Report of the Walkerton Inquiry, and created under the Safe Drinking Water Act, 2002, the Council's mandate is to advise the Minister of the Environment on drinking water standards, legislation, regulations, and issues, to protect the water that Ontarians drink."

"The Minister of the Environment appointed members to the Council, chaired by Jim Merritt, from key professional fields representing a cross-section of academia, industry and municipalities, with expertise in the areas of microbiology, toxicology, engineering, utility operations, public health, and others with a record of interest and accomplishment related to drinking water. They are active in their areas of knowledge and bring their current and direct experience to the Council."

The 13 members of the ODWAC include medical professionals as well as experts in the monitoring and assessment of water quality and toxicity. The list of members and their credentials can be viewed at : http://www.odwac.gov.on.ca/members.htm.

The process involved in making the recommendation to lower the allowable tritium levels in water followed an extensive consultation process that included input from no less than 8 health organizations, 65 individuals and organizations in all, including industry. As well, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (the Canadian nuclear regulatory body) held a one day public workshop on the safety issues relating to tritium.

Now if only the Alberta Government had assembled such a list of real experts and undertaken such an extensive and inclusive consultation in its review of the potential for nuclear in Alberta!

As for "white collar terrorism", is that not just a tad harsh?

Elena

Elena,

Exactly. Thirteen very smart and well-meaning people, I'm sure, but not an expert on tritium or radiation among them. When you introduce the report as "an Ontario expert panel’s recommendations to lower tritium levels in Canadian drinking water", it implies that the panel includes experts on tritium in drinking water. I just wanted to make that clear.

The distinction is important, because society in inherently biased against nuclear, and nuclear expertise is an eclectic commodity not found in many places outside the nuclear community or some university departments. I'm sure there are a few Albertans who would love to have a gov't expert panel on nuclear energy that includes no nuclear experts, but the objective value of such an exercise is questionable.

Regarding:

> As for “white collar terrorism”, is that not just a tad harsh?

To be honest, I'm being kind. I'm sorry but once you've seen the hurtful effect of misinformation on innocent citizens -- young parents wondering if they're killing their children by choosing to live in a community that happens to be near a nuclear plant; pregnant women told that their growing foetus is being irrepairably damaged by the air the mother is breathing -- it hardens you somewhat. Most of the time the anti-nuclear propaganda is spewed into the internet without any thought to these effects, but that doesn't make them any less real.

regards,
Jeremy.

Jeremy,

You imply that no tritium experts were involved in the recommendations made by the Ontario Drinking Water Advisory Council. In fact, the scientists on the council, with backgrounds in assessing the safety of drinking water, and others with medical degrees, heard from more than one expert on tritium. As you indicated, they did not concur with the report of Dr. Richard Osborne, a former AECL employee. But they did appear to be convinced by Ian Fairlie, a tritium expert from the U.K. previously invited by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission as one of the international experts who spoke at a workshop on tritium. Dr. Fairlie's report can be acccessed at: http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/documents-and-links/publications/tritium-hazard-report-pollute.

And there lies the problem. When the "expert" is closely aligned with the industry wanting to prove their reactors are safe, it tends to undermine his credibility, either that or his scientific evidence is less convincing, or maybe both.

Elena

Elena,

Why would the ODWAC members find Dr. Osborne less credible due to his assocation with pro-nuclear entities (AECL, and CNA), than Dr. Fairlie due to his association with anti-nuclear entities (Greenpeace)? Science is the recognition of bias, and the pursuit of objective knowledge in spite of it. Unless you have hard evidence to back your repeated implications that AECL employees (or retirees) are behaving unethically, then please stick to the facts.

By the way, here is Dr. Osborne's review of Dr. Fairlie's Greenpeace report, which he finds scientifically lacking:

http://www.cna.ca/english/pdf/Studies/ReviewofGreenpeacereport_Final.pdf

regards,
Jeremy.

Jeremy,

I am not suggesting in anyway that AECL employees are behaving unethically. I am talking about how having a vested interest in the outcome can affect how information is perceived. The bottom line is that ODWAC did conclude that tritium levels in Canada should be a concern and need to be lowered. You are right, I am speculating as to why they were convinced. But the fact remains that the Council is mostly composed of scientists who listened to the experts on tritium (including Dr. Fairlie who had concerns) and made their recommendation to lower acceptable levels of tritium in Canada by 350 times what it is now.

Well, this has all been very interesting and we could continue. We could discuss the risk of a nuclear accident in the CANDU, the problems in design and cost overruns that AREVA and Westinghouse are experiencing with their third generation reactors , the Fraser Institute's concerns about the financial liability to taxpayers of first of their kind reactors, the "proliferation friendly" CANDUs, as Duane Bratt describes them, or how many more 100's of millions of taxpayers dollars one would need to spend to resurrect the Maple Reactors at Chalk River, and whether even then, it would be possible. And others may choose to do so. But we've been at this for almost two weeks, our summer is short, and I'm going to sign off now. Maybe we can save the rest of the discussion for some other time.

Thank you again to Skeptically Speaking for making this dialogue possible.

Best regards,

Elena

Hi Jeremy,

I read this in a post you made, "...young parents wondering if they’re killing their children by choosing to live in a community that happens to be near a nuclear plant; pregnant women told that their growing foetus is being irrepairably damaged by the air the mother is breathing..." and I couldn't help but think of Basra, Iraq, where congenital deformities and childhood leukemia have risen by 700% since the 1990 Gulf War, where depleted uranium was used in tank-busting shells.

I understand that depleted uranium is a waste product of the uranium enrichment process, and that it was of little use until it's tank-busting abilities were realized.

I first learned about this consequence of depleted uranium from Dr. Helen Caldicott, with whom the Alberta Expert Panel on nuclear energy refused to meet.

Elena (even though you've left the sandbox):

> I am talking about how having a vested interest in the outcome can affect how information is perceived.

This is precisely what I'm referring to. The objective perception of information, regardless of one's interests (vested or otherwise), is the essence of science. Whether you're associated with a pro-nuclear or an anti-nuclear organization, as a scientist you have been trained to overcome this bias. What I'm pointing out is the inconsistency in writing off an AECL retiree (or Board member, in the case of Dr. John Luxat on the Alberta nuclear expert panel), while swallowing hook, line, and sinker the testimony of "experts" from the other side of the fence, who are typically associated with organizations (like Greenpeace) dedicated to the destruction of the nuclear industry worldwide.

Have a good summer.

Jeremy.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on his not understanding it. Upton Sinclair

Roger:

The dispersal through warfare of depleted uranium, primarily a chemical toxin and secondarily a weak radionuclide (about 40% weaker than natural uranium, which itself is weak), is another topic that we aren't discussing here. However, I have more faith in the opinion of the World Health Organization and the IAEA on this topic than Dr. Caldicott, who is a popular commentator on the topic but far from an expert. She is also one of the main causes of unnecessary public trauma that I've referred to. Certainly, in terms of radiation levels associated with DU, and the known dispersal pattern in Basra and elsewhere, there is absolutely no chance that this would be the cause of a 700% increase in congential deformities and childhood leukemia. I do think dispersed DU needs to be monitored and possibly mitigated, but primarily due to its chemical toxicity as a heavy metal.

I don't quite see the connection between this and tritium emissions from CANDU reactors however. I suppose one parallel is that the radiation health risk in both cases is negligibly small. I realize that the popular notion is contrary to this, but radiation is one of the most publically misunderstood agents in our environment. Ironically, it is also probably the most scientifically understood agents, due to both the intense scrutiny it has received since being discovered over a century ago (first characterized by Ernest Rutherford during his tenure at McGill University in Montreal, I might add), and the fact that we can measure radioactivity with more precision and efficiency than any other agent. When we say the background tritium level in Canadian rivers is about 5 Bq per litre, I wonder if people realize that we're talking about detecting 5 atoms in a litre of water (containing about 30 trillion trillion water molecules). Anti-nuclear activists exploit the public's association of "quantification" with "danger" (i.e. if you can measure it, it must be dangerous, especially if it's radioactive), and divert their attention from the fact that this is millions of times lower than danger levels.

regards,
Jeremy.

Hi Jeremy,

Your confidence in the safety of radiation is most reassuring.

Roger

Reactor design puts safety of

nuclear plants into question

Feature speeds up rate of atomic

reactions in event of a coolant leak

Regulators say they misjudged size of the problem

Martin Mittelstaedt, Globe and Mail, Monday, Jun. 29, 2009

 

Canadian nuclear safety regulators say they have underestimated the seriousness

of a design feature at the country's electricity-producing reactors that would cause

them to experience dangerous power pulses during a major accident.

If reactors are not shut down quickly, their ability to keep radioactivity from escaping

would be put to the test, according to an internal commission document.

The document says Canada's seven nuclear stations, which all use Candu technology,

have a feature known as “positive reactivity feedback,” in which their atomic chain

reactions automatically speed up if the water pumped into the reactors to cool them

leaks, one of the worst accidents possible at a nuclear station. If reactors aren't

immediately shut down during this type of incident, positive reactivity leads to a quick

snowballing in the pace of nuclear reactions, which in turn could cause potentially

damaging overheating.

 

The fear is that with a large loss of coolant, such overheating could put the nuclear

facilities' containment features – the concrete domes and other protective mechanisms

around reactors that are the last-ditch defences to stop the spread of radioactivity into

the environment – to a dangerous test.

 
The commission is monitoring the problem closely because positive reactivity could lead

to “severe core damage and early challenge of containment integrity if not arrested in

time” during a severe loss of coolant accident, the document said.

 

The discovery prompted the regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, to

warn that it may have to order nuclear power plants to run at less-than-full power

indefinitely to compensate for what it deems less-safe conditions at the stations,

according to the document.

 

The commission and the three utilities that operate reactors – Ontario Power Generation,

NB Power, and Hydro-Québec – will likely have to spend “considerable resources”

dealing with safety issues related to the problem and still may not be able to resolve

it fully, it said.

 

“In the end, despite the best efforts on all sides, the possibility of further erosion of the

available safety margins as well as imposition of additional operational and procedural

limits cannot be precluded … for current Candu reactors.”

 

Although positive reactivity is not well known outside the nuclear industry, problems

connected with it prompted Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. to scrap its two Maple reactors

in May, 2008, after spending more than $500-million on them, leading to a crisis in the

supply of medical isotopes.

 

According to the document, commission staff have always known that Candu nuclear

power plants have positive reactivity, but they conceded that they miscalculated the

magnitude of the condition. For instance, they said they underestimated a number

used to measure it by 50 per cent.

The document was obtained by the anti-nuclear environmental group Greenpeace

through a federal Access to Information Act request. Positive reactivity is “the Achilles

heel of Candu,” said spokesman Shawn-Patrick Stensil, who contended it amounts to

a design flaw that puts the safety of the reactors into question.

 
But Greg Rzentkowski, the commission's director-general of the directorate of power

reactor regulation, said the reactors' shutdown systems were designed to counteract

positive reactivity, by stopping the chain reactions before they grow large enough to

cause overheating, even during a severe loss of coolant accident. He said in an

interview that he was “absolutely confident” that the design doesn't pose a risk.

 
However, he said, worries about declining safety margins are occurring because the

plants are aging, which makes them more susceptible to positive reactivity. Regulators

want high safety margins to cope with unexpected problems, such as equipment

malfunctions and errors by plant operators.

One problem identified by Mr. Rzentkowski is that the pressure tubes carrying coolant

through a reactor sag when they have been in use for a long time, wear and tear that

would enhance the reactivity problem during an accident.

Mr. Rzentkowski said the commission would consider ordering the stations to run at

less than full power if safety margins shrink to unacceptable levels, with the Pickering

and Darlington reactors in Ontario the first to be considered for such output cuts.

Greenpeace asked for records about positive reactivity compiled at the commission

from Sept. 1 last year to March 31. But Mr. Rzentkowski said he thought the undated

document, which was marked as a draft, was likely written in 2007 and was used in

discussions with nuclear utility representatives.

 
The positive reactivity problem is highly technical, and has arisen because of the

unique design of Canada's reactors. According to the document, the main factors

“that introduce this hazard” are the Candu's use of natural uranium as fuel and the

internal structure of the reactors, in which the heavy water used to cool them is

separated from the water that moderates the pace of atomic chain reactions to

safe levels.

To prevent this process from getting out of hand, stations are laced with sensors that

measure such crucial variables as water flows, temperatures and pressures. These

sensors automatically trigger emergency shutdown systems at the first whiff of

anything unusual. Reactors are supposed to shut down rapidly – within 1.2 to 1.5

seconds – to catch the overheating before temperatures surge enough to melt the

inside of the reactor, Mr. Rzentkowski said.

 
Most electricity-generating reactors in the world – about 80 per cent – have negative

reactivity, so that the amount of energy they produce would peter out rather than

increase when coolant is lost.

 
Mr. Stensil of Greenpeace said that the decision of the overwhelming majority of the

world's nuclear power plant operators to select alternative technology that doesn't

have the feature is a sign that allowing it in Canadian reactors was a major mistake.