NUCLEAR POWER and RESPONSIBILITY

NUCLEAR POWER (2)

Over the next 25 years, it’s estimated that demand for electrical power will increase by about 40%. That figure assumes that we will become increasingly conservation-minded about usage. For the foreseeable future, then, we will be dependent to some extent on the output of our nuclear plants.

If we accept that we must live with existing nuclear infrastructure, the principal question that arises is: by what means are we to live with it? This question requires careful consideration of the main bugaboo posed by our dependence on this energy source: nuclear waste. “Low level” waste will be buried safely near Kincardine in what the industry calls a “deep geological repository” (DGR).

Nuclear waste falls into more than one category: the one that concerns us most is the "high level" variety. This includes the "spent" fuel rods that have been used in the power production cycle. These are highly radioactive and may remain so for tens of thousands of years. At present, this waste is stored securely at nuclear reactor sites, either in deep cooling pools or in dry storage – encased in concrete. However most industry experts see this as a relatively short-term proposition.

So- what to do with this material in the long-term is the primary challenge of all nuclear programmes and may well determine the future of the industry.

Up to now, in North America at least, the only long term solution is to bury it as deeply and securely as possible in a DGR. The only candidate site so far, is somewhere in the granite fastness of the Canadian Shield. This idea is not very popular with those who live near the routes that will be used to ship the stuff from the plants to the permanent grave.

Another option would be to reprocess the "spent" fuel.

So far, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent worldwide on research into reprocessing. But that effort has met with less than total success. (Reprocessing of "spent" fuel is currently practiced in France and Japan, but not yet in Canada or the United States). In any event, current technology would require “spent” fuel to be transported to a central facility with the risks that would entail.

Ideally of course, the waste would be reprocessed at each individual reactor and recycled so that it could be re-used on-site. That would increase the efficiency of individual plants and solve- at least temporarily- the storage problem.

But- it would also require that government and industry invest heavily in advanced research in order to perfect and simplify the science.

The Harper government has taken the easier way out. It has quietly, almost casually, endorsed the deep burial concept, in order to relieve reactor sites of the storage burden. Critics charge, however, that such a nuclear cemetery would be merely an effort to avoid providing a real solution to the problem. They argue that it is both too expensive and too dangerous. The estimated cost in today’s dollars would be somewhere between 35 billion and 50 billion dollars over a period of years, not counting the cost of transportation. And- it would be entirely “non-productive”. (Incidentally, the cost of storage for used fuel is reflected in the electricity rates we pay). It’s not at all clear that we can afford the Harper plan and moreover, there is no firm guarantee of its safety.

Until a viable method of reprocessing and re-using “spent” nuclear fuel is found, critics say we probably ought to place a moratorium on the construction of any new nuclear plants, apart from those already approved. They add that more effort needs to be directed toward research into alternative energy sources.

In addition, the 35-50 billion dollars we plan to spend on burial- should be re-directed toward an intensive education and research programme into the best and safest method of dealing with this material.